History

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1. Born in the late 1970’s in Somerset, England
2. During my childhood was dragged across Europe and the middle east by my parent’s late hippyness (initially in a bright yellow cross between a removal van and a landrover).
3. Won a scholarship to Millfield School
   • Grade A in lots of GCSEs (the exception was a B in English Language)
   • Grade A in French, Physics, Maths, Further Maths A-Levels and in a Further Additional Maths AS.
   • Captained the dinghy sailing team
4. Gained sponsorship from the civilian side of the UK Ministry of Defence. Spent nine months at their training centre before university and then worked each summer at:
   • GKN Westland Aerospace in Yeovil
   • The Guided Weapons and Surveillance Support Group in Malvern
   • A (now dead?) start-up called Netcentric Solutions outside Cambridge
   • The Battle Group Battle Management System procurement team in Bristol.
5. Spent four years reading Engineering at Clare College, Cambridge University.
   • Rowed, politiked, grooved and worked for a couple of start-ups
   • BA (hons) first class etc followed by a MEng and later the joke/honorary MA.
6. Worked for Marakon Associates for three years
   • Strategy Consulting. Based out of London. On projects in Europe, the USA and the Far East in Banking, Pharmaceuticals and Chocolate doing Corporate and Business Unit strategy, organisation design, pay, new business start-up and old-business shut-down.
   • Got a big promotion and left to….
7. Return to Cambridge to study for a PhD under Dr Julian Allwood and live with my soon-to-be-wife Catherine
8. Got married
9. Worked as a teaching assistant in the department while I …
10. … finished my PhD, moved to Brighton and started work with the …
11. Carbon Trust in the strategy team.
    • Subject expert on emissions trading schemes, working closely with Professor Michael Grubb.
    • Worked on internal projects defining what the organisation could and should do
    • Helped to produce a whole series of publications
12. Seconded to the Department for Energy and Climate Change …
    • where I assist the department’s chief scientist—Professor David MacKay …
    • … in particular, with developing the DECC 2050 Pathways
13. Became a permanent civil servant in the department and:
    • Created the new engineering team
    • then took over DECC’s Futures team, part of the Strategy Directorate
    • then took my whole team to the International Climate Change directorate, to help other countries replicate what we did
    • whilst in the International Directorate, I also looked after the forests, private finance and international climate finance team when their manager moved on.
    • then moved to the newly expanded Analysis Directorate, working for the Chief Economist
14. After eight years of commuting from Brighton to London (a four hour round trip), I’d had enough and moved to a tiny firm in Lewes that helps children’s nurseries
    • Went from a few people in the founder’s house to a grown-up firm with a team of ten engineers and a million dollar spend.
    • Spent lots of quality time with my children and fell in love with running across the South Downs
15. My wife fell seriously ill, leading me to step-back and care for her and the children for a while
16. Became interested in Effective Altruism and started work for Give Directly who set the standard for other charities to beat, by providing no-strings-attached cash to the poorest people in a way that is quick, efficient, large scale and well tested.