Board of Trustees
Chair
Professor Khalid Aziz LVO DL FRSA
Khalid joined Gilbert White's as Chairman of Trustees in early 2020 having chaired several charities ranging from The Prince’s Trust (for young people) to Enham Trust (adults with disabilities) to Naomi House and Jack’s Place Children’s hospices. His day job is Chairing Aziz Corporate which delivers communications and business coaching across the world.
Says Khalid, “I am so pleased to be leading this remarkable charity. There is so much potential. Gilbert’s philosophy is as relevant today as it ever was and the remarkable achievements of Frank and Lawrence Oates remain an inspiration to us all.”
Vice-Chair
Mark Patterson
Mark Patterson is a senior boardroom advisor with a banking and legal background and holds a number of non-executive directorships and trustee roles. He started his career as a solicitor with Slaughter and May before moving into banking with Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank. Mark graduated from Oxford University. He is a Trustee of Safe Child Thailand where he chairs the finance committee and is a former Trustee of Article 25, the humanitarian architecture charity.
Chris Carter CMLI DipLA
Chris Carter is a landscape architect, garden designer and plantsman, a lifelong disciple of Gilbert White and since 2013 a trustee of Gilbert White’s House and Garden. His work has covered a very wide range of landscape design, mostly in a rural context, from the largest scale such as power stations and reservoirs to complex historic landscapes and intimate garden spaces; from masterplan strategies to detailed design and construction proposals. Chris sees our fundamental purpose to be to inspire and encourage our visitors of all ages to ‘watch narrowly’ their immediate surroundings and understand the interdependency of all parts of our environment.
Paul Cluett
After a Shell career of over 40 years in the UK, Middle East and Russia mainly in the Aviation business Paul retired 5 years ago. He is currently District Chairman of Bramshill Scouts in N.E. Hampshire, Treasurer of Hook Local History Group and an active member of his local Odiham and Hook Rotary Club. His interests are history, walking, cricket, travel and theatre. He has been a Trustee of the unique Gilbert White's House & Gardens for 3 years and is keen to help it develop, sustainably grow and continue to be a centre of education.
Yinnon Ezra MBE MA FRSA
After working in local Government and the voluntary sector for 37 years, 23 of which have been at Chief Officer Level in three local authorities, Yinnon Ezra MBE MA FRSA has completed over a year as National Advisor on Public Libraries with the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), in February 2014 he finished a six-year term as a National Trustee for the Heritage Memorial Fund/Heritage Lottery Fund. He is Chair of the Test Valley Arts Foundation and has just stepped down after ten years as a Trustee & Vice-Chair of the Hampshire Cultural Trust. He has also served as a member of the Theatre Royal Winchester Board and was the South East Regional Ambassador for the Princes Trust. Through the Chief Officer posts, he has held in the London Borough of Ealing, Kent County Council and as Director of Culture, Communities and Rural Affairs for Hampshire County Council he has always been at the forefront of local government advocating the transformational power of Culture in re-generating communities. He was a Member of the Board of the Museums Libraries and Archives Council, the South East Regional Board of the Arts Council and the South East Cultural Consortium, he is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts & Business.
Philip Geddes
Philip Geddes has been a Trustee of Gilbert White's House & Gardens since 2010. A writer, broadcaster and journalist, his particular interest has been in the marketing and promotion of the Museum and its messages. He has also been closely involved in writing and producing new exhibitions and displays at the Museum, in particular the new displays on Captain Oates (2012) and Frank Oates (2017). He has also been involved in organising preparations to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the birth of Rev Gilbert White in 2020.
Dominic Jones
Dominic is currently the Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust and prior to that was its Chief Operating Officer. He is also a Director of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and prior to that has worked at various roles for Merlin Entertainments including Divisional Director Thorpe Park and Regional General Manager for Merlin Midway across Europe. He worked for Aspro as a Park Director of Oakwood Theme Park and also spent a decade in various role at Virgin Atlantic including Vice President EMEA and Regional Vice President APAC and began his career at Disney working at Walt Disney World Florida. He is Chair of Christchurch Round Table and Vice Chair of the Governors of the Priory School Christchurch he enjoys nothing more than bringing his young family to Selbourne and to Gilbert Whites and challenges them to “Be More Gilbert” whenever they can.
Sian MacLeod
Sian studied at the Royal Academy of Music before perusing a diplomatic service career that took her to Russia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, The Czech Republic, Austria and Serbia including 12 years as an ambassador. As a diplomat she has been a professional advocate on environmental protection and climate change, whilst supporting conservation groups both home and aboard.
Growing up in Hampshire, Sian was introduced to The Wakes and The Natural History of Selborne as a young child. Since then she has spent many hours exploring the landscapes of central Eastern and Northern Europe by foot, bike and cross country ski. In Autumn 2023 Sian hung up her diplomatic hat to denote more time to nature conservation.
As well as helping out in our garden, Sian can be found monitoring streams for Arun and Rother Rivers Trust, and volunteering for community environmental groups.
Rupert Nabarro
Rupert is an economist known extensively for his work in real estate, investment analysis, urban renewal and economic development. In 1985 he founded the Investment Property Databank (IPD), which is the major provider of property information, indexes, and benchmarks round the world. Prior to this he worked in the areas of urban renewal and local economic development. A keen gardener and supporter of the arts, commissioning early works from Andy Goldsworthy and others, he was founding Chair of Common Ground and a Trustee of Winchester Poetry Festival. Rupert was a long-standing trustee of Common Ground and has organised arts exhibitions and festivals in his local area.
Professor Paul Rodhouse BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, DSc, FLS, FMBA
Paul Rodhouse lived in Hampshire as a youngster and there he developed his interests in natural history and art. After completing a PhD in biological oceanography, he held scientific positions in Ireland and New York, and then joined the British Antarctic Survey as a research scientist and later head of biological sciences and board member. He is now a BAS emeritus fellow and a member of the South Georgia Association executive committee. He is president of the Cambridge Drawing Society and he paints the Antarctic and other marine subjects in his Cambridge studio. As a Trustee at Gilbert White’s House and Gardens he has worked to build the Oates Collection and associated interpretation material. He is currently planning a garden display of ‘living fossil’ plants, descendants of Antarctic Cretaceous flora, from a time when the Antarctic was much warmer than it is today.
Liz Wallace
Liz Wallace has a particular interest in talent and leadership development, ensuring people have the opportunity to achieve their potential across both the commercial and charity sectors. She was Director of Talent & Leadership for the BT Group and Head of Talent for Vodafone’s emerging markets where she worked in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to identify and develop the future leaders of the business.
She has extensive experience as a Trustee of charity boards which she has developed over the last 14 years. She is currently Deputy Chair of Enham Trust, a disability charity that provides services to over 6,500 disabled people each year. She was previously Vice Chair of the Board of Naomi House and Jacks Place, a hospice for children and young adults and Chair of their Remuneration Committee and a Trustee at Winchester Science Centre, as well as Chair of the Remuneration Committee, in both cases completing the maximum term allowed under Charity Commission rules. In addition, she is Chair of Newbury Choral Society which she has led for the last 10 years. Apart from singing she loves spending time in her garden and is a keen walker.