Directors

• Derek Phillips

  Chair

  

  “I am proud to be Chair of the DR Management Board and to witness what a positive difference DR has made across the south west to rural businesses and communities since its start in 2005. As the small dedicated team continues to share its expertise while delivering valuable funding to businesses and individuals, the rural economy can only benefit and prosper.”

• Liz Abell

  Managing Director

  

  “DR is all about helping businesses and communities to develop by providing them with the skills, expertise and experience to make their ideas happen. It is a great place to work as we are able to make a difference every day, enhancing and improving economic and community life for others. We deal with a wide range of people whose passion and belief in their ideas inspires us to do everything we can to help them.”

  Liz has worked for the DR Company since its inception in 2005, bringing with her previous experience of business development, community projects, rural issues, research and intelligence and financial management, and leading the company since 2009. Liz focuses on developing the business plan, and ensuring DR has the very best staff and resources available to provide high quality services that lead directly to the companies overall objective of boosting the rural areas in which we live.  Liz brings her vision for the future of The Diverse Regeneration Company combined with an in depth knowledge of the operational workings of the company, helping to make ambitious and viable future plans. Liz also represents the staff team on the board of Directors, ensuring that communication flows effectively both ways.

  Liz is passionate about ensuring that people in rural areas have the same opportunities to live, learn and work as those in other places. Her ambition is for today’s young people to be able to choose careers and lives in rural areas that are fulfilling, challenging and rewarding, without having to make compromises. At The DR Company, Liz is responsible for running major funding programmes, developing and managing projects, conducting research and surveys, managing staff and planning for the business. She is a highly experienced programme manager, developing and running programmes to support businesses and community groups. Liz also has a background in research and statistics, including professional survey experience, across numerous business sectors.”

• George Coles

  

  “DR provides a really professional service to the rural community matching funding needs with the requirements of the funders. Our growing stream of successful projects is proof of our success in unlocking finance.”

• Mary Talbot-Rosevear

  

  “Since 2005, DR has helped individuals and communities across the UK through its diverse range of services and vast experience concerning project funding and management. The DR team shares the burden with the client and thereby takes the stress out of funding applications.”

  Mary has served as a director of Devon Renaissance since 2006, representing the farming sector and its interests on the board.  Mary has lived in the South Hams with her husband and daughter for over 25 years, where her involvement in community affairs has included the Small Farms Association, South Hams Agriculture Forum, Modbury Best Local Foods initiative, Food and Drink Devon.

  Mary is also a Partner in the family’s firm, G H W Rosevear & Co, an accountancy and legal practice based in Modbury, Devon where she is currently responsible for governance and compliance.  Mary has over 40 years’ experience in marketing and communication, spanning international tourism, conservation and conservation-education awareness, having served as the director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA), a registered UK charity and the umbrella organisation for over 70 zoos in Britain and Ireland also as Marketing & PR Manager at Paignton Zoo (1987-1991) and the World Parrot Trust.

  Government appointments have included: the Zoos Forum (1999-2004) [an independent advisory body to the UK Government on zoo-related matters]; the UK Bushmeat Group (2001-2003), chaired by Defra Parliamentary Under-secretary, Barry Gardiner MP; and Barriers to Diversification Group (2006-2007), a time-limited group established in August 2006 by the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), David Miliband MP, to investigate barriers to diversification in the rural economy and make recommendations to Government, some of which have been implemented via the planning system.

• Tim Jones

  

  “DR is an organisation with a high reputation which extends well beyond the Devon border. It is proof that a team of dedicated professionals can punch well above their weight. The added value to the regional (and rural) economy is significant.

  Tim Jones is Chairman of the South West Business Council (formally the Devon & Cornwall Business Council).  He has recently finished a six-year term with the Heart of the South West LEP as Board Member and its founding Chairman.  He was also a Board Member of Devon Chamber for an 11 year term. Tim is involved in a number of other organisations including being a Governor at Falmouth University, Governor at the Plymouth College of Art, Vice Chairman of South West Water’s Water Future Panel, Trustee at Dartington Hall, Chairman of the North Devon Biosphere Foundation and Board Member of North Devon +.  Tim is also the national lead for the Great Food Plan (a Defra initiative).

