The steering group

Yasmin Shariff – EEDA board member and chair of landmark east steering group

Yasmin Shariff is a chartered architect trained at the Architectural Association and London University. In parallel with her professional interest in architecture, Yasmin trained as an art historian at the School of Oriental and African Studies specialising in Indian and Islamic art and architecture.

She is a partner of Dennis Sharp Architects - an award winning practice specialising in exhibitions, community and heritage buildings.

Yasmin is a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster where she teaches modules on environment, sustainable development and professional practice. She is also a board member of Arts Council East, Screen East, the Architects Registration Board and a Council member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Paul Bogen – director, Junction CDC

Born in Cambridge, Paul started his professional career as an actor. Realising he couldn't act, Paul quickly moved into arts management and, after working for ten years in London theatre, he became the first director of the Junction Arts Centre in Cambridge. During the past fourteen years, The Junction has expanded and merged with the Cambridge Drama Centre, and has just re-launched the first stage of a £7.5 million lottery-funded redevelopment.

Paul is president of Trans Europe Halles, a network of 35 European arts centres, chair of the Cambridge Independent Arts Association and a director on the board of the Hoi Polloi theatre company.

Tim Clarke – Managing Director, ‘one’ railways

Starting his career as a supervisor in the parcels depot in Nottingham, Tim worked in a wide variety of commercial and operational roles within the rail industry before becoming Managing Director in 1998.

In April 2004 he became Managing Director of ‘one’, the new rail franchise combining all rail operations out of London Liverpool Street Station. Tim Clarke is also currently a Suffolk Development Agency Board Member.

Graham Creelman – managing director, Anglia Television

Graham was appointed Managing Director of Anglia Television in July 1996, having previously been Director of Programmes for two years. From 1988 to 1994 he was Executive Producer and Director of Survival Anglia, and before that was a senior documentary film-maker at Anglia, specialising in environmental and political programming for the ITV network.

Prior to joining Anglia, he was a current affairs producer for BBC Television, specialising in politics. He began his media career as a print journalist, and worked on The Scotsman as a writer and sub-editor and joined the BBC in Scotland in 1971.

Graham chairs Living East, the cultural consortium for the East of England and Screen East.

Bill Jordan – chairman, Jordans Cereals

Bill is the fifth generation of Jordans to be based at Holme Mills, Biggleswade. Whilst trained as a flour miller, he introduced toasted oat cereals to the company in 1972 and went on to expand the range, which is based on wholegrain cereals, into mueslis, flours and later cereal bars. Jordans is now available in most UK supermarkets and health food stores and 25% of sales are exported. Recently the company was honoured, for the second time, with the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement.

As well as a keen interest in human nutrition, Bill is passionate about protection of the countryside and biodiversity, and was a founder member of the Guild of Conservation Food Producers. He is also a member of the UKROFS Organic Processors Committee. Bill has recently bought Pensthorpe, the Norfolk Nature Reserve where he plans to strengthen its links with farming and food production.

Dr Derek Langslow, CBE – chairman, Rail Passenger Committee for Eastern England

Derek is a member of the Agriculture and Environmental Biotechnology Commission, a trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund, a non-executive director of Harwich Haven Authority, a non-executive director of British Waterways and is an external consultant to DEFRA on Quinquennial Review.

Derek is the former Chief Executive of English Nature. He set up the organisation following its de-merger from the Nature Conservancy Council.

Professor Tim Wilson – EEDA board member and vice chancellor, University of Hertfordshire

Tim was born in Leeds in 1949 and educated at Temple Moor School before going on to study at Reading University, Lancaster University and at Walden University in the USA. He has followed an academic career for the last thirty years. He joined the University of Hertfordshire in 1991 after periods with Leeds Metropolitan, Cranfield and De Montfort Universities. Prior to that Tim enjoyed a career in industry as an operational research analyst, using mathematical and computer simulation techniques to model complexity.

In recent years Tim has been a regular speaker at international conferences on issues relating to university management and has played a leading role in a variety of projects including the development of e-learning, e-business and the management of the University’s £120m de Havilland campus in Hatfield.

Paul Woodcock - regional director, Anglian Region, Environment Agency

Paul has been employed by the Environment Agency as Regional Director for the Agency’s Anglian Region since July 2002. In this role he is responsible for the Agency’s operational delivery of environmental regulation, water resource, flood defence, fisheries, conservation and recreation management. Prior to this Paul was employed for 23 years in the water industry. Throughout his career, Paul has championed programmes of environmental improvement and progress toward sustainable development.

Paul is a trustee, and until recently was Chairman, of the Fenland Archaeological Trust. He is a trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Wildlife Trust for Beds, Cambs, Northants and Peterborough, a member of the Sustainable Development Round Table for the East of England and a member of the Broads Authority. He is a biologist, a member of the Institute of Biology and of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management. The Institute of Directors recently awarded him a diploma in company direction.

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