Annual General Meeting 2024

GORDON SCORER's early years were spent surrounded by the coal mines and farmlands of County Durham. He has had an interest in nature and industrial heritage ever since. 

The majority of his professional career was with IBM where he held numerous executive/leadership positions as a Director and Vice President running global businesses with annual revenues of circa $4 billion. He transitioned into the charitable sector and in 2015 was appointed as CEO of London Wildlife Trust. 

His focus has always been on general management and organisational growth specialising in start-ups, turnaround assignments and strategic partner management.

He left London Wildlife Trust at the end of 2023 having focussed his time on returning the organisation to sound financial health and, refreshing the brand so its relevance within an urban context was better understood. Amongst other things visitor numbers increased from 300k per year to over a million and the Trust developed a mission based consultancy practice advising on embedding nature into the heart of London's major development projects. Memberships doubled. And a key element of the journey was building an organisation that truly reflected the diversity of London.

RORY LAY is a partner in the family farming business at Loppington. They are a mixed farm consisting of arable, beef and sheep. Rory practices regenerative style agriculture on the farm. The farm has been active with environmental schemes for well over 20 years now and have plenty of examples where nature is thriving within the farmed environment. Rory has just finished being a Monitor farmer for the AHDB, sharing knowledge from experts down onto the ground. Rory grew up on the family farm and has been lucky to travel the world, working on various farms, his favourite being NZ South Island. He achieved a degree in Agriculture from Seale Hayne, Devon. He is lucky to have an amazing wife and 3 rapidly growing kids. Two boys in early teens, and an energetic pre-school girl.