Alasdair Douglas – Chair
Previously Senior Partner, now Consultant at City of London-based law firm Travers Smith, Alasdair Douglas is also Fellow of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies and Chair of the City of London Law Society.
Alasdair's main interests, in addition to his family, revolve around outdoor activities, including managing the family hill and moorland estate in the highlands of Scotland. A principal part of the land management relates to a number of woodland areas, adding up to 1000 acres of newly planted native species and natural regeneration woodland and the provision of public access to those woodlands. He is actively involved in a long-term regeneration plan for the Carron river system, part of which flows through the estate.
Marion Bowman – Vice-Chair
Marion Bowman is a journalist and commissioning editor with the global current affairs website openDemocracy. During a long career in the media, Marion has held senior positions at the Independent Television Commission, the BBC and ITV, and was for 10 years a presenter and producer of current affairs and documentary programmes at Channel 4. Marion has been chief executive of two charities, One World Media, and the Landscape Institute, the professional body for landscape architects.
She is currently voluntary project director for conservation of a designed landscape in Argyll, Scotland and previous voluntary roles include Board member and Chair, Sheffield International Documentary Festival, Founding Chair, Raw Material Music and Media youth charity and Chair, National Union of Journalists Equality Working Party. Her love of trees and landscapes is rooted in her Cumbrian background. She still dreams of tree climbing and has an ambition to plant an arboretum.
Lord (Richard) Best OBE
Lord Best is an independent working cross-bench peer who is active in a number of organisations connected with the built and social environment and communities. President of the Local Government Association and Chairman of Hanover Housing Group, he is also Treasurer for the Royal Society of Arts. He is Vice President of the Town and Country Planning Association, and, since 2009, has been Chair of the Council of The Property Ombudsman. He is Patron of HACT and Chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care. He was a Commissioner with the Rural Development Commission for nine years and was chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for eighteen years. He has planted some very fine trees.
Matthew Greenburgh
Matthew Greenburgh has had a 28 year career in investment banking working on a wide variety of mergers and acquisitions and capital raising transactions, including being lead adviser on numerous landmark deals. The transactions he has been responsible for total some $400bn and he has won various awards within the industry. He has held a number of senior roles including Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch and head of their global financial institutions business. He retired from the City in April 2010. His interest in trees started as a child helping his father plant many trees, and he now is an avid tree planter at his house in Suffolk as well as being the Tree Warden for his parish.
Albert Scardino
Albert Scardino is an independent journalist and media investor with an active involvement in hedge laying, tree pruning and landscape preservation. His newspaper work earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. In the US, he served as press secretary to the Mayor of the City of New York and as an adviser to the Chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission. In the UK, he was an executive editor of The Guardian and a frequent contributor to Sky News, the BBC and the Independent. He chairs Auctionair Limited, an on-line auction service for the newspaper and airline industries and for charities. He is also a director of Immunovaccine Inc., a Canadian firm developing vaccine technology platforms for human and animal health. His charitable activities include the Media Standards Trust and numerous educational institutions in the UK and abroad.
David Vickers - Treasurer
David Vickers is an Institutional fund manager within the balanced and targeted return team at Sarasin & Partners LLP, one of the biggest charity fund mangers in London. He co-manages Sarasin’s family of multi-asset funds including GlobalSar and The Alpha Common investment Fund, Sarasin’s flagship Charity endowment fund which has over 2000 charities invested within it. He holds a BA Hons Economics and Law, is a Member of the Securities institute and a CFA Charter holder.
Pauline Buchanan Black - Company Secretary
Pauline Buchanan Black is the Director General and has led the organisation since 2001. Her career, from senior roles at non-governmental and charitable organisations in the poverty and housing lobby through to the environmental sector, has been motivated by the heart rather than the head. Her leadership and organisational skills have seen The Tree Council through a period of revision, change and increasing impact and in 2010, she became the Chair of the Coalition’s Big Tree Plant Campaign Partnership Board. She has also held a wide range of voluntary positions in education, arts, co-operative, sports and advice organisations, planted a tree in ’73 and will talk about trees with anyone who shows the slightest interest.
