Mike Rands

Mike Rands
Born	Michael Russell Wheldon Rands (1956-08-02) 2 August 1956
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of Oxford (DPhil) University of East Anglia (BSc)
Scientific career
Fields	Conservation biology Ecology
Institutions	Cambridge Conservation Initiative University of Cambridge
Website	www.cambridgeconservation.org

Michael Russell Wheldon Rands (born 2 August 1956) is a British conservation biologist. He is currently the executive director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative at the University of Cambridge, a fellow in management practice at the Cambridge Judge Business School, and a Fellow Commoner of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was previously chief executive of BirdLife International for 13 years. He is Master Elect of Darwin College, Cambridge.

Education

Educated at Dartington Hall School, the University of East Anglia and the University of Oxford, he gained his doctorate in ecology at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Department of Zoology and Wolfson College, Oxford.

Career

After his DPhil, he carried out post-doctoral research with the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, conducting field experiments that helped establish the Conservation headland as a method for increasing wildlife populations in agricultural ecosystems, a practice that became enshrined in UK and EU legislation and policy. In 1986 he joined the International Council for Bird Preservation as Programme Director where he played a leading role in creating BirdLife International. He became director of strategic planning and policy at BirdLife International in 1994 before becoming its Chief Executive from 1996 to 2009. In 2009 he became the founding Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI). He led the creation of the Cambridge Conservation Campus, endorsed by Sir David Attenborough, within the flagship David Attenborough Building, which opened in 2013. In 2018, under his leadership, CCI launched the Endangered Landscapes Programme, a collaboration with the Arcadia Fund to restore European landscapes for life. In October 2019, it was announced that he had been elected as Master of Darwin College, Cambridge, a post he will take up on 1st October 2020.