Herbert Jöbstl

Herbert Jöbstl has been working for the wood industry for 43 years. 25 years ago he joined Stora Enso and worked in various positions for the company and currently as a Head of Operations & Supply Chain for Stora Enso Wood Products. Earlier he was 13 years responsible for the Central European part from Stora Enso Wood Products. Since November 2020 Herbert is Chairman of the Austrian Wood Industry Association, before he was for 6 years Chairman of the Austrian Sawmilling Industry. During summer 2016 he became a Board Member of the European Organisation of the Sawmilling Industry (EOS). Since June 2021 he is President of EOS. Herbert is 59 years old, married, has three children and lives in Southern Austria. He likes skiing and hiking through the forests and the beautiful mountains in his home area.

Keith Fryer

A Past President of the UK TTF and a Board Member of CEI Bois, where he also Chairs the Trade Working Group, Keith currently operates a merchanting business in Berkshire, West of London. His previous enterprise was a timber merchanting operation in Central London and prior to that he worked within the softwood importing and joinery sectors.

Morten Bergsten

Morten Bergsten has been working with softwood, import/export for 35 years. Today major shareholder and chairman at Bergsten Timber A/S, and Bergsten Timber international ApS. Before that, 23 years with Dalhoff Larsen & Horneman (DLH). Morten is also member of the board at ETTF representing Softwood, and furthermore board member at The Danish Timber Trade Federation (DTTF).

Johan Freij

Johan Freij is a Senior Forest Expert and Adviser at Danske Bank Sweden. He has founded and established the Forest & Agriculture segment in Danske Bank and is also well known in the Nordic forest sector as the analyst and chief editor for Danske Banks newsletter and the webinars Forest & Economy.
Johan has a MSc in Forestry and a degree in Business Adminstration. He has worked with forest related matters during his whole professional life. He has been in leading positions in the forest industry, -science, -finance, -M&A and -consulting sectors, in companies such as Billerud, Mellanskog, SkogForsk, LRF Konsult and Danske Bank. Johan has also managed a number of very large M&A transactions for forest land in Northern Europe.
Johan has a true passion for the forest sector. He loves to spend his free time at his small farm for trout fishing and deer hunting with his dachshunds.

Sami Pastila

Sami has over 15 years of experience in global wood sourcing and forest industries. He has master’s degree in both forestry and economics.
Sami works in the Forest and Biomass practice area of AFRY Management Consulting (former Pöyry). AFRY provides engineering, design, digital and advisory services with global reach to accelerate the transition towards a sustainable society. AFRY Management Consulting works globally to address the challenges and opportunities mainly in the energy and bioindustry sectors.
Sami’s work concentrates on strategic analysis and business development in the forest value chain, with a focus on upstream part of the value chain. He has worked in projects in all continents and with a versatile clientele including the leading forest industry companies. Assignments have included e.g. feasibility studies, M&A, wood and biomass market research and outlooks as well as industrial wood and biomass sourcing and availability related projects.

Paul F. Jannke

Paul Jannke is a founder and Principal of Forest Economic Advisors LLC, the premier source for North American wood products analysis and information.
Paul’s main area of expertise is North American lumber markets. Having spent almost 30 years' analyzing lumber markets and providing reliable, insightful forecasts, Paul is the industry's top economic analyst.
Paul is the author of FEA's Lumber Advisor, Lumber Quarterly Forecasting Service, and Global Log and Lumber Service publications. These publications are the industry's leading sources for ongoing forecasts and analysis of the North American and Global lumber markets. In addition, Paul has co-authored numerous studies on the international lumber, engineered lumber, timber, bioenergy, and panel industries.

Eiji Sahara

March 1991 Joined HANWA CO.,LTD.
April 1991- March 1994 Ferrous Raw materials div.
April 1994 – Jan 2001 Lumber div.
Feb 2001 – Mar 2004 Vancouver branch in Canada.
April 2004 – Lumber div.
April 2015 General Manager of Lumber div.
April 2017 Corporate officer of Lumber div.

Silvio Schüler

Silvio Schüler is head of the Department for Forest Growth, Silviculture and Genetics at the Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW) in Vienna since 2017. He and his team are responsible for developing strategies for sustainable forest management in Austria with regard to climate change. Silvio coordinated several national and international projects on the utilization of forest genetic resources to adapt forests to climate change as well as on quantifying future forest ecosystem services. This includes studies on drought resistance in conifers, on the potential of assisted migration to improve productivity and forest resilience. Silvio serves as member of the scientific advisory board of the German Thünen Institute and the Nature Conservation Group BIOSA. He is also engaged in supporting forest practitioners and policy makers in developing guidelines and policies for climate resilient forests.

