What made you start Arbtech?
A combination of ambition and being willing to take a risk on myself. So, I did it.
Now, 20 years later, we are the UK’s leading ecology consultancy.
What makes Arbtech different?
In 2024, over 10,000 people and businesses trusted Arbtech to take complete ownership of their ecology, arboriculture and biodiversity net gain issues on their sites.
The number of planning refusals? A handful, mostly related to the type of project we tried to support on that site rather than anything we could or should have done differently. The number of EPS licences we applied for that were refused? We’ve had one in the last decade.
Why is this? It’s because we are one of the very few consultancies to have a strongly differentiated offering: Unlike most of our competitors, we only undertake planning-related tree, ecology and BNG surveys, assuring you of our commitment to providing an unmatched depth of planning-related expertise and delivering it faster than anyone else.
You can find out more about us here.
What do you love most about the company?
The people and our unique culture.
Most of the people who have worked here for any length of time become real friends outside of work.
We socialise together and share similar interests, and the strength of those bonds means that everyone is always looking out for you in a genuinely altruistic way.
What do you do when you are not at Arbtech?
I have a property development company so usually have at least one project on the go.
I’m also a non-executive director and own/have equity in several other businesses, so I spend some of my time with the day-to-day managers of those.
I love to travel, so exploring the world and enjoying a variety of cuisines is very important to me, as well as spending time at my house in Deia, Mallorca.
Rock climbing, sky diving, track days, mountain biking, walks and snowboarding are my passions, and these outdoor pursuits keep me active and challenge me to pursue my personal and business goals.
What is your biggest tip to achieve the most in life?
Develop the discipline to tell the truth; to others, but especially to yourself.
Once you master this skill, it is only a matter of time before you become undeniable at whatever your inner voice desires.
If you’ve got that down – health is wealth.
What is the best social you’ve been on at Arbtech?
There are WAY too many to list, but if I had to pick one, Austria (Jan 2023) – the 3rd of our overseas, all-expenses-paid socials. We skied, snowboarded, did Brazilian jiujitsu, yoga and partied hard. It was an absolute vibe. How I’m going to top that, I don’t know. Las Vegas, perhaps?
Where do you want to travel to next?
I’ve visited a lot of Europe, the US, South America and some of Africa, but I’ve only been east a couple of times, so for my next trip, I’d like to further explore far east Asia.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?
If you focus on the micro-processes, the goals take care of themselves.
That’s the reason I give a massive amount of autonomy to a handful of managers and keep the structure of Arbtech as flat as I can, so we can all test and adjust across every domain in the business, all of the time.
I am ruthlessly focused on being better at what we do every single minute of the day I am at work, and so is everyone else.
If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting bigger, faster and stronger.
What is a goal you have for the future, in or out of work?
All the gold in the world is having untold human and capital resources put into extracting it from the ground or spending its time holed up in the most secure vaults conceived by man.
It seems that when something becomes a store of value, people tend to take pretty good care of it. Who knew? So, I would like to play some part in the creation of an exchange through which financial assets are traded but backed by natural resources, which in turn transforms them from something to be protected and enhanced by means of a powerful economic incentive.
If natural capital could play a role in the way we store value (be traded and exchanged), the future of biodiversity would be much brighter than it is today.
Before that, though, I have a lot to go at while at the helm of Arbtech. In September 2024, we joined Celnor Group, backed by London-based private equity firm, Inflexion.
Watch. This. Space.
