Meet your guide…

I was raised in rural Australia, on the hardscrabble outskirts of Melbourne. From a young age, I learned to love nature and formed a deep, personal connection with forests, deciding early to dedicate my life to forest conservation. I studied forestry at the Australian National University in Canberra, before working as a forester in Tasmania, Vietnam and now, in more than 60 countries.

I was awarded a scholarship to study a Masters degree in Forest Policy at the University of Oxford before starting my own non-profit, the Tropical Forest Trust (TFT), in March 1999. As TFT expanded beyond the tropics, it became The Forest Trust, pioneering responsible sourcing and establishing forest conservation and social livelihood programs that protected millions of hectares of forest and the human rights of millions. I mediated disputes between some of the world’s largest companies and NGOs that led to transformations across entire industries. I left TFT in August 2019 having transitioned in a new leadership and after learning a lot about burnout and wellbeing. I setup a different way limited to share the lessons I'd learned from years at the frontier of major, complex change journeys and to support others in their work to bring change. In 2021, I founded The Pond Foundation to change the way the world acts on climate change.

I believe that we can each live full lives and contribute to making the world a better place if we are able to deeply connect to who we are and live from that place. I believe that time spent in Nature helps us develop that relationship with ourselves. In 2020, I discovered the wonder of Forest Therapy and became a certified Forest Therapy Guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy.