Mr Brian Montgomery (Chair)

Retired Head of Agriculture at NatWest Bank with continued involvement in the RASE.

Dr Jane Carmichael

Has served on a number of NIAB Committees and is also a CEL Board Member. Retired MD of Danisco Seed UK.

Mr Tony Pexton

Tony Pexton oversees the operation of a family farm in East Yorkshire where pigs are reared from progeny to bacon and wheat, oilseed rape and vining beans are grown. He was elected to the NFU Council in 1981 and went on to serve as Chairman of the National Cereal Committee from 1987 to 1992 and as Vice-President and Deputy President between 1992 and 2000. Mr Pexton has served on the Council of the Oxford Farming Conference, acting as Chairman in 2002, and as a Board member of Assured Food Standards, and Chairman of the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme. In 2005, he was awarded the OBE for services to agriculture and currently holds office as Chairman of the NIAB Board. In 2007 he was appointed Chairman of the Farmers Club. He was formerly Chairman of the Sustainable Arable Link Research & Development Programme Management Committee for Defra. He is also a Nuffield Scholar (N.Sch) and was Chairman of the Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust from 2008-2009 and he is a Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Societies (FRAgs).

Mr John Shropshire

After gaining a BSc Hons in Agriculture at Newcastle University in 1976, John joined the family farming and marketing business which had been founded by his father in 1952.

John is CEO of the G’s Marketing Group business which now has sales of £230m per annum in the UK and throughout Europe. Integral to its business, is its expertise in growing with its own farming operations in the UK, Czech Republic and Spain producing over 8,000 hectares of salad and vegetable crops supplying half of group sales. The remainder is sourced from 30 other committed growers worldwide.

The Group employs over 4,000 people and has won several national industry awards recognising its progress in technical and product innovation, exports and environmental management.

Mr Andrew Slack

Andrew Slack recently retired as Partner, Head of Land and Rural Business at Grant Thornton, after thirty years of service. Prior to that he worked for the Farm Management Division of the Nickerson Group. He has a degree in Agriculture from Nottingham University and is a Chartered Accountant. Andrew is a member of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and the NFU and has served on the Taxation Committees for both organisations. He is a member of the Farmers Club and the Worshipful Company of Farmers. Hobbies include golf, gardening, shooting and fly fishing.

Ms Sarah ‘Sez’ Maxted

Sez is a farmer based in West Berkshire. Working in the family property and agricultural business is relatively new for Sez as she started her career in a very different field as a Graduate Trainee at Ogilvy Advertising, one of the leading global advertising groups. As a Strategic Planner she became director of DLKWLowe (formerly DLKW). However, it was as Managing Director and then Chairman of DraftFCB (formerly Draft London) where she really built her career. Sez has a reputation for acquisition management handling no fewer than three major mergers. She also pioneered integrated communications, building DraftFCB into one of London's leading integrated (advertising, direct, digital) agencies.