Emily Thompson
Emily has 20 years experience working in the charitable sector and has a strong track record of working with a wide range of partners, creating and sustaining lasting partnerships in both the public and private sector in order to secure additional investment for programmes and build partnership funding opportunities. She has overseen the development and growth of new services into new markets and transformational change across teams.
Emily is also passionate about the outdoors and has worked in the outdoor sector since qualifying as a mountain leader in 2012. Now a Winter ML and working towards completing her International Mountain Leader, Emily also runs her own company which is a provider of Mountain Training Skills courses. Also in her local Mountain Rescue team she is keen to ensure that as more people access the outdoors that they gain the right skills to do so safely and with good decision making skills.
She has sat on the Mountain Training UK and Ireland Board 2017-2023 and the British Mountaineering Council’s Access and Conservation Trust Board 2015-2023 and so has a good understanding of the sector.
As someone who has experienced Plas y Brenin courses in the past Emily is keen to use her experience to help the MTT reach more people and continue to be the centre of excellence in course delivery.
Giles Tollit
Giles has a thirty-year career in independent education, with over half of that time spent in school leadership roles. He has worked predominantly in schools with significant residential components and large estates. In addition to overseeing educational and pastoral provision, he has held responsibility for safeguarding compliance, health and safety, staff welfare, appraisal and training, and systems for managing complaints and incidents. He has also served on the voluntary boards of two national advisory bodies for independent schools, including one focused specifically on boarding. He is currently Headmaster of a leading independent school in Central London.
Giles has a deep-rooted passion for the outdoors and has spent considerable time in Eryri, where he and his family have chosen to make their home in Beddgelert. His lifelong interests include hillwalking, trail running, swimming, and cycling, both in the UK and abroad. His wife and three sons are equally active, with additional pursuits in climbing and kayaking. As a family and professionally they have long used Plas y Brenin for both training and recreation.
Mark Buley
Mark Buley is an experienced international executive with over 25 years in retail, franchising, and consumer experience, leading major growth initiatives at brands including Costa Coffee (Coca-Cola), KellyDeli, and Alshaya. He specialises in P&L leadership, strategic international expansion, and building high-performing teams across diverse markets.
Beyond the boardroom, Mark is an ultra-endurance runner and a passionate advocate for outdoor challenge and education. He has completed multiple 100-mile+ races, the Marathon des Sables, and the Barkley Marathons. His values-driven approach is further demonstrated through education-focused philanthropy, including spearheading a $260k fundraising project to build a school in Ethiopia.
Mark offers a rare blend of corporate acumen and deep personal alignment with the mission of the Mountain Training Trust, bringing governance insight, strategic rigour, and a lifelong passion for the outdoors to the role of Non-Executive Director.
Pete MacGregor
Peter is a former Principal Fire and Rescue Service Officer with 30 years’ experience in operational fire management, health and safety, and personnel management.
He is a Senior Associate Consultant for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), specialising in fire and water safety.
He is a Law Society-approved member of the Institution of Expert Witnesses.
Following a period of acting as Technical Advisor to the Fire Remedial Project, Peter was co-opted to the MTL Board, acting as Technical Advisor on health and safety and fire-related issues. In this role, he serves as Plas y Brenin’s Competent Person for health and safety.
Following an open recruitment process, Peter has been appointed as a full Director of the MTL Board.
His previous experience in managing and investigating hazardous situations enables him to take a pragmatic view of the activities at Plas y Brenin (PYB) and to advise the CEO and Board accordingly.
He is a keen dinghy and small boat sailor (knees permitting!) and has represented the UK at an international level on several occasions.
Jon Meeten
Jon is a retired KPMG Tax Partner with 32 years’ experience within professional service environment. Key focus on client relationships and people development. Previous voluntary work has largely been based around CSR projects with KPMG and has included fund raising for OYT Scotland and The Himalayan Trust.
Outdoor interests and experience include two rounds of Munros, overseas mountaineering trips to the Alps, Andes, Africa, and the Himalayas. I also enjoy mountain biking, sea kayaking and am a keen runner.
Abi Banks
Abi joined the Mountain Training Trust as an independent advisor to the HR Committee in February 2024 and became a Mountain Training Limited Board member in September the same year. Her focus has been on strengthening governance through people-related matters, including policy, practice, and organisational culture.
