Until stepping down in July 2022, Sharon Redrobe served as Twycross Zoo’s CEO and zoological director for more than 12 years. As well as seeing the zoo through two years of Covid-19 closures, Redrobe helped to secure funding to open the Gruffalo Discovery Land, as well as the £19.9m grant for the new research and conservation centre. She also opened the UK’s largest chimpanzee home in 2018.
In a statement, board chair Geoff Hoon said Redrobe leaves Twycross Zoo “having delivered significant developments”. He said Redrobe “certainly leaves the zoo in better shape than when she arrived”.
“The last 10 years have seen real change at the charity during which she was the CEO – from the zoo’s initial turnaround and restructure to achieving its highest visitor numbers ever by 2019, having rolled out a development plan which included the new giraffe area, butterfly house and lemur walkthrough, soft play, wet play, Gibbon Forest, and Chimpanzee Eden and through launching our TZ2030 Vision in 2019,” Hoon said.
“This significantly raised the profile of Twycross Zoo.”
Redrobe strongly believes in the role that modern zoos must play in conservation. She also thinks that science-led solutions to saving wildlife, together with engaging the public, are essential to the success of a ‘One World’ future. As well as a lifelong fascination with wildlife, Redrobe boasts more than 25 years’ experience of working in academia, the charity sector and business.
Speaking to blooloop in 2019, she said: “Twycross Zoo is an internationally important site. Our primate collection is the only one in the UK with all four great apes, plus gibbons, and extensive collections. So we are starting to see more interest, and we need to start building facilities that recognise that international significance.”
“We need to educate the public that that is the role of the modern zoo: we are conservation organisations,” she added.