Nick Bubb was appointed Chief Executive of Tusk in January 2024. Prior to taking on this role he was the Business Development Director at Fauna & Flora International (FFI), one of the world’s oldest wildlife conservation charities. He worked with FFI from 2012 (initially as an ambassador and then full time from 2014) until the end of 2023. Alongside a decade of traditional development work, winning significant funding for a broad variety of programmes, Nick also led donor expeditions across multiple FFI project sites in Africa, South East Asia, Australasia, Central America and Northern Europe.
During late 2021 and 2022 at the tail end of the Covid pandemic, Nick worked part time for FFI and sailed from the UK to New Zealand with his family. During this wonderful family adventure, they visited numerous FFI project sites and spent time with remote island communities. Clear objectives of the voyage for the family, were developing their understanding of how climate change is impacting low lying island nations and deepening their knowledge of marine conservation initiatives.
Prior to working in conservation, Nick graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Exeter in 2001 and is a former British Universities Dinghy Sailing Champion. For the following 10 years he worked as a sailor & engineer with various high performance sailing campaigns. Highlights included sailing as a watch captain in the 2008/9 round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race & multiple solo trans-Atlantic yacht races. He was also one of the youngest people ever, to successfully race non-stop around the world, after completing the HSBC Oryx Quest in 2005.
In 2010, after nearly ten years of professional ocean racing and over 100,000 sea miles, Nick began a career in finance to broaden his business knowledge. He took a short sabbatical in 2013 to skipper the ‘Shackleton Epic’, which retraced Sir Ernest Shackleton’s famous voyage from Antarctica to South Georgia. Shortly after this expedition, Nick decided to follow his passion for the natural world and left his career in Investment Management to start work for FFI. Nick is both a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Member of the Explorers Club of New York.
Throughout his work in conservation, Nick has continued to sail at the highest level whenever he can but nowadays, strictly as an amateur. In 2023 this included racing the iconic double handed Rolex Fastnet Race and the Transat Jacques Vabre, with Pip Hare of Vendee Globe fame, on her foiling Open 60 yacht.
