User:Kipidog/Charles mayhew

CHARLES MAYHEW MBE Chief Executive and Founder of Tusk Trust Born 1.2.61

Educated at Wellington College, Charles Mayhew completed his studies and left school in 1979.

He then spent two ‘GAP’ years working initially in South Africa followed by 3 months working in the Swiss Alps. After a brief spell back in the UK, he took an unpaid job as a deckhand on a Norwegian chemical tanker ship, ‘Essi Gina’, to work his passage to Australia. The voyage took three and half months. In Western Australia he worked on farms before heading east to work in Sydney.

After returning to the UK, he started work in 1981 as a Marine Insurance Broker at Lloyds of London with Willis Faber & Dumas Ltd (now Willis Group). However Africa was always beckoning and in 1984 he persuaded Willis Faber to sponsor him to organise and lead a major expedition across Africa as part of the United Nations International Year of `Youth initiative.

After 18 months of planning the 33 strong 'Young Europe Africa Expedition' led by Mayhew departed the UK in October 1985 from the London Motor Show bound for Africa and with the personal backing of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. The expedition members were drawn from over 1,000 applicants from all walks of life and countries all over Europe. Driving in a convoy of 8 four-wheel drive vehicles, the Young Europe Africa Expedition crossed the Sahara from Algiers to Niamey in Niger. They then headed east across the Niger scrub to the deserts of war torn Chad. The team had to make a hasty evacuation from Ndjamena hours before it came under fire from the Libyan air force and fled south to Cameroon. The YEA expedition then crossed the Congo via Central Africa and Zaire before arriving in the Mountains of the Moon of Eastern Zaire and Rwanda. Once safely in East Africa and after numerous accidents and adventures, the team started a series of projects. After a couple of months in Kenya recorded by Channel 4 Television, the expedition headed south through Tanzania and Zambia before crossing into Botswana and South Africa.

On his return in Mayhew was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Scientific Exploration Society, before settling down into a new job with a small partnership of financial advisors based in London. In 1988, Mayhew formed his own business.

However his experiences in Africa had also spurred him on to try and make some meaningful contribution towards wildlife conservation and with his great friend and actor Sir Timothy Ackroyd they developed an idea with the late Duke of Northumberland to produce a drama to portray the effects of the ivory trade and the impact of the indiscriminate elephant poaching witnessed throughout Africa in the 1980’s. In 1992 Mayhew ended up co-producing a £3.5m family feature film ‘Lost in Africa’ which was distributed to over 30 countries worldwide.

As part of the film initiative Mayhew and Ackroyd established Tusk Trust as a new UK based African wildlife and conservation charity. Under Mayhew’s leadership the charity has since grown into becoming a highly reputable NGO with Prince William as its Royal Patron and a diverse portfolio of 40 projects right across sub Saharan Africa and generating £1.8 million per annum.

In addition to his charitable work with Tusk, Mayhew joined the board of GAP Activity Projects in 1991. The international youth volunteering charity places over 1500 school leavers in voluntary placements all over the world. He retired from the Board in 2003.

In 2000 Mayhew was recognised for his charitable work and nominated as runner up to Trustee of the Year in the inaugural UK Charity Awards.

Having voluntarily run Tusk for 12 years, Mayhew stepped down as a Trustee to become the charity's Chief Executive.

In 2003 he persuaded Lord Deedes and the Daily Telegraph to depart from their usual policy and select a conservation charity to be one of the newspaper’s annual Christmas Charities. The considerable profile and revenue gained from this prestigious appeal enabled Tusk to enjoy its most successful year in 2004. and the Trustees were able to significantly increase their grants to conservation, education and rural community development in Africa.

In 2005, Tusk was honoured to be one of just two charities to which Prince William offered his Royal Patronage. Since then the organisation has seen a significant growth in its revenue and built a strategy to successfully establish the Tusk brand in both America and Australia.

Charles Mayhew was awarded an MBE by HM The Queen in the 2005 New Year’s Honours in recognition of his services to conservation in Africa. --Kipidog (talk) 12:22, 1 August 2009 (UTC)