Kate Russell, Managing Director

Kate Russell BSc(Hons) FRICS FAAV ASAg CEnv ARAgS is an agricultural valuer, chartered surveyor and chartered environmentalist with more than 30 years’ experience in rural land management.

Kate’s career began in land agency, working in private practice in Cumbria, Wiltshire and Lincolnshire where she advised farmers and landowners on a wide range of rural land and property issues. For several years she was a lecturer in rural estate management at what was then the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. In 2008 she became a Technical and Policy Adviser with the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, briefing its members across the four countries of the UK, representing the CAAV in policy work and writing technical publications on topics including compulsory purchase, residential property management and renewable energy.

A growing interest in natural capital led Kate to co-found Tellus Natural Capital Ltd in 2021. The business offers advice and support to farmers and landowners across the UK to help them to prepare for and take advantage of emerging new markets in ecosystem services. She is currently advising clients across England in the private, public and voluntary sectors on biodiversity net gain, nutrient neutrality, carbon and natural flood management. In collaboration with other consultants, Kate has developed a natural capital appraisal tool to provide a decision-making framework for rural estates and is now rolling this out. She has worked on a number of grant-funded projects including Landscape Recovery, NEIRF and Protected Sites Strategies projects.

Kate speaks widely to farmer groups, representative bodies and at conferences, including Groundswell, the Agro-forestry Show, Defra’s NEIRF conference and the Oxford Farming Conference debate. She delivers in-house briefings and training events and for several years has delivered a lecture on natural capital to final year students at Reading University. 

Kate sits on the CAAV’s Environment and Land Use Committee and the Agricultural Law Association’s Natural Capital Committee. She is a Council member of the Society of Agriculture, a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Farmers and an Associate of the Royal Agricultural Societies.