Nick Buckland OBE – Non-Executive Director
Eur Ing Nick Buckland OBE has a portfolio career. He chairs and is a member of a number of boards both locally and nationally, in the private, public and voluntary sectors. He lives in Cornwall where he owns and operates an organic livestock farm with his wife Debbie, In Plymouth he chairs three schools, the Theatre Royal, the Plymouth Waterfront Partnership and KARST (Plymouth’s largest visual arts facility). He is also a Trustee of the Peninsula Medical Foundation and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. He chairs an independent school in North Devon and an FE College in Hertfordshire. Nationally he chairs the Soil Association Certification Board, Future First (an education charity) and the Riverford Organics Trust. Nick is also the Deputy Chair of South West Water’s WaterShare+ Panel and is a member of the GWR Advisory Board as well as Travel Watch SW.
Having previously spent over 20 years in the IT industry, Nick is an acknowledged expert in strategic planning, audit, governance, review processes, quality and he has worked closely with many board and board committees. He was Deputy Chair of the South West Regional Development Agency and a founding member of the governing board of the Technology Strategy Board – the government’s innovation agency. He was Pro Chancellor and former chair of Governors of University of Plymouth, one of the largest Universities in the UK and for five years was an External Member, Governance, of the Council of the National Trust.
He holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Bath, is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, the Institute of Maths and it’s Applications, the Royal Society of Arts, the Institute of Engineering and Technology and the Chartered Management Institute. He is a member of the Institute of Directors and the Royal Institution. He holds a Dip RSA, is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Information Systems Practitioner, Chartered Manager and a European Engineer.
He was appointed OBE in the 2009 New Year Honours List for services to Innovation & Technology and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Technology by Plymouth University in 2013.
Nick and his wife have one son, three dogs, and five cats as well as numerous sheep, a herd of Ruby Red cattle and Gloucester Old Spot pigs. He is an avid fan of all forms of theatre and travel and enjoys cricket at Lords as a member of the MCC.
