Dr. Mike Rands

Mike Rands is Master of Darwin College and Advisor to the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), based in the University of Cambridge Judge Business School.

After an early career as a research ecologist studying farmland wildlife populations in the UK, he developed and directed a programme of multidisciplinary conservation projects in over 100 countries for an international conservation organisation (ICBP). In 1996 he was appointed Chief Executive of the global conservation partnership, BirdLife International, before joining CCI as its first Director from 2009 to 2020.

He is broadly interested in interdisciplinary approaches to managing the natural environment. This includes: the interface between science, policy and practice; environmental governance and capacity development; the relationships between business and biodiversity; and developing innovative solutions for the conservation of nature.