About
Board of Trustees
Dame Amelia Chilcott Fawcett DBE, CVO
Chair
Dame Amelia is Lead Director of State Street Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts. She was a Governor of the Wellcome Trust from 2019 – 2023, a Non-Executive Director and then Chairman of Kinnevik AB in Stockholm from 2011 – 2021 and of the Guardian Media Group plc from 2007 – 2013. She worked for Morgan Stanley for 20 years, joining in London in 1987 and becoming Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman of the European, Middle East and Africa operations in 2002. Dame Amelia started her career at the US law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, first in New York and then in Paris.
Dame Amelia is Co-Chair of the International Advisory Panel for Biodiversity Credits, Chairman of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and a Trustee of Project HOPE UK. Until recently, she was Chairman of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments, a Non-Executive member of the Board of HM Treasury, Chairman of The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation, Deputy Chairman and a Governor of the London Business School and a Commissioner of the UK-US Fulbright Commission. She also has been a member of the Court of the Bank of England and Deputy Chairman of the National Portrait Gallery.
Dame Amelia was appointed a Commander of The Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the Queen’s 2018 Birthday Honours List, an honour solely in the gift of the Queen. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2010 Queen’s Birthday Honours List and a CBE in 2002, in both cases for services to the financial services industry. She received The Prince of Wales’s Ambassador Award in 2004.
Dame Amelia, a British and American citizen, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA in 1956. She has a degree in History from Wellesley (1978) and a law degree from the University of Virginia (1983). She was admitted to the New York Bar in 1984.
Dame Amelia is a keen fly fisherman, hiker, sailor and lavender farmer in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons in Wales.
Federico Marchetti
Federico Marchetti is a Trustee of The King’s Foundation.
Federico is a tech entrepreneur and a sustainable fashion pioneer: he founded YOOX – the world’s first lifestyle e-commerce destination – in 2000 and in 2015, he led the merger of YOOX and Net-a-Porter to create the world leader in online luxury fashion, which was acquired by Richemont in 2018.
Federico has used his entrepreneurial experience to advance the sustainable and socially responsible practices within the wider fashion industry. In 2017 Federico was recognized by the President of the Italian Republic who knighted him as a Cavaliere. In 2019 Federico was honoured with the amfAR Award of Courage.
He is also a Board Member of Giorgio Armani. In addition to his role at The King’s Foundation, Federico is Chair of His Majesty’s Sustainable Markets Initiative Task Force on Fashion and a Board Member of Highgrove Gardens.
Vijay Rangarajan
Vijay Rangarajan is currently Chief Executive Officer of the UK Electoral Commission. He was previously a Director General at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office from 2020 to 2024, leading work on climate and nature for COP26, COP27 and COP28. Vijay’s academic background is scientific: a natural sciences degree, Masters in maths, and astrophysics PhD at Selwyn College, Cambridge.
His previous DG roles covered the Americas and Overseas Territories, Education and equalities, and later the Indo-Pacific, Middle East and North Africa. Vijay was British Ambassador to Brazil from May 2017 to August 2020. Prior to that, he was Europe Director, responsible for work on the UK EU referendum, associated negotiations, and wider EU policy such as on energy, social security and foreign policy.
Before that, he worked in the Ministry of Justice and Cabinet Office on political and constitutional reform of the UK: running elections, Parliament and the development of devolution in the UK. This involved establishing the UK Supreme Court and Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, and the reform of electoral registration. He then set up the FCO’s Multilateral Policy Directorate, responsible for the UN, Council of Europe, Commonwealth, OSCE, and work on international human rights and conflict issues. He negotiated major changes to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Earlier, he worked in the UK Representation in Brussels on trade policy and political affairs, later leading the Justice and Home Affairs section, covering immigration, asylum, data sharing, counter-terrorism, civil and criminal law. Vijay was Deputy Ambassador at the British Embassy in Mexico from 2003 to 2006.
Vijay enjoys singing and cycling and is a keen – if unstable – windsurfer.
Professor Nathalie Seddon
Nathalie Seddon is Professor of Biodiversity and Founding Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford. She is also Director of the Agile Initiative, co-lead of the Biodiversity and Society Programme and Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, and is a Senior Research Fellow at Wadham College.
In 2021, she co-founded the Oxford University Social Venture, Nature-based Insights of which she is non-executive Director.
Nathalie trained as an evolutionary ecologist at Cambridge University and has over 25 years of research experience in a range of ecosystems across the globe. As a University Research Fellow of the Royal Society, she developed broad research interests in understanding the origins and maintenance of biodiversity and its relationship with global change. Her work now focuses on determining the ecological and socioeconomic effectiveness of nature-based solutions to societal challenges, and how to increase the influence of robust biodiversity science on the design and implementation of climate and development policy.
Nathalie advises governments, UN agencies, and the private sector on nature-based solutions. She is a member of the Adaptation Committee of the UK Climate Change Change Committee, leading on nature; a member of DEFRA’s Science Advisory Council Biodiversity Expert Committee; serves on the Science Advisory Boards of Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and sits on the Science & Knowledge Committee of the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions. In 2022-2023, Nathalie is Academic Lead for the UK’s first People’s Assembly for Nature.
Tanya Steele, CBE
Tanya Steele (CBE) leads the UK office of WWF, the world’s largest independent conservation organisation. She heads up WWF-UK at a critical time in which she is leading the delivery of an ambitious strategy to tackle the catastrophic decline in species and habitats across the world. From climate change to wildlife recovery, the food system to clean oceans – Tanya sees WWF as a critical force for influencing change.
Tanya began her career in the tech industry working in product development, marketing and communications in senior roles for Siemens and BT.
After nearly 15 years in the private sector, and inspired by a volunteering assignment with the Red Cross, Tanya brought her corporate experience to the charity sector joining Save the Children in 2004 as Executive Director of Marketing, Fundraising and Communications, and later led the organisation as interim Chief Executive.
Whilst working in international development, Tanya saw first-hand the impact the environment has on people’s daily lives, particularly in communities which are less resilient to environmental pressures. Fusing her passion for, and experience of, human development and the environment, Tanya joined WWF-UK in January 2017 as its first female Chief Executive; its sixth since 1961. Tanya is married and has a teenage son. She lives in North London and is a trustee of the Disasters Emergency Committee.
