Our CEO and Senior Management Team

CEO

Simon James -  [email protected]

Simon is a chartered forester, beginning his woodland and conservation education at Glynllifon, he followed this with a degree at Aberystwyth and masters at Bangor University. With a 16 year stint with the Forestry Commission, he experienced many roles from forest works supervisor in Sherwood, to forester in South Yorkshire, to woodland officer in the East Midlands. Simon also spent time as a Partnership and Expertise Manager for the West Midlands and Regulations Manager for National Office.

Simon grew up in Cornwall and later lived in North Wales. He now lives in Shropshire with his wife and children, where they enjoy the countryside and have sheep and chickens on their smallholding. Simon enjoys tinkering with his vintage tractor and old landrover, and has made every effort to be part of village life, siting as a trustee of the local village hall, chair of the Parish Council and chair of the Edge Schools' Federation.

Business Manager

Deb Cheetham - [email protected]

Deb manages our Administration and Finance Team, who assist her in making the financial and administration functions of Small Woods run as smoothly as possible. She has a background in IT and business management and worked for a large law firm for twelve years. 

Social Forestry and Wellbeing Manager 

Amie Andrews - [email protected]

Amie manages our Social Forestry and Wellbeing Team. Her work focuses on health and wellbeing activities in woodlands across the UK. She manages the effective delivery of our social forestry and wellbeing projects, balancing the requirements of stakeholders from the health, environment and training sectors.

Amie also raises the profile of Small Woods, taking forward the strategic direction, whilst developing funding ideas to build the scope and breadth of our social forestry programmes. Amie is an anthropologist by background with experience in teaching and project management.