Tilda

Bowden

Director

Together with my husband Des Bowden, we are Directors of Oceans Alive Trust. I am the Director of Education and run our extensive education program which includes gap year expeditions, internships and an exciting collaboration with the African Leadership University (ALU).

Oceans Alive is a not-for-profit marine conservation organisation based on Kenya’s north coast. I wrote and directed the short film ‘Empty to Plenty Kenya’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZYLwWPK_9g) and have put together various short films for impact for Oceans Alive. I co-facilitated a 'Film for Impact' workshop with Paula Kahumbu and Wildlife Direct at Kuruwitu in Dec 2022.

I was born and educated in London and gained a BA (Hons) in Humanities from Brighton University and an MSt (Masters) in Creative Writing from Cambridge University. After graduating, I worked in Los Angeles in the film industry, then returned to London to work in television, on feature films and in corporate communication. In 1995, I moved to Nairobi to work as Broadcast Strategist and then Head of Programming for Kenya Television Network. While at KTN I worked on a number of in-house productions and devised the talk show, ‘The Summit.’

I left KTN to set up a communication agency, Way Ahead Advertising. The agency morphed into Zenith PR with Safaricom (Vodafone) as its main client and devised and published a quarterly magazine for Safaricom, The Option.

I have worked as a copywriter and communication consultant for several large-scale commercial projects in East Africa as well as setting up a media company in the UAE.

After graduating from Cambridge in 2018, I joined a small volunteer team teaching prisoners in Langata Womens Prison, Nairobi. I taught Creative Writing and as well as a broad range of creative output our writers group was highly commended and shortlisted for a play we jointly wrote for the BBC World Service International Radio Play, 2020.

I am driven to serve the restoration and preservation of the environement and always look for ways to support and inspire people to make the best choices for our precious natural world.