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Gov­er­nance

Meet the peo­ple on LEAF’s Board of Trustees and learn more about how LEAF is governed.

HRH The Countess of Wessex, LEAF Honorary President

Since her appointment as LEAF Honorary president in October 2016, The Countess of Wessex has shown a passionate commitment to the work LEAF does in developing and promoting more sustainable farming.

Board of Trustees

The present LEAF Board of Trustees consists of a Chair and 10 members; the LEAF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) also attends the meetings. The Board of Trustees oversees all matters relating to LEAF’s charitable status including finance, personnel and legal issues. Their head office is based at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, England, UK, and provides all administrative support.

The LEAF Board of Trustees is also supported by the LEAF Policy and Strategic Development Committiee, the LEAF Advisory Board and the LEAF Marque Board.

Philip Wynn

Philip Wynn

LEAF Chair­man
Philip Wynn

Philip Wynn

Philip has spent 40 years man­ag­ing and advis­ing busi­ness­es in near­ly every sec­tor of the agri­cul­ture indus­try, hav­ing direct respon­si­bil­i­ty for the man­age­ment of 7,000 acres of pri­mar­i­ly arable farm­ing in Lin­colnshire as well as Non-Exec­u­tive Direc­tor­ships across the food and farm­ing sec­tor. He has had a long con­nec­tion with LEAF, hav­ing been Man­ag­er of the Nevile Estate in Lin­colnshire, one of LEAF’s first Demon­stra­tion Farms.

Tom Green

Tom Green

LEAF Mar­que Chair­man — Direc­tor at Spear­head International
Tom Green

Tom Green

Tom joined the LEAF board and LEAF Mar­que board on 29 Jan­u­ary 2018. Hav­ing spent his entire career work­ing in the agri­cul­tur­al indus­try, Tom has increas­ing­ly focused on agri-tech oppor­tu­ni­ties, apply­ing his expe­ri­ence in both crops and live­stock to accel­er­ate devel­op­ment and deploy­ment of new tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions, both in the UK and inter­na­tion­al­ly. For­mer­ly CEO of Spear­head Inter­na­tion­al and Greens of Soham, Tom was pre­vi­ous­ly gen­er­al man­ag­er of G’s Mar­ket­ing. He joined the Board of Farmwealth in 1999 and Spear­head Inter­na­tion­al (for­mer­ly Greens of Soham) in 1993. Tom was CEO between 2002 and 2016.

Ian Ashbridge

Ian Ash­bridge

LEAF Vice Chair­man — Part­ner at Bidwells
Ian Ashbridge

Ian Ash­bridge

Ian’s role at Bid­wells brings togeth­er prac­ti­cal agri­cul­tur­al man­age­ment and con­sul­tan­cy. He has direct respon­si­bil­i­ty for 1000 hectares of arable and grass­land in cen­tral Eng­land and over­sees a fur­ther 600 hectares under man­age­ment agree­ments. Ian is qual­i­fied in agron­o­my and trained in agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness man­age­ment at the Roy­al Agri­cul­tur­al Col­lege. Ian has advised a range of rur­al busi­ness­es on sin­gle farm pay­ment, agri-envi­ron­men­tal schemes and crop man­age­ment issues.

Cedric Porter

Cedric Porter

LEAF Vice Chair­man — Direc­tor at Sup­ply Intelligence
Cedric Porter

Cedric Porter

Cedric is an inde­pen­dent agri­cul­tur­al sup­ply chain con­sul­tant. He pro­vides agri­cul­tur­al infor­ma­tion and sup­port to a range of clients includ­ing Marks & Spencer, Massey Fer­gu­son and the RSPB. He also pro­duces a week­ly mar­ket brief­ing for the inter­na­tion­al pota­to indus­try. He has edit­ed a num­ber of agri­cul­tur­al mag­a­zines in the UK and the Nether­lands. In 2012 he was the Chair­man of the Oxford Farm­ing Con­fer­ence and is also a gov­er­nor of his local pri­ma­ry school.

Angus Davison

Angus Davi­son

Chair­man, Hay­grove Ltd
Angus Davison

Angus Davi­son

Angus Davi­son estab­lished Hay­grove Farm in 1988 as part of a uni­ver­si­ty project look­ing at new straw­ber­ry grow­ing sys­tems. They are con­ven­tion­al as well as organ­ic grow­ers with a total of 53 hectares in berry production.

Sara Eppel

Sara Eppel

Direc­tor Eppel Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Ltd
Sara Eppel

Sara Eppel

Sara was Head of Farm­ing Strat­e­gy Inno­va­tion and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at Defra until 2016, where she lead the devel­op­ment of the Government’s 25 Year Food and Farm­ing Plan, over­saw deliv­ery of the Agri Tech Strat­e­gy, research and inno­va­tion, and was respon­si­ble for pol­i­cy on cli­mate change and agri­cul­ture. Sara was pre­vi­ous­ly head of Rur­al Pol­i­cy in Defra and head of Sus­tain­able Con­sump­tion and Pro­duc­tion. Sara now co-directs Eppel Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Ltd pro­vid­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­sul­tan­cy to major projects such as HS2, and to inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions such as the World Bank. Before join­ing Defra, Sara was Direc­tor of Pol­i­cy for the UK Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Com­mis­sion, and at the Ener­gy Sav­ing Trust. She worked for the Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Agency and OECD, as well as an ear­li­er career in the civ­il ser­vice at the Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment and No10.

