Mike Davis

Background

About Mike Davis

I have the incredible privilege of leading Global Witness, an amazing investigative campaigning organisation that helps shift the balance of power from big polluting industries to those on the frontlines of the climate emergency.Global Witness uses its mix of foresight, investigative, communications and influencing skills to expose and challenge abuses of power and create opportunities for change that weren’t there before.We aim to use our privilege and position to do what others can’t do, and we take risks that others can’t take. We provide resources and access that others can use to further their own agendas.How did I get into this? As a kid I was fascinated by everything to do with nature. I would adopt bugs as pets, spot birds (a family tradition) and I loved swimming in wild places. When I was an undergraduate student I went to Timor Leste to research youth resistance to the brutal Indonesian military occupation and my short stay there opened my eyes to the importance of the global struggle to protect human rights.These experiences set me on a path to working for the only organisation that was fearlessly taking on harms to the environment, related human rights violations and the abuses of power that underpin them.I first came across Global Witness in the late 1990s. I was working in the British Embassy in Cambodia and two of GW's founders, Patrick Alley and Simon Taylor, came for a meeting with my boss, the ambassador. Around a year after that I worked as an intern in their London office. A couple of years after I stopped my interning, I got my first job with Global Witness back in Cambodia.Since then, I have had amazing opportunities to investigate Cambodia's timber mafia and the generals and drug lords in Myanmar mining jade, advocate for an end to the trade in blood diamonds and conflict minerals and much more besides.What else? I still love swimming, especially in the sea. In my early 40s, and entering classic midlife crisis territory, I started taking it more – maybe too – seriously. After lessons with a coach, I spent a month swimming around the Isle of Man, which is where my Mum’s family - and an array of very shady ancestors - are from. I still attempt one swimming adventure a year. My most recent was a swim round Cornwall's Roseland Peninsula last August.I have recently completed – and greatly enjoyed – the Meyler Campbell Mastered course in business coaching. I currently spend a couple of hours a week coaching clients whose backgrounds range from human rights protection, education and private equity to martial arts.