Who we are

Malcolm Beatty is a Chartered Forester and Chartered Public Finance Accountant, and worked for many years in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, retiring from DAERA in 2018.   Amongst other posts in the agricultural sector Malcolm was Chief Executive and Accounting Officer of the Northern Ireland Forest Service, and the NI Chief Plant Health Officer.  In 2019 he was awarded an OBE for services to the environment in Northern Ireland.

Malcolm is a Trustee, Company Director and Honorary Treasurer of the Field Studies Council (FSC), a UK environmental and educational charity. He is a Trustee and Company Director of Centre Ministries, a faith charity operating in England and NI. Malcolm is also a school governor for St. Colman’s High School and Sixth Form College.

Professor Dan Laffoley is a scientist, communicator, explorer and marine biologist, with over three decades of experience in the UK, Europe and around the world.  He is a UK and international expert on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and conservation.

He is currently Marine Vice Chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Commission on Protected Areas responsible for global targets and guidance on ocean protection.

Prior to that he led the development and scale-up of the marine conservation work of Natural England and English Nature. He has been responsible for the creation of many global, European and UK public and private sector partnerships, alliances and frameworks that underpin modern-day marine conservation.

This work includes creating the concept behind Blue Carbon, scaling up knowledge and action on ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation, scaling-up work on marine World Heritage and conservation of the High Seas, and various global guidance on implementing MPAs and marine spatial planning.

Dr Paul Leinster CBE has over 40 years of practical experience in environmental management, science, policy and regulatory development and implementation in the private and public sectors.

He is Chair of Water Resources East, the Bedfordshire Local Nature Partnership, the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, and bpha (a housing association), and is a Board Member of both Flood Re and Delphic HSE.

He also provides strategic environmental consultancy advice to public and private sector organisations. From October 2015 to December 2020 he was Professor of Environmental Assessment at Cranfield University and a Member of the Government’s Natural Capital Committee.

Immediately prior to this, he was Chief Executive of the Environment Agency for more than seven years. Prior to joining the EA in 1998 he worked for more than 20 years in the private sector.

Professor Elizabeth Fisher is Professor of Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. 

She has over three decades of experience as an environmental law academic and writes widely on environmental law and administrative law in national common law jurisdictions.

She was General Editor of the Journal of Environmental Law from 2012 to 2022 and from 2022 to 2025 she held a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for a project exploring legal imagination and environmental law. 

She is a Delegate of Oxford University Press and has served as Vice Dean of the Oxford Law Faculty. She is also an Overseas Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and has been a Member of the OEP’s Advisory Group on Environmental Principles since 2023.

Caroline May has been a specialist environmental  lawyer for over 35 years. She is currently head of the environment, ESG and safety practice for Europe, Middle East and Asia at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, where she has been a partner since 2006.

She is Chair of the Law Society Climate Change Committee which produced the world’s first professional services guidance on climate change.

She is Honorary President of the Legal Sustainability Alliance and a former Director of leading sustainability NGO, the Aldersgate Group. She sat on the National Council of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association (UKELA) for 6 years.

She is a Freeman of the City of London and is listed in the Ends Power List 2024, as a Green Ambassador for the UK by Legal 500, and in the Guide to the World’s Leading Environmental Lawyers.

Peter Ashford has a wealth of experience of in environmental law and plays a critical role in ensuring the work of the OEP meets expected standards and delivers our strategic objectives. Peter leads the OEP’s in house legal team, enabling the OEP to effectively deliver its statutory functions, particularly to scrutinise the implementation of environmental law, and to investigate and enforce public authorities’ non-compliances with environmental law.

Peter held the position of Head of Legal for the Interim OEP before transitioning to General Counsel following the OEP’s establishment in January 2022.

Peter worked in private practice for several years specialising in environmental litigation, before joining the Environment Agency where he has held a number of roles. Immediately prior to joining the OEP, Peter led the legal team specialising in flood risk and planning law at the Environment Agency, advising in particular on issues with national or strategic implications. Peter has also been active in helping establish the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment (ENPE) as a forum to support public prosecutors in tackling environmental crime.

As Chief of Staff, Richard provides strategic oversight, direction and leadership for the corporate and business operations of the OEP: executive and Board governance, strategy, business planning, communications, engagement, finance, procurement, human resources, IT and estates. He is also lead sponsor for the OEP’s work in Northern Ireland and on Air Quality.

Prior to joining the OEP, he was a Director at the Forestry Commission, where he led work to protect, improve and expand England’s woodlands. Before that he led work on green growth in East London and the Thames Gateway, including Olympic legacy. His earlier career spanned the Cabinet Office, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Department for Communities & Local Government; and policies including children and families, fire and rescue services, local and regional government and better regulation. 

Professor Robbie McDonald FRSB is an ecologist with 30 years’ experience of work at the interface between environmental science, policy and practice.  

In his research he has used interdisciplinary approaches to identify and test solutions to complex problems of environmental management, particularly wildlife conservation and management, invasive species management, wildlife disease ecology and management, environmental monitoring and data, conflicts about animals, and companion animal ecology. He has published 200 scientific papers and book chapters. 

He has held a Fulbright Scholarship, Jones Fellowship, Royal Society postdoctoral fellowship, and has worked in universities, NGOs and in government agencies. He led Quercus, the Northern Ireland Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, a partnership between Queens University Belfast and NI Department of Environment. He was then head of wildlife science and Deputy Chief Scientist at the Food and Environment Research Agency. He is a Trustee of the Vincent Wildlife Trust and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.  He currently holds the Chair in Natural Environment at the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute, to which he was appointed in 2011. 

As Chief Insights Officer and Chief Scientist at the OEP, Robbie directs the evidence and analysis programme of work that supports OEP’s scrutiny of government’s progress in improving the natural environment. He leads a team of analysts with diverse expertise in natural and social scientific research, environmental management, protection, consultancy and regulation.

Helen Venn brings to the OEP a strong legal background and over 20 years regulatory experience of investigation and enforcement. Helen has spent the last seven years as an Executive Director and Programme Director at the Gambling Commission where she led on licencing, compliance and enforcement. Helen also drove significant cultural change to operations, to increase effectiveness and efficiency.  

Previous roles have included Head of Authorisation and Head of Supervision at the Solicitors Regulation Authority where Helen led cross organisational teams to investigate high profile and complex regulatory cases. Prior to that Helen spent five years as an Investigative Lawyer responsible for prosecuting serious and complex fraud cases and potential miscarriages of justice.