New Managing Director
Added to website: 16 June 2005
Richard Surma, 33, has been appointed the new Managing Director of Coral Cay Conservation, the award-winning British coral reef and tropical forest conservation group. Richard brings to the role a wealth of expedition experience, coupled with a strong background in business execution and management .
Richard’s association with CCC began as a mature volunteer on the ‘Sian Ka’an Coral Reef Conservation Project’ (Mexico). Recognizing Richard’s natural flair for project management, he was subsequently appointed by CCC as Expedition Leader for ‘Project Bay Islands’ (Honduras) in 2003, during which Richard successfully achieved the mammoth task of relocating CCC’s HQ to the remote fishing community of St Helene. As a result of this outstanding achievement, Richard was offered a permanent field position as CCC Expedition Manager. Richard has subsequently worked on CCC projects in Fiji and the Philippines. More recently, and perhaps most notably, his role has included Logistics Coordinator for the visit by HRH Prince Charles to CCC’s Fiji Coral Reef Conservation Project.
Prior to CCC, Richard led a successful 10-year career in Solution and Software sales. This included Sales Director for Intenda UK Ltd, South Africa’s most successful E:Sourcing company and prior to that, Business Solutions Manager for Action PLC, one of the country’s leading IT resellers, with a turnover of £300m.
Commenting on Richard’s appointment, Peter Raines MBE, former Managing Director of CCC and now Chairman, said: “I’m absolutely delighted that someone of Richard’s calibre and with his track record of expedition management and business, has been brought onto the Board. As Managing Director he will play a pivotal role in driving CCC forward.”
As Chairman, Pete’s job now is to provide a degree of governance and oversight to the new Managing Director and his Board of Directors, but most importantly as CCC’s ‘elder statesman’, to focus on forging closer and wider partnerships amongst the NGO, private and commercial sectors who have an interest in sharing CCC’s ethos in biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation.
On accepting the position of Managing Director, Richard commented: “We have a progressive vision for where we want CCC to be and I am looking forward to the challenge of delivering increased levels of support and guidance to our project sites as well as investigating, defining and delivering new conservation projects with real scientific values that will be fun and challenging to our customers”.
Professor David Bellamy OBE, President of CCC, had these encouraging words to say: “‘Young Pete’ has worked tirelessly these past 20 years to get CCC to where it is today and as Chairman his new life’s work has now only just started! Richard has inherited a strong base from Pete and he has my full support and confidence that he will use this as his foundation from which to lead this wonderful organisation onwards to higher levels and into the new generation awaiting the world-class biodiversity conservation movement that is CCC.”
