Craig Bennett

Craig Bennett is Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts. He has been described as “one of the country’s top environmental campaigners”, by The Guardian as “the very model of a modern eco-general” and, in 2021, was included in The Sunday Times Green Power List of the UK’s top 20 environmentalists.

Bennett was formerly CEO of Friends of the Earth. Earlier in his career, he was Deputy Director at The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (2007-2010).

He has 20 years’ experience of designing and contributing to executive education and leadership programmes at numerous universities and business schools around the world including the Judge Business School, London Business School, Duke CE. He also has a long history of providing advice and constructive challenge direct to CEOs and company boards.

He is currently Chair of the Independent Challenge Group for Anglian Water, and a member of the Innovation Lab for Marks and Spencer plc.

He is Honorary Professor of Sustainability and Innovation at Alliance Manchester Business School, an Associate Fellow of Homerton College (Cambridge), a Senior Associate of The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and a Policy Fellow of The Centre for Science and Policy at The University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He has a BSc (Hons) in Human and Physical Geography from The University of Reading and an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation from University College London, and Honorary Doctoral degrees from University College of Estate Management (UCEM), and Anglian Ruskin University (ARU).