  Outside business related activities, Tim is also involved in a wide range of Criminal Justice Issues being a Special Advisor to HM Prison Services.  Trustee for the Outset Foundation and Trustee for Fort Bovisand. Tim also served for 22 years as Chairman of the Princes Trust for Devon & Cornwall and as a South West Regional Board Member also a Board Member of Dame Hannah Rogers Trust.

  Tim has active business interests and has been involved for over 35 years in a wide range of property issues.  Tim is now extensively involved in Commercial Property Development across the South West Peninsula and is a Director within Belstone Fox Project Management Ltd and Wessex Investors Ltd.

• David Incoll

  

  “DR is a highly effective initiator for Rural Economic Activity with an impressive track record of delivering real benefit for communities, businesses and residents. We attract investment and enable businesses and communities to invest such resources in benefiting the rural economy.”

  David is currently Chair of Citizens Advice Devon (also serving on a national Trustee Group) and the Dartmoor Steering Group. He sits on the project management Board for the Tavistock Heritage Initiative and is a Rotarian involved in events to help young people, communities and charities.

   David was a Solicitor and Chartered Secretary who worked in Local Government and as a Police Prosecutor. David was one of the first shared Chief Executives in Local Government holding the position with South Hams and West Devon. He particularly enjoyed working in the field of economic development, sitting on a SW body recommending the distribution of European funding and leading on projects delivering employment space in Devon market towns and promoting tourism.

• Philip Wagstaff

  

  “Being part of DR gives the opportunity to work with colleagues in supporting rural communities across the South West through a range of diverse regeneration projects. The experience that the team at DR have gives a solid foundation for the development of community and business projects which make a real difference to the South West. As a board member I can support the team and, with other board members, can explore ways of taking DR forwards in the future.”

• Peter Burgess

  

   

  “Our countryside is a contested landscape and is under competing demands from all sectors. Two thirds of our wildlife that makes Devon special is experiencing declines, some severe. DR plays a key role in ensuring the right balance is struck between our environment (that underpins the health of our economy) and the needs of our communities.”

  Peter is Devon Wildlife Trust Director of Conservation and Development and has spent over 20 years working in the conservation and land management sector in Devon. He finds the habitats and species supported in the county infinitely inspiring.

  Peter has diverse experience developing and delivering conservation and land management projects in the South West. He was involved in one of the earliest landscape scale projects – the Greater Horseshoe Bat Project in 1999 and with the Reconnecting the Culm project for Butterfly Conservation. His first role at DWT was as Project Manager of Working Wetlands in the first stages of the Trust’s landscape scale conservation of Culm grassland. Peter has a practical land management background, which means that development of DWT’s Living Landscape projects are well grounded and achievable. Peter works with and has established a wide range of partnerships with diverse stakeholders in the county – social, economic and environmental.

  Peter brings his experience in strategically supporting increased productivity of land – from delivery of a wide range of ‘public goods’ such as biodiversity, climate change resilience, and flood mitigation to the production of sustainable, high quality food.

• Paul Diviani

  

  “Sometimes people expect all forms of Government to do it all. We obviously can’t and we need help from elsewhere. There are all sorts of gaps in the funding streams – especially with the European dimension. This is the niche that DR fills so admirably!”

• Caroline Ayre MICFor

  

  Caroline Ayre MICFor is a Chartered Forester and the England National Manager for the Confederation of Forest Industries (Confor).  She started her career in forestry in 1997 with the Working Woodlands Project, one of the first “woodland initiatives”, it encouraged development in the forestry and timber sector in the south west of England by offering a support package to reconstruct the woodland supply chain and stimulate market demand for local wood products.

  In 2007 Caroline secured her position with Confor, the membership organisation that represents the wood chain from nurseries and growers, through contractors and woodland managers to harvesting and wood-using businesses in the UK. Caroline is passionate about forestry and timber but is also a keen gardener and forager and has a small holding on the edge of Dartmoor.

  Caroline was delighted to have been asked to join the DR Board to bring forestry expertise to the organisation. The forestry sector in the south west is made up of small businesses operating in disparate supply chains. DR is in a unique position to help businesses invest to enable efficiencies that will see the many benefits that woodland creation and good woodland management can bring to the local economy.

Testimonials