Keith Norman

Kei­th Norman

Inde­pen­dent Con­sul­tant and For­mer Tech­ni­cal Direc­tor, Velcourt
Keith Norman

Kei­th Norman

Kei­th grad­u­at­ed from New­cas­tle Uni­ver­si­ty and then fol­lowed a career in prac­ti­cal farm man­age­ment for 6 years. He then changed to a tech­ni­cal­ly based role as Velcourt’s Tech­ni­cal Direc­tor, sup­port­ing Velcourt’s team of 45 farm man­agers in crop pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy and man­ag­ing Velcourt’s in-house research and devel­op­ment activ­i­ty for 30 years. Kei­th is now a free lance, inde­pen­dent con­sul­tant. Kei­th has worked on var­i­ous over­seas farm­ing activ­i­ties in Spain, France, Ger­many, Zam­bia, Rus­sia and the Ukraine. Kei­th has led and par­tic­i­pat­ed in many col­lab­o­ra­tive research projects, and has worked with all the major Agro­chem­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers, pro­vid­ing inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tion of new and exist­ing active ingre­di­ents. Kei­th is active­ly involved with many world-lead­ing research insti­tu­tions; he is a trustee of the John Innes Foun­da­tion, is a JIC Coun­cil mem­ber, a mem­ber of the AHDB Wheat RL com­mit­tee and has served on the Research and Knowl­edge Trans­fer Com­mit­tee for six years. Kei­th was award­ed the Farm Advi­sor of the Year in the Farm­ers Week­ly Awards in 2013

Emma Penny

Emma Pen­ny

Group Head of Con­tent at AgriB­rief­ing Ltd
Emma Penny

Emma Pen­ny

Group Head of Con­tent at AgriB­rief­ing Ltd

Ian Pigott

Ian Pig­ott

Man­ag­ing Part­ner, Thrales End
Ian Pigott

Ian Pig­ott

Ian Pig­ott has been award­ed the Farm­ers Week­ly, Farm­ing Cham­pi­on of the Year award, he has received the cov­et­ed Coun­try­side Alliance Rur­al Hero award for found­ing Farm Sun­day and the Bul­lock Award for his ongo­ing com­mit­ment to recon­nect­ing chil­dren with food and farming.

Jane Rickson

Jane Rick­son

Chair in Soil Ero­sion & Con­ser­va­tion, Cran­field Soil & Agri­Food Institute
Jane Rickson

Jane Rick­son

Chair in Soil Ero­sion & Con­ser­va­tion, Cran­field Soil & Agri­Food Institute

Mike Young

Mike Young

Chair­man, Far­ma­cy PLC
Mike Young

Mike Young

Chair­man, Far­ma­cy PLC

LEAF Mar­que Board

The LEAF Mar­que Board is the statu­to­ry board for LEAF Mar­que Ltd a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of LEAF the ​“char­i­ty”. The LEAF Mar­que Board works in close co-oper­a­tion with the LEAF Board of Trustees, the LEAF Mar­que TAC (Tech­ni­cal Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee) and all oth­er stake­hold­er groups with­in LEAF. It has its own Terms of Ref­er­ence which are bind­ing for the activ­i­ties of the LEAF Mar­que Board.

Find Out More

LEAF Mar­que Tech­ni­cal Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (TAC)

The present LEAF Mar­que Tech­ni­cal Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee is made up of dif­fer­ent inter­gov­ern­men­tal, non­govern­men­tal, aca­d­e­m­ic, pro­duc­er, retail­er and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion organ­i­sa­tions. They meet on a quar­ter­ly basis and work in con­junc­tion with the LEAF Tech­ni­cal team. The TAC will, from time to time under the LEAF Mar­que TAC Terms of Ref­er­ence, be able to con­sult oth­er experts to com­ment on cer­tain tech­ni­cal devel­op­ments of the LEAF Mar­que Standard.

View the LEAF Mar­que TAC

Expert/​Working Groups

Through its out­reach and from past con­sul­ta­tions, LEAF has had a pos­i­tive response from a range of dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers. This has pro­vid­ed LEAF with a fur­ther group to liaise with for future con­sul­ta­tions. The present group com­pris­es stake­hold­ers rep­re­sent­ing 16 coun­tries and 4 continents.

Con­tact us

LEAF Pol­i­cy and Strate­gic Devel­op­ment Committee

Chaired by Tom Heap this com­mit­tee pro­vide their time and exper­tise in guid­ing LEAF pol­i­cy and strate­gic development.

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LEAF Advi­so­ry Board

LEAF Advi­so­ry Board is chaired by LEAF Chair­man Stephen Fell, pro­vid­ing their exper­tise to help advise LEAF.

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LEAF Pub­lic Sys­tem Reports and Stake­hold­er Mapping

LEAF’s Pub­lic Sys­tem Reports on its Stan­dard Set­ting, Assur­ance and Impacts are list­ed below. They give a sum­ma­ry of how LEAF has estab­lished its work in these areas and how it intends to devel­op this in the future. Com­ments are wel­come from any inter­est­ed par­ties — please let us know using the feed back form below or our Com­plaints and Enquiries form. The LEAF Mar­que Stake­hold­er Map­ping doc­u­ment describes this stake­hold­er engage­ment over the last few years.Through map­ping and by pro­vid­ing mean­ing­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­tribute, a bal­ance of sec­tors includ­ing those indi­rect­ly affect­ed by the Stan­dard, inter­est­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives will be pro­mot­ed by LEAF, its stake­hold­ers and producers.

Pro­vide LEAF Mar­que feedback