Meet the Committee
Chair
George Graham
“In an ideal world Fish Legal would not need to exist; well-funded government agencies would quickly put a stop to pollution from all sources and keep our rivers and fish safe. In the real world, Fish Legal has been plugging the gaps for 70 years – making polluters pay, and holding government to account when it fails to uphold the law. With the UK’s environmental legislation up in the air again, Fish Legal’s role is more vital than ever.”
George Graham is a prize-winning financial journalist, with 20 years at the Financial Times, where besides his daily reporting on banking and financial markets he wrote a regular fishing column for the weekend edition. He has also served as trustee for a number of charities and pension funds – useful experience for managing and safeguarding the Fish Legal fighting fund – the cornerstone that enables us to bring polluters to court. He is treasurer of the Royal Literary Fund and as chair of Fish Legal is also a director of the Angling Trust.
An enthusiastic but inexpert fisherman, George is happiest on small streams.
Chief Executive
Jamie Cook
Jamie joined the Angling Trust and Fish Legal as CEO in January 2020. The son of a mad keen coarse all-rounder Jamie learned to fish on the Kennet, Thames and surrounding gravel pits as a child. His experience developed into specimen hunting with roach his favourite species. After a brief foray into match angling he turned his focus to carp fishing and has spent a decade targeting large carp across the South of England.
As a parent of two young children his time on the bank is now more limited and this has led Jamie to diversify in turning his hand to lure fishing in both salt and freshwater. He describes fly casting as his weakest suit but something he is looking forward to improving.
Jamie has based his career within the commercial sector with over 15 years experience of leading teams and developing brands in the media industry. He views angling as a gateway to the outdoors and is passionate about the benefits and wellbeing fishing can provide to individuals. Jamie is focused on ensuring more people fish more often and that the environments that anglers spend their time within are healthy and diverse.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Steve Chesters
Steve is a dedicated environmental scientist with a lifelong passion for fishing and a long career in water treatment. The fishing addiction started early, exploring the Wear and Tyne, in his native North-East, for trout, seatrout and salmon with his Dad and Grandad. This early fascination with water led to Steve studying a BSc in Geography specialising in Hydrology and then working in technical and managerial roles in industrial and municipal water treatment. This culminated in an 11-year role as CEO of Genesys International Ltd.
Rapid international growth through innovation and new product launches attracted the interest of larger companies and the business was sold in 2019. After two years of integration, Steve now works in a part-time role as an innovation adviser working with Universities and start-ups to commercialise new water treatment inventions.
Steve has published and presented over 15 papers on water chemistry focusing on reverse osmosis membranes for the desalination industry. This expertise has been utilised to set up water testing programmes at his local club and identify pollution hotspots in the Surrey Wey catchment where he now does most of his fishing. Efforts are coordinated with other volunteer groups all trying to emulate Fish Legal’s mission in holding polluters accountable and ensuring a healthier future for our aquatic ecosystems.
Committee Member
Tim Goode
Tim Goode was born in Beaconsfield, Bucks and has been based in that area ever since although he spends much of his time in Scotland and Cornwall. He went to school in Bucks and University in York and Boston, Massachusetts. He has worked in banking and financial services for his whole career. He is interested in all sorts of fishing but particularly barbel, roach, brown trout (both migratory and non migratory) and Atlantic salmon. He occasionally fishes for carp but having had several years as a serious carp angler now feels it worthwhile to have a life. His angling ambitions are for a double figure UK sea trout and a really big Atlantic salmon. His biggest regret is that on the day he caught his biggest roach he did not use bread as it would then have been a three pounder. His angling heroes are John Ashley Cooper and Richard Walker. His favourite authors are Cormac McCarthy and Robert McFarlane. His ambition for the Angling Trust is to see it having the same size influence and financial clout as the RSPB. His other interests are singing and visiting wild places.
Committee Member
Andrew Nathan
Andrew is a solicitor with the company Hextalls Limited having been with the firm for over 40 years under its various different guises. He is a litigation solicitor and deals with a variety of insurance liability claims for various insurers.
