Our People

Jon Sear - Programmes Director

Jon trained as an ecologist but has had a varied career around a theme of making good things happen with limited resources. He has been instrumental to founding several community organisations in the UK, including Lancaster Cohousing and Port Bannatyne Development Trust, and originally joined Woodleigh with a climate and environment brief.

Now focussed on Sierra Leone, Jon is always keen to properly understand the difficulties communities face and to help them work through the most effective solutions. In his spare time, Jon loves cycle touring and walking in the mountains; he owns several bicycles, one of which lives in Sierra Leone.

Adrian Clarke - Director & Founder

Adrian worked in corporate finance before he founded Woodleigh Care providing specialist care to people with complex conditions which he ran until 2014. He established Woodleigh Impact to support the most impoverished communities outside the UK and to fund smaller organisations doing important but often unrecognised work helping these communities.

He splits his time between forestry and farming interests and philanthropy, often combining the two; for example, he has developed a farm in Yorkshire for young people to experience working life on a farm and he has been working to re-introduce coastal temperate rain forest in a project on the west coast of Scotland. Adrian enjoys everything to do with the mountains and the sea and loves skiing in winter and sailing or sea-kayaking in summer.

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