Marisa is a Surrey County Councillor since 2006 and a former Borough Council Deputy Leader.
Alongside 20 years of public service, Marisa has run a small business, worked with both international corporations and charities and worked around trade, farming, defence and climate change.
Marisa is a true Conservative who joined the Party in 2003 and she believes in personal freedom, enterprise, low tax, strong defence and small government. She also believes that the agenda around conservation and protecting the countryside sits firmly within the Conservative party and that we are the Party to deliver on these issues.
More about Marisa
Career
Marisa is a business woman who has run her own successful consultancy business advising well known organisations across private sector and third sector helping them solve a range of problems through collaboration and alliances. She has influenced a number of pieces of legislation and has been part of internal Government Expert Panels and co-chairs a Government Task Group. Her main expertise is around environmental issues including food production, farming, nature recovery and animal welfare and she has a strong record of delivery across these issues with clients including blue chip companies and major NGOs. She has led a trade alliance and understands the challenges around global trade and has advocated for UK businesses and farmers in FTA processes.
Marisa has also worked in defence in a role that saw her spend time in NATO and with the European Defence Agency and gain a broad understanding of the defence sector. Marisa worked with the Conservative defence team on the Military Covenant campaign in 2007 and she is subsequently a strong supporter of the Armed Forces and the defence industry.
Political
Marisa was first elected as a councillor on Runnymede Borough Council in 2003 when she was studying at Royal Holloway University. She continued as a Borough Councillor until 2023 and in this time chaired numerous committees from Community Services, Housing, and Environment & Sustainability. Marisa was deputy leader from 2017 to 2021 and was involved in large town regeneration projects, delivering local plans and the COVID response. She also led the work in 2014 around Heathrow expansion and the change to flightpaths defending her constituency and changing the council’s position from being one of clear support to one that demanded no increase in noise and no impact on air quality related to flightpath changes or expansion. This maintained the relationship with the airport, a large employer in her division.
Marisa was elected to Surrey County Council in 2006 and is now Cabinet Member for Environment. Her work in this role covering net zero, the countryside, flooding and nature recovery has been ambitious but also sensible and has been recognised by USwitch and Sustain as making Surrey a leading authority. Marisa was involved in the 2014 floods across her constituency of Egham and has worked on the £600m+ River Thames Scheme ever since, now as lead member for the project at Surrey working in close partnership with the Environment Agency.
Marisa chaired the Surrey Planning Committee for over four years dealing with many large scale, controversial applications from oil and gas extraction in the Surrey Hills, major services on the M25 motorway and large scale waste and recycling facilities.
She has been a school and college governor, and works closely with the Surrey universities often speaking at panels and alongside their representatives on joint environmental initiatives. She has also had roles in Children’s Services and sat for over 8 years as a member of the Surrey Fostering Panel and as Deputy Cabinet Member for Children and Families. She is deeply committed to supporting young people who go through our systems and ensuring better transitions into adulthood which is a project she led when Deputy Cabinet Member.
Education
Marisa spent her early years in International School in Indonesia as her father was an engineer building road infrastructure over there on behalf of the British Government. This was followed by secondary education at a state school in Hampshire into sixth form where she achieved 4 A grade A levels. She then undertook a BA Hons in English Literature and followed that with a Masters in International Relations. She has continued to undertake diplomas in subjects which interest her such as nutrition and has been very involved in education through being a school and college governor and working closely with the University of Surrey and Royal Holloway University.
A Plan for Dorking & Horley
Marisa has a strong track record in delivering for her community and the county of Surrey and so she intends to deliver for Dorking & Horley. You can see her plan for the constituency here