Alongside her role with MTL, she is Head of People at a green technology business, and runs and HR consultancy, Wye Business Solutions Ltd, supporting a variety of organisations, including those in the climbing wall industry, with policies, contracts, and people management advice. Her career has always centred on developing good practice in HR, drawing on experience across the commercial, non-profit, and outdoor sectors.
She is a member of her local BMC club and enjoys the social side of climbing as much as the technical challenge. She is passionate about expanding access to outdoor climbing, and see people progress from their first experiences outdoors to building confidence and finding their own climbing projects. She also regularly documents her own outdoor experiences on social media to share with others and to inspire her daughter to develop her love of adventure as she grows up. She has been fortunate to attend a number of Plas y Brenin courses, including Welsh Winter Mountaineering (yes, there was snow), a trip to Scotland for even more winter mountaineering, and most recently SheClimbs in August 2025.
My goal is to see Plas y Brenin continue to nurture future leaders in the sector and create inclusive opportunities for everyone to experience the outdoors.
Andrew Sutherland
Andrew chairs the Board of Mountain Training Limited, our trading subsidiary. He has a business background, finishing his corporate career on the global digital leadership team of Mars, Incorporated. As well as volunteering with MTT he is a national and local volunteer with the Scouts. A lifelong hillwalker, Andrew loves exploring hill country across the UK, and is also a mountain biker and canoeist.
Graham French (BMC)
Graham is a senior lecturer in education and deputy head of the School of Education at Bangor University, where he also leads on sustainability for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. His teaching and research centre on outdoor and adventure education, with a particular interest in how it supports learning and personal development.
He first began working in residential outdoor education centres while studying at Bangor, later instructing across a range of local authority and independent centres in the UK, alongside expedition work in Europe, North America and Africa. After completing a PGCE in Outdoor Activities and Science, Graham taught in secondary schools and colleges across North Wales, London, the Midlands and Chester, holding roles from head of faculty to senior leadership.
Since returning to Bangor in 2013, Graham has led postgraduate programmes in outdoor education and completed a PhD in the field focused on Adventure education pedagogy. He is a Leading practitioner and active member of the Institute for Outdoor Learning, chair of IOL Cymru and AHOEC in Wales, and Vice chair of the Wales Council for Outdoor Learning. He chairs the Outdoor Partnership stakeholder group for North Wales, is non-executive chair of Eryri Actif and vice chair of trustees of the Christian Mountain Centre.
Alongside governance, Graham continues to support the sector as a technical advisor, coach educator and first aid trainer, and sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning.
Nick Giles
Nick is Managing Director of Ordnance Survey’s consumer businesses, and the current Chair of the UK Outdoor Industries Association. He joined OS in 2012 to originally turn around the dwindling consumer business taking this from loss making to 7 figure profitability. During his time at OS, Nick founded both the OS Maps application (the UK’s premier outdoor exploration application with over 8m users and 500,000 subscribers) and the GetOutside initiative giving outdoor inspiration to millions of people. He has reinvigorated OS’s publishing business, expanding guidebooks (including the Uk’s first accessible guidebook), books and reinventing the iconic paper maps. Prior to OS Nick’s career has been through marketing agencies and within the financial services sector running business portfolios of over £300m per annum as well as several non-exec positions.
Nick has a passion for helping more people to get outside more often and is committed to enabling more people to enjoy more enjoyable, accessible, and safe outdoor experiences. He has been a frequent visitor and longtime supporter of Plas y Brenin over the years and is an avid hill walker and (a very!) amateur mountain biker, climber, and paddler. He has a love for watersports and can often be found open water swimming or messing about with boats and boards whenever given the opportunity.
In 2022 he was awarded an OBE for improving the health of the nation for his work in encouraging and inspiring millions of people to reap the benefits of activity in the great outdoors.
Stuart Morris
Stuart Morris is Global Operations & Product Director at World Challenge, a leading provider of youth expeditions. With over twenty years’ experience in the outdoor education sector, he has worked extensively with schools, youth groups, and international partners to deliver safe, high-quality, and impactful adventure experiences. He brings significant expertise in operational strategy, safety management, governance, and risk assessment.
A former Vice Chair of the Expedition Providers Association and current Technical Committee member, Stuart is passionate about the power of outdoor adventure to build resilience, confidence, and connection with nature. Based in North Wales, he is committed to supporting Plas y Brenin’s role as the UK’s National Outdoor Centre.
