Margaret Eames – Chair
Margaret is a Technology Programmes Director, a People Transition Coach, a Master Career Coach and has many years of experience in steering and delivering major business, people and technology transformation.
Margaret is also a committed animal welfare supporter.
Mark Carbery
Mark’s background is in the automotive industry where he has experience in marketing, communications and brand strategy.
His corporate career began at Toyota and culminated in the role of Director of Communications Northern Europe for Michelin. His subsequent consultancy career has seen him work with many major car companies but also challenger brands and start-ups. In addition he has provided strategic services for global business services companies, financial institutions and management consultancies.
Importantly however he has also worked on vehicle R&D projects, developing valuable contacts in the engineering and design sector. This was Mark’s entry point into Safe Haven for Donkeys, when he was alerted to the plight of the donkeys in the brick kilns of Egypt and realised he could help alleviate their burden and accelerate a transition to mechanised alternatives. While he has a special focus on this project Mark hopes his business experience will enable him to contribute across all the charity’s projects.
Dr Linda Evans BVetMed MRCVS
Linda qualified as a veterinary surgeon and began her career in mixed practice before moving into government. She went on to specialise in disease control and public health, while developing extensive expertise in animal welfare.
Linda later moved into the animal welfare charity sector, where she continued to focus on disease control and biosecurity while broadening her welfare experience. Her work has covered the health and welfare of animals across Africa and China, deepening her understanding of local cultures and constraints. She has focused particularly on preventing poor welfare and supporting human behaviour change as a route to lasting improvements for animals.
Now semi-retired she is loving her role as a Trustee at Safe Haven for Donkeys and the opportunity to continue her interest in global work, especially the welfare of working animals and her passion for educating and training at a community level in order to achieve human behaviour change and better welfare for these animals.
Raymond Ings – Trustee
Raymond has worked in the animal welfare sector both as a member of staff and a volunteer for most of his adult life. He is a graduate zoologist and has an MSc in Animal Welfare Science from the University of Edinburgh. He was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study the welfare of carnivores in North American Zoos and on return as a qualified teacher joined the RSPCA as Senior Education Officer specialising in tertiary education and overseas training courses. During this period he had four successive ministerial appointments to the Government’s advisory body the Zoos Forum and the Elephant Working Group.
He spent 12 years as a national RSPCA trustee and chaired the Wild Animal and the Animal Welfare committees. He played the society’s lead role in campaigning for increase custodial sentences for animal cruelty offences and at a meeting obtained the support of the Justice minister for this to become government policy. As the son of a WW2 veteran he plays an active role in the UK branch of the Canadian Veterans Association.
Linda Rimington – Trustee
Linda spent her working life in the IT industry managing multinational teams in Europe and the USA for companies such as Oracle, Xerox, IBM and Cisco.
After setting up and selling her own IT business she was able to devote herself full time to animal welfare. Linda has been a member of the RSPCA for forty years and is currently an active member of the local Chiltern Branch, and a trustee of the Enfield Branch and the Croydon Branch. She held the position of Branch Chair for the South Bucks Branch for 15 years and is an elected trustee of the National Society. She is passionate about all wildlife, campaigns against the dog meat trade, the puppy farming trade and all captive and performing animals. She is a founder member of STAE (Save the Asian elephants) and an advisor to Protect Animals Greece.
George Russell – Trustee
After 14 years serving in the RAF where he ended up as a technical trainer on airborne radio equipment, George joined the computer industry, also as a technical trainer. From there he moved into man management and then business management with over 80 staff. After moving into sales training, George was made redundant and after this, ran courses mainly for IT sales people. He then took early retirement, began voluntary fundraising for Safe Haven for Donkeys in the early 2000s and then became a trustee in 2015.
Andy Foxcroft – CEO
Andy has worked in animal welfare for over 40 years, 30 of those within the RSPCA’s Inspectorate, taking on the top job of Chief Officer in 2003 until the end of 2007.During his career he served within the RSPCA’s Special Operations Unit for 10 years investigating cases of dog fighting, wildlife crime and the illegal transportation of livestock into mainland Europe. As Chief Officer Inspectorate, Andy led the national 500 strong Field Team of Inspectors. In 2007 Andy became Director for England with Defra’s Animal Health agency leading an 800 strong team of veterinary surgeons and technicians. Responsible for the delivery of state veterinary services to the farming, animal-by-product and international animal trade industries.
In 2012, Andy joined The Donkey Sanctuary, Sidmouth to help modernise their European operation consisting of over 300 staff working in 5 countries delivering sanctuary care, welfare services, vet care and research projects. In his last 12 months with the sanctuary, he also managed their worldwide operations focussed on improving the welfare of donkeys globally.
Andy joined the Safe Haven team as Chair of Trustees in 2017 and took over as our new CEO in May 2021.
Wendy Ahl – UK Operations Director
After 6 years working for a high street bank, Wendy moved into fundraising and spent 8 years working for a local hospice before joining Safe Haven for Donkeys in 2004. Wendy is a Diploma-level member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and in addition to fundraising and PR, is responsible for all aspects of the running of the UK office.
Melanie Thorpe – Social Media Officer
Melanie joined Safe Haven in 2010, prior to which she worked in recruitment. Melanie is responsible for the charity’s social media – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – as well as supporter care.