Leadership team

Eliot Lyne, Chief Executive Officer

Eliot Lyne joined NWT in 2021. Before this, he pursued a 15-year career in senior finance and operations roles in many well-known UK Charities such as Scope, Amnesty International UK, Greenpeace UK, Livability and National Children’s Bureau. This culminated in a turnaround role as interim Finance Director and then interim CEO at RNIB.  

Eliot is a qualified Chartered Accountant and started his career at Deloitte and Touche, followed by a few years in the commercial sector. Much of Eliot’s work has been improving the financial and strategic sustainability of organisations, both from the perspective of the resources that they have but also how they choose to use them to further their charitable impact. He is passionate about the power of integrity in leadership to make change happen. Eliot is Treasurer and Trustee of Become, the charity for children in care and young care leavers, and in the past has served as a Trustee of Peace Direct and as an independent member of the finance committee at St Helena’s Hospice in Colchester, Essex.  

Eliot holds a BA in Geography and an MSc in Environmental and Energy Studies. He is married with one daughter. He runs, cycles, gardens, and enjoys music in his spare time. 

Natalie Bailey, Director of Engagement 

Natalie joined NWT in 2022 after nearly twenty years working in public engagement roles across the public and private sector including 12 years at the University of East Anglia, a few years producing Norwich Science Festival and a stint working on a global conference in Sydney, Australia. She is passionate about the mutually beneficial relationship between people and the natural world and the importance of nature connection for our mental health. In her spare time she can be found pottering on her allotment, swimming in the Bure and drinking copious amounts of tea!  

Kevin Hart, Director of Nature Conservation 

Kevin’s family is at least fifth generation Norfolk Broads. He attended all of the Stalham schools before attaining a first degree in Countryside Management at Leeds followed by a Post Graduate Diploma in Ecology from Liverpool. His professional career has been based in Norfolk working in conservation and land management for the past 28 years, 21 years in the charity sector and 13 of those with Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Kevin currently works as Director of Nature Conservation for Norfolk Wildlife Trust, with responsibility for nine patch based teams managing over 5,000 hectares of high conservation value land throughout Norfolk. He is a Trustee of Kelling Heath SSSI and is a mentor and guide to other land management professionals working for a green tourism provider in North Norfolk.

Rachel Savage, Director of Development and Partnerships 

Rachel Savage has over 25 years’ experience in the charity sector. She has considerable experience of delivering large scale fundraising and marketing campaigns, strategic and financial planning, brand and audience development, and supporting organisational change. Prior to joining Norfolk Wildlife Trust, she worked as Director of Client Development for a full-service marketing agency supporting a number of charities both large and small. She has also held senior management, marketing and fundraising positions at the RHS, Save the Children and Voluntary Service Overseas. Her role at NWT includes leading the fundraising and membership teams along with our five Visitor Centres and Norfolk Wildlife Services, our ecological consultancy. 

A passionate gardener, she is a trustee of The Gardens Trust, spends a great deal of her spare time in her veg patch and has recently completed her PhD in nineteenth century garden history.

Jo Smithson, Director of Finance and Support Services

Jo Smithson joined NWT in June 2022. Jo is a qualified accountant and has a degree in European Business. She moved to Norfolk at the age of eight and has spent her whole career in the county. She worked in various sectors before joining NWT, including banking and financial services, manufacturing and also had a long and successful career in the NHS, becoming first Director of Finance and then CEO of Norwich Clinical Commissioning Group, a role she held for five years. At NWT, Jo works as Director of Finance and Support Services and has responsibility for Finance, ICT, People and Culture, and Estates and Facilities. Jo is a Trustee of Voluntary Norfolk and has been treasurer for her local church for many years. She enjoys gardening and getting outside on weekends to enjoy all that Norfolk has to offer.