Meet our Leadership and Trustees

CEO
Ben is CEO of Borneo Orangutan Survival UK (BOS-UK), and oversees all segments of the charity’s operation.

Prior to this role Ben served as President of the Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust in the US, permanently protecting wild lands for the benefit of all. His career also included time as director of the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch, a large-scale animal sanctuary in the US with close to 1,000 animals and over 40 species, spread over 1,500 acres.

Long active in the environmental community and civic circles, Ben is driven to solving the root causes of our ecological sustainability issues, both in our natural and built environments. Prior to moving into the charity world he practised architecture for 13 years, co-founding and serving as president of his own firm, which had an emphasis on sustainable design practices.

Board chair
Chris worked at Channel 4 in the Picture Publicity team for 20 years and as Chief Picture Publicity Manager for the last 15 before finally leaving in 2015. He joined IJPR as Director in 2016.

Chris set up IJPR Cymru in 2017 based at Wolf Studios Wales in Cardiff to work across productions there as well as the rest of Wales.

Trustee
Odile Slynn, Lady Slynn of Hadley is a French-born British humanitarian, philanthropist and peeress, involved in several organisations advocating children’s rights and wildlife preservation. She is the founder and chairman of the British branch of Child In Need India (CINI) and former chairman of the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA). She is the widow of Gordon Slynn, Baron Slynn of Hadley.

Born in Paris, she moved to London in 1959, where she trained as a nurse at Hammersmith Hospital. She taught French at the University of Buckingham from 1980 until 2000.

She has been a member of the Board of Visitors for HMP Grendon / Springhill; a member of the Parole Board (1988–1992) and chairman of its Awarding Committee from 1999. She has been Honorary Secretary to the British Moroccan Society since 1985.

Trustee
A long-time conservation activist with significant experience and achievements in conserving Indonesia’a flagship protected species: Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii), and Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus).

After completing his PhD in Environmental Sciences in 2004, Jamartin held key positions in Putri Naga Komodo, the Orangutan Conservation Services Program, PT. Restorasi Habitat Orangutan Indonesia (RHOI), before assuming the role of CEO of BOS Foundation in 2011. Since 2012, under his leadership hundreds of rehabilitated orangutans have been successfully reintroduced to natural habitat in Central and East Kalimantan; a feat that BOS Foundation had been unable to accomplish for a decade due to the challenges of acquiring suitable forest habitat.

Trustee

Based in Amsterdam, Mariella is a Customer Success Director at Salesforce.org, focused on the innovative ways that CRM technology can be used to drive social impact. Believing that business is a platform for change, she supports a community of nonprofit and education institutions in navigating the application of powerful tools and solutions that they rely on to achieve their missions.

She has a Master’s of Science in Organisation Development, with a passion for helping organisations achieve digital transformation through strategies for adoption, change management, communication and training. Prior to Salesforce, she was based in San Francisco working in the higher education and advertising industries.

Ambassador

Michaela is best known as a wildlife presenter of shows including Springwatch, Countryfile and the former children’s series The Really Wild Show.

During Michaela’s career she has travelled all around the world filming animals and conservation projects, and has a longstanding relationship with BOS UK’s parent organisation, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation in Indonesian Borneo. Michaela reported from the organisation’s rescue and rehabilitation centre in East Kalimantan on the aftermath of the large forest fires in 1997/98 and their impact on the critically endangered Bornean orangutan.

In the awarded documentary ‘Orangutan Rescue’, she joins BOS founder Willie Smits and his rescue team for three weeks while helping to save twenty orphaned orangutans. Michaela was also part of the dramatic rescue of three wild orangutans who were trapped and starving in an isolated forest area.

In 2006 and 2008, she went back to Borneo to visit and report from BOS Foundation’s Nyaru Menteng centre in Central Kalimantan for the BBC series ‘Orangutan Diaries’. This time Michaela Strachan featured the organisation’s sanctuary work, joining its staff in their daily fight against the extinction of one of our closest living relatives.

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