Mathias Fridholm

Mathias has 25 years’ experience from the sawmill industry in various sales, production and business development positions. For 12 years he lived and worked in Hong Kong to develop the Chinese and S.E. Asian markets for wood from Sweden. He currently works as Senior Advisor of Swedish Wood which is the trade association for Swedish sawmills.

Dr. Ewald Rametsteiner

Dr. Ewald Rametsteiner is Deputy Director of the Forestry Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). As largest specialized UN Agency dealing with forests, FAO collects data on forests and forest products and supports governments world-wide on related sustainable production and consumption aspects. Before joining FAO, he worked for the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the inter-governmental “Forest Europe” process and the European Forest Institute. He holds a PhD in forestry from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.

Katharina Lehmann

Katharina Lehmann is the fifth generation to head up the family-owned company Blumer Lehmann as CEO and Delegate of the Board of Directors. The former sawmill has always been closely linked with timber as a material and has grown continuously since it was founded in 1875. Blumer Lehmann now employs around 450 people at locations in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg and is one of the leading companies in timber and silo construction as well as in the Swiss timber industry.
Katharina Lehmann is actively involved in the Swiss timber industry on a national level as well as in numerous timber industry projects. She is committed to the sustainable management of tropical forests and sees wood as the embodiment of sustainability.

Silvia Melegari

Silvia Melegari was appointed Joint Secretary for the European Confederation of the Woodworking Industries (CEI-Bois) and of the European Organisation of the Sawmill Industry (EOS) on the 14th September, 2020. Since 2015 Mrs Melegari has been working for EOS and advocating for the interest of the European mechanical wood industries. From the beginning of 2023, Mrs Melegari has been also appointed member of the FAO Advisory Committee on Sustainable Forest-based Industries (ACSFI). Having concluded her studies at the Law University in Modena with a final specialisation in political relations between States and Catholic Church, Mrs Melegari went on to obtain also an University Master’s Degree in Advanced European Studies at the European College of Parma. Previously, Mrs Melegari worked for the European Panel Federation (EPF), where she was holding the position of Environment & Research Adviser. Overall, she has an extensive experience in the promotion of wood as environmental and sustainable material and in European affairs & correlated advocacy actions.

Dr. Georg Rappold, MBA

Dr. Georg Rappold started his professional career in 2001 as head of the secretariat "Austrian Forest Dialogue" in the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management. In this function he laid the foundation for an internationally recognised participatory policy formulation process - the Austrian Forest Dialogue. In addition, in his function as an expert on forest and sustainability policy, he represented Austria in various European, international and multilateral bodies and processes, including the European Council Working Group on Forestry, the Standing Forestry Committee, the UN Forest Forum, the Forest Committee of the FAO, the UNECE, Forest Europe, etc. In 2015, Dr Georg Rappold was appointed to the office of the Directorate-General for Forests and Sustainability. As Head of the Strategy, Controlling and Communication Division, he was responsible for the strategic issues of national and international forest and sustainability policy, public relations and communication, as well as science and research programs. In 2020, he was appointed Head of the "Wood Value Chain" Department at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management. He holds an MBA (Public Management) from the University of Salzburg Business School (Austria) and a PhD (Natural Sciences) from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (Austria).

Petri Heino

Mr. Petri Heino is a forester by profession; he studied forest products marketing at the University of Helsinki. After completing his Master’s degree he started a long career in the promotion of Finnish wood construction, lobbying for organizations such as Finnish Timber Council and the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. He was also engaged in projects of the Nordic Timber Council.
Heino then worked as a Research Manager at the Kymenlaakso University of Applied sciences for 4 years. The focus of the R&D was on restorative design solutions with wood. Heino is currently, since 2016, responsible for the National wood building program at the Ministry of the Environment of Finland.
Recently Heino has acted as the initiator of the European Wood Policy Platform, whose task is to support public officials in enabling the increased use of wood in their respective country or region.

Gerd Ebner

Gerd Ebner is editor-in-chief of the Holzkurier and its English online version Timber-Online. He is also responsible for two other B2B media. In total, his team includes twelve journalists - the largest editorial team covering the wood industry in Europe.
Ebner studied forestry in Vienna and has been with Holzkurier for over 25 years, since 2002 as editor-in-chief. Timber-Online developed under his responsibility. 2017 Ebner launched the data visualisation Datacube. All available market data - some of it dating back to the 1950s - can be accessed by online users at any time.
In his private life, Ebner is a world-class long-distance cyclist.