Our Wise Council

Jules Peck 

Jules Peck is Chairman of the Edelman Sustainability and Citizenship Group. Jules is also a Founding Partner at strategy and innovation consultancy Abundancy Partners as well as a Trustee of nef (the New Economics Foundations), an adviser to The Green Thing, outgoing Chair of the Bulmer Foundation and a Fellow of the think tank ResPublica. Jules’ special interest is the updating of capitalism and the business implications of wellbeing economics. He has worked in sustainability and wellbeing for 23 years, one third in and around politics, one third in business and consulting and one third in NGOs like WWF where he was Global Policy Adviser for five years.

Jules was for two years Director of David Cameron’s Quality of Life Policy Group, advising the Conservative Party on wellbeing and environment issues. A committed Citizen, he has spent the past 20 years advising business, NGOs and government institutions on sustainability issues and Wellbeing. In a varied career Jules has worked on sustainability and wellbeing issues in Brussels at the EC, in the US and EU in marketing and public affairs roles with a number of companies and internationally for WWF as a Global Policy Adviser.

Esmond Bulmer 

Esmond Bulmer is the grandson of the founder of the family cider business which he chaired after serving in Parliament as the MP for Kidderminster. He has made a career of trying to encourage 'joined up thinking', between government and business, between the public and private sectors and latterly between society and the environment.

He was the founding Chairman of the Bulmer Foundation and has served on numerous government, business and cultural committees.

Alastair King

Alastair graduated in Biochemistry from Northeast London Polytechnic before completing his PhD in Biotechnology/Microbiology at the University of Nottingham.  He joined Scottish & Newcastle (S & N) in 1990 as a research microbiologist, specialising in brewery fermentation optimisation. In 2005, after S & N had taken over the Bulmer's cider business, he was appointed as General Manager, Bulmers, leading all aspects of the cider business. Following the takeover of S & N in 2008, Alastair became the Quality & Technical Director for Heineken UK, responsible for quality, safety, environment and sustainability across the Heineken UK business.

For several years Alastair's values have been aligned to sustainable principles:  he chaired the S & N UK Energy Management Committee, a team responsible for UK Energy & Environmental strategy; in his time at Bulmers he was vice-chairman of the NACM; he set up and chaired the Sustainable Development Committee of the NACM; and was a Director of Sustainability West Midlands.

Alastair sits on the Advisory Board of the ICBD at Heriot-Watt University, is a member of the IBD Grants committee and is a Liveryman Brewer at the Worshipful Company of Brewers.

Fenella Tyler

Fenella has worked in the cider industry for over 25 years, focussing for the last decade on the relationship between the cider industry and those that regulate it, both in the UK and internationally.

She spent 5 years as a Trustee of the Bulmer Foundation, recognising the critical role that sustainability plays in the success of the cider industry.  Fenella lives locally in Herefordshire with her family, but now spends much of her time in Europe as part of her role as Global Cider Public Affairs Manager at Heineken, who are now owners of the Bulmer's cider business.

Susan Bell

Susan is a former Trustee of the Bulmer Foundation and served briefly as its chairman.  She has lived for many years at the western edge of the County, near Hay on Wye. Drawn by environmental concerns she left a career in journalism to train as a land use planner and environmental consultant.   Her last full-time job before retiring was leading the creation of a new multi-purpose forest in the Midlands. The purposefully sustainable National Forest is now an established entity with 8 million trees and is continues to spread over 200 square miles.

She is still freelancing as a rural planning consultant and is also a Trustee of Woodland Heritage (promoting good woodland management and use of our native timber) and of The National Memorial Arboretum.

Dr. Mark Bulmer

Mark is an expert on the geology of the planet's surface and worked on the Magellan Space Project as part of a joint NASA/JPL/UCL team. He is currently the Director of the Geophysical Flow Observatory at the Joint Centre for Earth Systems Technology in collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Mark is driven by a desire to see decision making done with the benefit of a far greater understanding of geology and climate. This takes him into the very practical field of emergency planning, disaster relief and mitigation with organisations like UNHCR, NATO, World Bank and the Red Cross.  He is becoming increasingly involved in foreign affairs as well as being a long serving member of the Army reserves.

Mark lives with his wife and three boys on a chemical free farm near Annapolis, where they have established a research programme for climate change adaptation.