He is a lifelong angler and says that he cannot remember a time when he had no interest in fishing. Although no one in his immediate family fished and he is therefore largely self-taught, his mother was born in Guernsey in the Channel Islands and two of her brothers (his uncles) were very keen anglers. It is therefore in his DNA… at least that is his excuse. Whilst he no longer gets the time to go coarse fishing as often as he would like he is as happy to fish a storm beach during the long winter nights for cod as he is fishing on the drift over sandbanks and reefs in the Channel Islands, fishing off rocks for mullet, casting a fly off the beach for bass or casting a fly on the Tweed for salmon and sea trout.
Happily he has passed on his passion to his son and they manage to fish together for a couple of weeks during the year up in Scotland, now joined regularly by another LAC member and close friend Nick Baldock. Andrew has Nick to thank for it was Nick who introduced him to and got him involved with the old ACA LAC and he has been happy to serve on the committee and as a board member of Fish Legal to give something back to the sport that he has gained so much from.
Andrew also sits on the boards of several charities and is churchwarden of a church in Bromley. In his “spare” time he has a keen interest in most sport, in particular rugby and is to be found at most home (and some away) games supporting Blackheath from the touchline.
Committee Member
Phil Chamberlain
“When I first joined the ACA many years ago it was to support an organization wholly dedicated to standing up for clean rivers and strongly against those who would pollute them. Today the reasons for joining Fish Legal are more compelling than ever. Whilst the recent public and political attention around sewage pollution is overdue and welcome, Fish Legal has been fighting on this and many other fronts for decades. They really do what it says on the tin… make polluters pay. Since joining the Fish Legal Committee I`ve been hugely impressed by the professionalism and dedication of the team working every day to defend our freshwater environment. They deserve every angler`s support and I consider it a privilege to give my time to the cause”.
After a career in financial services, Phil retired in 2017 and now has more time to give back to the sport he loves. He hopes more of you will join him and help grow the movement for cleaner rivers. A legacy donation, a new membership subscription or just passing on the message to the wider community…all will help in our important work.
Committee Member
Jamie Lamb
“Fish Legal is a passionate and unique organisation that protects the environment, fish and fishing. I am proud to contribute to its work in a very small way, bringing a lifelong passion for the environment and fishing. It is a concern of mine to see the increased levels of river and marine pollution, declining natural fish populations and the impact this will have for future generations.”
Jamie is a qualified chartered accountant working with Grant Thornton and Arthur Andersen before leaving the profession to set up a hotel business in 2002. Jamie led this business through a period of rapid growth culminating in the successful sale of the company in 2015.
Jamie started fishing at the age of 10 fishing for carp, tench and roach on the local pond in Southampton and sea fishing from local piers. He has been a keen angler ever since and is passionate about fish conservation, managing his own lake and encouraging the wider uptake of angling.
Most of his fishing these days is on coarse lakes in Oxfordshire or fly fishing in Scotland and Hampshire with the occasional overseas trip. Jamie is also a member and treasurer of the High Cree Gamefishers, an angling club based near Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway dedicated to wild trout and salmon fishing.
Committee Member
Charles Nichols
“Fish Legal harness the combined resolve of anglers, angling clubs and other angling organisations across the UK to demand the highest environmental standards for our waters, and to hold to account those responsible for the state of the aquatic environment. This benefits anglers, but also other water users, wildlife and the natural beauty that is so dependent on the health and vitality of our waters.”
Charles has been fishing since childhood, with a particular passion for fly fishing on the chalk streams near his home. He travels widely and rarely passes up the opportunity to fish wherever he finds himself. He is also an enthusiastic scuba diver, witnessing first-hand the impact of global warming and pollution on the marine environment.
Charles recently swapped his executive career for the opportunity to run his own sheep farm in West Berkshire and pursue his wider outdoor interests. During a 30-year career at Unilever, he held various senior positions in finance and general management, acquiring a breadth of experience in financial management, accounting and control, business strategy and risk management.
