Meet the Team: Senior Consultant, Nina Hees
Tell us about your career so far, how did it lead you to where you are today?
I started my professional career as a graduate environmental economist in the natural capital team at AECOM, and have been in nature consultancy ever since. Over the past four years, I have grown from graduate to senior consultant. It's been a natural progression throughout my previous roles - as I gained new and deeper experience, I grew my niche expertise. I've been motivated by a love for nature and have sought roles which help give a voice to the natural environment. I have done a lot of field work, site visits and travel in previous roles which was particularly motivating at that stage of my career, and helped me to learn practically.
Additionally, working with supportive colleagues and subject-matter experts, gaining project experience, learning about organisations across the sector, and attending events, I have become increasingly aware of initiatives in this field and refined my interests in the type of work I want to pursue. At AECOM it was a good entry point as a big organisation, with lots of resources - especially as a junior.
Following this, I was looking for more hands on, biodiversity and international experience which is what I found. And then I sought a smaller team and more innovative organisation and that brought me to join Accelar in 2025. I've always been in the natural capital/ nature/ ecosystem services space - but have found myself more involved with the nature finance side of things at Accelar.
“I've been motivated by a love for nature and have sought roles which help give a voice to the natural environment.”
What does your role at Accelar involve and what do you find most rewarding about it?
Aside from the core project management and coordination side of my role, I work largely on scoping ecosystem service and nature market opportunities from land use change, quantifying environmental uplift, producing blended finance and business models.
From these aspects, the most rewarding is when calculations or research just work out as you want it (although this is rare!). In other words, when the results give you the best outcomes for nature, finance and community. Additionally, building client relationships and supporting clients and associated partners, including farmers and landowners, with complex challenges and nature finance solutions is highly valuable.
What do you value most about being part of the Accelar team?
It’s a very supportive team who are there for you when you need them, everyone is cooperative and collaborative which creates a positive work environment. The overall culture is dynamic and adaptive - because we are relatively small our processes are constantly evolving and improving which is fun. I love being surrounded by clever people to learn from and share experiences with.
“It’s a very supportive team who are there for you when you need them, everyone is cooperative and collaborative which creates a positive work environment.”
So far, which moments or achievements stand out as highlights of your time at Accelar?
We have achieved getting some pretty big deliverables over the line and it’s rewarding to develop products that clients actively use. For example, we developed a nature impact assessment tool to score assets and green infrastructure interventions for a client, which is actively being used on-the-ground. We have also conducted multiple business optioneering workshops where, working collaboratively with clients, we unpack opportunities associated with proposed land use changes.
Where would you love to see Accelar heading in the future?
I would definitely love to see the landscape recovery projects we’re supporting go into implementation and be there alongside that process - supporting with successful nature brokering, credit sales etc. I would be very proud to witness the projects we have worked so hard on in the development phase move into implementation and hopefully see real environmental transformation. I'd like to see impact on the ground and leave a tangible legacy!
