A short, light biography of Charles de Haes - former Director General of WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature)

Hi, my name is Nick. My brothers and I would love to work with you on a quick, short biography of my dad, Charles. Charles is a natural story-teller and has had a colourful life, growing up in Nazi-occupied Belgium, moving to South Africa and coming of age in apartheid, setting up enterprises across Africa (one business trip got him involved in a plane crash), and then running WWF for 18 years in collaboration with Prince Phillip. He is now in his 80s and has had a number of significant medical scares in the last few years. We would love to capture his life story before it is too late. END-GOAL - a biography (not ghost-written autobiography) that is light and quick to read - around 50-75 pages - and includes some of the major events in his life and fun anecdotes from each one. The audience for the book will be family. As such, while we are obviously pushing for high quality, the book does not have to go through the same rigorous editorial process as would be required by a publisher TIMING - time is of the essence in getting this project complete - we are worried that something might happen with my dad's health. Therefore we would aim to have the project complete my the end of March. If you're interested in the project but would be unable to meet this date, please still suggest an alternate completion date. LOGISTICS - He can probably do about 2-3 hours of interviews a day. We estimate that collecting most of the main moments in his life should take 2-3 weeks at this pace. If you are writing in tandem with the interviews, we estimate it would then take another 1-2 weeks to write and edit (remember - it does not have to be publisher-ready material). All-in-all it would probably be about a month-long full-time project. What do you think? These are just estimates - and it's your writing process - so we can be very flexible here. LOCATION - He responds very well to face-to-face contact and is not that technologically adept. Ideally, you would be able to come to Nyon, Switzerland (where my parents live) during the interview phase of the project. There are also many photo albums and documents that could be of interest to you as you progress through the project. Your flights, accommodation and meals would of course be covered. However, again, if you would prefer to run the entire process over Zoom, we can be flexible here if necessary. He is an incredibly interesting and sweet man - you'll love working with him! Here's something you can look at to get an initial view on his life: [login to view URL]