In addition to farming, he is a non-executive director of the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Standards Board (FMSB), and a trustee of the Unilever UK Pension Fund, where he chairs the Investment and Funding Committee. He is also is involved with the Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S). Charles is a qualified accountant and holds a BA (Hons) degree in Chemistry from Oxford University.
Committee Member
Dean Luker
Dean has been a professional in the Information and Data Services sector for the last 25 years. He joined Ipsos Group SA in 2010 as Deputy Managing Director of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), working across the region on development initiatives. Following the acquisition of Synovate by Ipsos, he focussed on the combination of the two companies in EMEA and was subsequently appointed as CEO of Ipsos in Western Continental Europe in 2011, with responsibility for nine Ipsos country markets. In 2017 Dean became Global Corporate Development Director of Ipsos Group, joining the company’s Global Management Board.
Before joining Ipsos, Dean was Global Corporate Development Director for Synovate, a division of Aegis Group plc (FTSE 250) from 2003 – 2009, based in Hong Kong and London, where he was primarily responsible for executing Synovate’s acquisition programme in support of the company’s overall global strategy.
Prior to that, Dean joined Asia Market Intelligence in 2001. He was a Director of AMI Hong Kong and of AMI’s Customer Satisfaction Measurement Division across Asia-Pacific. Before this Dean helped found the UK branch of NetSurvey, a Swedish pioneer in online market research. He also held senior positions at GfK UK and with Zenith International. Before commencing his career in information and data, Dean spent five years in banking with Barclays Bank plc and then Leopold Joseph & Sons, specialising in large corporate loans and structured finance. He joined Barclays on its Accelerated Development Programme.
Dean has been fishing since his uncle took him to a Norfolk lake as a five-year-old. He will pick up a rod to try and catch any species, anywhere – coarse, game or sea. But being raised near the River Medway in Kent, his primary passion is coarse fishing on rivers – particularly match fishing. He is still desperately trying to qualify for the Riverfest Final!
Fish Legal are pleased to acknowledge that Nurole.com was instrumental in recently sourcing non-executive directors to fill vacancies on the Fish Legal Committee.
Committee Member
Mike Greenwood
“At a time when every day brings new threats, Fish Legal puts anglers at the heart of the fight to protect our precious aquatic environment. For me, there’s no better way of celebrating our shared passion for the sport and our deep commitment to preserving the natural word than by supporting the work of Fish Legal, now and for the future.”
Mike’s fishing began on the canals of Holland and the small rivers and ponds of Leicestershire. Since then, he’s fished across the world from India to New Zealand. These days he’s to be found fly fishing on Irish loughs, Midland reservoirs and rivers in the North of England, but he’s just as happy catching tench, pike or pollock. His general incompetence in all branches of the sport is matched only by his stubbornly enduring enthusiasm for it.
Mike brings a career’s worth of communications experience to support Fish Legal. He worked for many years as a producer, presenter and commissioning editor at the BBC, before joining Culture Online, a multi-award-winning Government initiative to engage new audiences with cultural content via New Media. He runs a small production company making films for a range of environmental organisations, for example, and for the UK Parliament Art Collection. He was Director of Communications for Waterloo Uncovered, an archaeological charity that helps the rehabilitation and recovery of military veterans and serving personnel through archaeology.
He’s been governor of a local school and, for nine years, was a non-executive director of the environmental charity The Woodland Trust.
COMMITTEE MEMBER
Saira Tahir
Saira is an experienced corporate solicitor, who has worked closely with PLC Boards, advising them on corporate governance requirements, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) matters.
Through her work she has become hugely interested with water, particularly around quality and discharge practices, as it’s a critical ESG consideration and also very topical.
Voluntary work has been an important part of Saira’s life, be it offering free legal advice at the local Citizens Advice Bureau, mentoring aspiring and junior lawyers, or helping women achieve their full potential by encouraging and supporting them in their corporate journeys to executive and leadership levels.