Shaylesh Patel, ACA
Following his graduation in Economics & Accounting at Bristol University 1988-1991, Shaylesh joined Ernst & Young (ACA 1994).
During his ten years there he worked for a variety of clients and gained extensive experience in people and change management activities; taxation and insolvency; due diligence; audit and accounting.
In July 1999, Shaylesh became the first Ernst & Young employee to be seconded to the Government’s local inward investment agency – London First Centre (now called Think London) – as Business Development Manager. Here he worked closely with motivated, entrepreneurial individuals across operations, finance, business development and senior management. He followed this with a similar role back at Ernst & Young.
In December 2001 Shaylesh became the Chief Financial Officer for Flight Centre (UK) Limited, where he was instrumental in helping the company grow its commission base from £11m to £22m. The position, which also involved becoming Company Secretary for all UK operations, was new to Flight Centre in the UK and involved strategic, commercial and operational development and management involvement. The Flight Centre (UK) Limited doubled in size during his 3 years at the company.
Between July 2004 and October 2007, Shaylesh continued to climb the business ladder, taking commercial roles at COLT UK, London; You Me TV Plc, London; and ultimately Commercial Development at TESCO plc.
Since October 2007, Shaylesh and his wife, Preeti, have dedicated their time to creating Healthy Planet. They spend much of their time talking to the trustees, other parents and those interested in Healthy Planet's new approach, to make sure that Healthy Planet constantly looks for the best ways to educate, provide and reward healthy choices. They have two children Akaash and Tulsi who now constantly ask their parents about the points they can earn from Healthy Planet for walking and scootering to school!
Dr Mark Mulligan, PhD
Mark Mulligan completed his undergraduate degree in Geography at Bristol University in 1991. After a brief period in the rainforests of Brunei with the then RGS (Royal Geographical Society) Brunei Rainforest Expedition, he moved to King’s College London for his PhD on “Modelling Hydrology and Vegetation Change in a Degraded Semi-arid Area”, supervised by Professor John Thornes.
Mark took up the post of lecturer in Geography at King’s in September 1994 at the age of 24 and, ever since, has spent his time researching and teaching undergraduate and master’s level courses on global environmental change, environmental monitoring, modelling and management, and tropical forests in a changing environment.
In 2003, Mark was appointed Reader in Geography and in 2004 was awarded the Royal Geographical Society – Institute of British Geographers Gill Memorial Award for ‘innovative monitoring and modelling’ of environmental systems.
Mark’s research focuses on human impact on tropical and Mediterranean ecosystems and on developing tools and strategies for more sustainable management of these systems in the face of population growth and climate change. He has carried out research and conservation projects throughout the tropics for more than 15 years, particularly in Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Brazil, the Philippines and Brunei.
Mark works with a large body of (mainly overseas) PhD students having supervised 17 successful PhD completions since he completed his own PhD and has a further 8 PhD projects ongoing, most of which are tackling some of the more complex issues surrounding where and how to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem function in tropical ecosystems.
He is founding editor of the open-access e-journal ‘Advances in Environmental Monitoring and Modelling.’ He also develops and maintains a series of very large environmental databases which are freely accessible from the King’s College website.
Mark is married to Sophia and has two children, Olive and Charlie. As well as co-founder and chair of trustees for Healthy Planet Foundation, Mark is also trustee of Proaves (UK), a bird conservation charity.
