Simon Festing is

operations director The role of operations director generally encompasses the oversight of operational aspects of company strategy with responsibilities to ensure operation information is supplied to the chief executive and the board of directors as well as externa ...

of the CIBSE.

Education

Festing graduated in 1987 as a

Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United King ...

from the

London Hospital Medical College Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, commonly known as Barts or BL, is a medical and dental school in London, England. The school is part of Queen Mary University of London, a constituent college of the federal University of ...

. He worked as a medical doctor for three years before leaving medicine in 1990 to study Environmental Technology at

Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cul ...

, graduating with an MSc in 1991.

Career

Festing did voluntary work for

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth ...

from 1992 to 1994, before joining

Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split wi ...

in 1994, where he was employed as their transport and wildlife campaigner until 1998. He worked as a campaign leader for

Help the Aged Help the Aged was a United Kingdom based international charity founded in 1961 by Cecil Jackson-Cole and Hugh Faulkner to help disadvantaged older people who were affected by poverty, isolation and neglect. It merged with Age Concern in 2009 ...

from 1998–1999, then became Director of Public Dialogue for the Association of Medical Research Charities, an umbrella group representing 100 medical-research charities, a post he held from 2000 until 2004, when he joined the Research Defence Society (RDS). He was chief executive of Understanding Animal Research (formally RDS) from 2004 until June 2011, when he joined the Society for General Microbiology.

Personal life

Simon Festing is the son of

Michael Festing Michael Festing is a British research scientist best known for his interest in animal testing. He is one of 19 members of the UK's Animal Procedures Committee, which advises the Home Secretary on matters related to animal testing. He was previo ...

, a member of the UK Animal Procedures Committee, and former trustee of the

Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments (FRAME) is a charity based in Nottingham, UK. FRAME promotes consideration of the ethical and scientific issues involved in the use of laboratory animals for medical research, and the ...

. He is divorced and has two children. His former wife is author Ismat (Issy) Festing, who is also a dentist.

Public profile

In December 2005, Festing appeared on a British

reality TV Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

show, ''The Devil's Challenge'', in which he was subjected to procedures used in animal labs, later engaging in an online debate with John Curtin, an

animal-rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

activist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Festing, Simon Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of the London Hospital Medical College Alumni of Imperial College London English activists Animal testing in the United Kingdom