Julie Ellison

Julie’s career started as a young entrepreneur establishing and running a successful fashion business for 14 years, utilising reclaimed materials and a women’s home-based workforce. After completing her MBA, Julie built a strong reputation in Bristol’s third sector where as an accredited social enterprise business advisor she has supported the development of over 200 Social Enterprises. She leads business development initiatives in Bristol for Social Enterprise Works, including feasibility analysis, business plans, performance improvement and evaluation. Julie brings a passionate belief in our ability to make things better if we work together and she takes great pleasure working with communities to develop intelligent solutions that meet identified social and environmental needs.

Dr Rosy Daniel, M.D. BSc, MBBCh

Rosy has spent 28 years studying, developing and practising what has come to be known as Integrative Medicine, and is now one of Britain’s leading Integrative Medicine Consultants. She was Medical Director of the Bristol Cancer Help Centre (1989-1999) and has authored six books on cancer and its prevention, teaching and broadcasting nationally and internationally. In 2003 Rosy set up a health mentoring school called Health Creation to provide university accredited trainings in health coaching and mentoring, and in 2007 she set up the Integrative Health Trust charity to provide postgraduate education for medical professionals wishing to lead the development of sustainable healthcare models. Rosy is a passionate advocate for health and the environment through the promotion of wholehearted living based upon emotional, physical, spiritual and ecological balance and integrity. She holds the bridge between environmental health and physical well being.

Alexandra Stubbings MSc BA Hons

Alexandra is currently the head of Ashridge Consulting’s Sustainability Practice, and specialises in strategic change and engagement programmes to help build sustainable and socially responsible organisational cultures. Recent assignments include climate change education programmes for UK MPs and parliamentary candidates, culture/behaviour change programmes for a leading ICT business (UK and global), and stakeholder engagement for sustainable agriculture (UK and Mexico). She is an active faculty member on a number of Ashridge’s Masters programmes, and a Fellow of the Ashridge Centre for Business & Sustainability where she leads and contributes to research on responsible leadership, strategy and change. Alexandra brings an ongoing exploration of the wild feminine principle, feminine archetypes and the role of feminine leadership in the advancement of sustainability.

Wendy Stephenson

Wendy brings 15 years of experience working in the field of energy and climate change both at a technical and strategic level, including applied experience of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, UK Climate Change Agreements (another trading mechanism), and extensive knowledge of the carbon trading sector both regulated (CDM/JI) and non-regulated markets. She has extensive experience of managing large teams, both project- and employee- based, and extensive stakeholder engagement in a UK and international context. She is CEO of The Converging World Group including two renewable energy development companies, one in the UK and the other in India, Director of Climate Action West - a CIC based in West Somerset, Director of programmes for the Pontin Charitable Trust, special advisor to the Executive LAG for Western Somerset responsible for processing project applications that deliver a low carbon economy, and author of the bid that provided them with £2.25m funding (2008).

Fiona Shaw

Fiona lives in Gloucestershire with her 2 children, where she practices as an independent midwife. Following her initiation as a medicine woman in 1997, she has used her understanding of indigenous teachings, and her skills as a nurse, therapist, midwife and mother to develop her work. She is deeply moved by the natural world and supports people to re connect to the spirit of nature through ceremony, ritual and rites of passage. She works individually enabling people to fully embody their spirit, by supporting them to journey to, and bring healing to the deepest places of disconnection. She is a midwife of the soul.

Professor Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir

Professor Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir is the Dean of Engineering and Natural Sciences at the University of Iceland. She was a Professor of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Bristol, UK until 2008. Educated in geochemistry at the University of Iceland, Reykjavík (BSc) and at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (MS, PhD) she changed her focus a decade ago from Earth Sciences to cross-disciplinary Sustainability Science. From 2005-2008 she engaged with the citizens of Bristol in a series of Sustainability Café discussions to envision a sustainable city, and the outcomes of these conversations underpin many of the green actions in the city to this day. Vala was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Framework 7 Environment Programme from 2006-2008, is a member of grant research panels for the EC (Brussels), NERC (UK), NSF (USA) and ESA (Netherlands) a past Director of the Geochemical Society, a member of the Board of the European Association for Geochemistry and the Geological Society of Great Britain and is a current Guest Editor of Solutions. She was the chair of the Schumacher Society and is a Scientific Adviser to Health Empowerment Through Nutrition and a Trustee of the Ecological Sequestration Trust. Her current research pertains to sustainability in its widest context including nature protection, economics, society and wellbeing.

Clare Dakin
Founder

Clare is a passionate environmentalist, social entrepreneur and inspirational speaker. She brings 18 years of international experience within the personal growth sector, facilitating groups, coaching business leaders and creating change processes that lead to lasting shifts in behaviour. She is a Be The Change Symposium facilitator and freelance writer who worked for three years as the UK co-ordinator for a massive agro-forestry initiative in southern India called Project GreenHands (PGH) before initiating Tree Sisters. Through her work with PGH she has distilled the social mobilisation strategy deployed with great success in India, and now turns it towards the mobilisation of women within Tree Sisters. Clare has a long time commitment to the creation of balance, an ongoing interest in the Sacred Masculine and Feminine principles and a love of psychology, ecology and spirituality. She is building a new change tool called the TreeSister Map of 5 choices that offers a personal and collective pathway to balance through ‘whole self’ development and believes in our ability to choose and create a human culture that respects and protects life.

Bernadette Ryder

Bernadette is a passionate environmentalist, trainer, dancer and change-maker. She has worked in training, group facilitation and community development for 25 years. With a background in the sciences, her past professional experience includes six years living and working with nomadic communities in Africa, plus several years in UK inner-city areas supporting grassroots initiatives such as credit unions, community businesses, local youth facilities and the establishment of a local development trust. For the last 12 years she has focused on teaching 5Rhythms dance and is currently a trainer for several ecological organisation: the Transition Network, Be The Change and the Pachamama Alliance.

Rebecca Sullivan

Bex is a staunch foot soldier for the green revolution. Her campaign to make the world a better place continues daily. She comes with over 12 years working in communications for the food, agriculture and environmental sectors with many charities and NGOs such as SOS Children’s Villages, the United Nations, Engineers Without Borders and Mangroves for the Future. She is finishing an MSc in Climate Change and Rural Development and has an Environmental Leadership Diploma from UC Berkeley California. She launched the Real Food Festival in the UK, and followed up by working on Slow Food Nation in the USA and writing regularly for Green Living and Flavour magazines. As well as being a founding Tree Sister, Rebecca works in the ‘impact investment’ world for Willow Tree Impact Investors as a Director and Impact Investor extraordinaire.

Bryony Wells

Bryony has 14 years of professional experience in event, project and production co-ordina- tion under her belt, including Disney Spectacular in Dubai, Lord of the Dance World Tour, the 1999 Rugby World Cup opening ceremony, the Queenʼs Golden Jubilee celebrations, the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony, Cinema Expo 2003, 2004 & 2005 and the Chronicles of Narnia world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall, London. In 2006 she joined Cirque du Soleil for a year as Production Office Co-ordinator on the European tour of Alegría. In early 2007 she returned to freelance event production, which has included the Cannes Film Festival for DreamWorks SKG, the Venice Film Festival, and the opening of Sir Bani Yas Island resort in the UAE. She is now pitching her skills towards environmental restoration and awareness-raising.