RUMA Officeholders
Meet our Officeholders
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RUMA Members
RUMA Chair
James Russell FRCVS is a veterinary surgeon and consultant who graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 2002 and later completed a postgraduate diploma in Production Animal and Livestock Medicine. He worked as a farm animal vet in the Midlands and Staffordshire for many years before moving into consultancy, with a particular focus on infectious disease and biosecurity, shaped by his experience during the 2007 Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak and subsequent bluetongue cases.
A prominent leader in the profession, he served as President of the British Veterinary Association in 2020–2021 and later as Senior Vice President. He has also held roles including Director at CHECS, Red Tractor board member, and President of Vetlife. He was appointed Chair of RUMA Agriculture in February 2026.
RUMA Deputy Chair
Bryan Lovegrove is the RUMA Agriculture Deputy Chair. He has been involved in the agricultural industry and membership associations all his working life. He was appointed as Secretary General to the Animal Health Distributors Association AHDA in May 2016. AHDA members employ specially trained and qualified staff (SQPs) known as Animal Medicines Advisors to prescribe animal medicines classified as available without a diagnosis requirement.
RUMA Secretary General
Chris has been immersed in the livestock sector throughout his career and has practical experience from being a farmer in his own right in that time. He spent 16 years working for the National Sheep Association (NSA) and during that time was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship to study the developing technologies in the sheep industries of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. He joined the Beef and Lamb levy board (EBLEX which became AHDB) in 2003 and established the Better Returns Programme (BRP) as an engaging approach to delivering farmer focused technical messages. In 2017 he was awarded the prestigious George Hedley award by the NSA for his contribution to the sheep industry. When he left AHDB in 2017 he was the Director of Knowledge Exchange across all of the levy sectors. He then took up post as RUMA Secretary General, a role which gives a unique insight into the responsible use of medicines across the UK livestock sectors.
RUMA Treasurer
Tim is a Past Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) and remains Policy Director to the Association. He was awarded an MBE for services to the dairy industry in January 2008 Queen’s New Year Honours list. He is Executive Director for Cattle Health Certification Standards UK Limited (CHeCS), an accreditation body for the various cattle health schemes for non-notifiable diseases (BVD, Lepto, IBR and Johnes). Until late 1999 he was Chief Executive of Holstein UK & Ireland, the newly created organisation arising from the integration of the two black and white breed societies after some 54 years apart. Prior to that, he was Chief Executive of the Holstein Friesian Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He remains Executive Secretary to the National Cattle Association (Dairy) – a federation of 11 UK dairy breed societies. He was also Chief Agricultural Adviser for BOCM Silcock/BOCM PAULS LTD for 10 years from 1983. Before taking the breed society position, he was Institute Business Manager for the Institute of Grassland & Environmental Research (IGER) at Aberystwyth charged with marketing the institute on a worldwide basis. He is also past Executive Chairman of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and Chairman of the Institute of Agricultural Management. Tim is also involved in a whole host of other agricultural organisations in addition to RUMA. He is a Visiting Fellow of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester and chairs the College’s School of Agriculture Advisory Board; is a Governor of the Silcock Fellowship for Livestock Research and a Trustee of the Society of Biology and Chair of its College of Elected Members. He is a member of the VMD Veterinary Residues Committee and serves on the Food Standards Agency Advisory Committee on Animal Feeding stuffs (ACAF). He is a Non-Executive Director for Lantra, the sector skills council for the land-based sector and is Chairman of the (English) Cattle Health & Welfare Group. In 2014 he was appointed Chairman of the Farm Animal Genetic Resources Committee.
Special Projects Co-ordinator
Gwyn manages special projects, including the development of the next set of responsible antibiotic use targets by the Targets Task Force.
Gwyn is the former Chair of RUMA. He was born into a hill farming family in Snowdonia, North Wales. trained as an engineer before returning to agriculture, running the beef and sheep units at Moulton College before moving to West Sussex where he operated a 350-cow dairy herd for over 30 years. Among other roles, Mr Jones has served as vice president of the NFU, chair of COPA-Cogeca Animal Health and Welfare Working Group, chair of AHDB Dairy and member of the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC). He now sits on Defra’s Animal Health and Welfare Board for England and is vice chair of the UK’s new Ruminant Health & Welfare organisation. Gwyn is also a member of The University of Surrey School of Veterinary Medicine External Liaison and Advisory Committee.
Communications Officer
Mary is a multi-award-winning PR, Communications and Marketing expert with over 20 years’ experience working across charitable and commercial sectors and has a particular specialism across veterinary and animal welfare sectors.
She has worked across a range of marketing disciplines during her career and has overseen the delivery of the full spectrum of paid, earned and owned marketing tactics. She is a member of the CIPR and holds Mini MBA’s in Brand and Marketing.
She has led and developed a wide range of teams across a variety of sectors during her career and has also guest lectured to marketing students at Birmingham City University.
Outside of work Mary is a Trustee for RCVS Knowledge as well as a Trustee for a charity that helps prevent homelessness.