Board members

Leire Barañano has a PhD in Business Management, Innovation and Knowledge from the University of the Basque Country (2022), and is the director of the NEIKER technology centre, which offers innovative solutions to the agri-food and forestry sector, and transforms scientific knowledge into contributions of value for companies. From NEIKER, she promotes, among others, the Basque Country's forestry bioeconomy strategy to encourage the generation of new added value opportunities based on the use of biological resources and sustainable production processes.

Maggie Charnley is the Head of the UK government’s International Forests Unit, directing a joint team in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Maggie’s team leads on international forest strategy with a particular focus on supporting the actions taken by tropical forest countries. This includes in relation to International Climate Finance, as well as forest carbon markets, the UNFCCC framework for forests (REDD+), innovative approaches to mobilising private finance, tackling deforestation in supply chains, and forest governance. Her team also leads on the follow up to the forest commitments made in Glasgow at COP26 in 2021. Maggie is the senior official for the UK’s interests in the Central African Forests Initiative (CAFI), of which the UK is currently chair. 

Maggie has twenty years’ experience working in international environment policy, building on a degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia. She took on leadership of the forests team in October 2020, having spent the previous 17 years in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) covering a wide range of portfolios with an environment, land use and agriculture focus, both domestic and international. 

Prof. Dr. Verena C. Griess is a full professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Her work focuses on landscape level forest planning, and the development of decision support systems to forecast forest development over strategic timeframes, with a specific focus on including risks.

Verena’s work is based on knowledge from multiple disciplines, including forestry, operations research, decision theory, risk management, financial mathematics, and remote sensing.

She has extensive working experience in North America, Europe, and Central America, and has overseen projects in Asia and Africa.

Professor Emeritus at University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Docent at UH. 40 years forestry and land use experience, e.g. CEO of Metsähallitus, Director of Forestry at UPM, CEO of Bonvesta Ltd. Research interests include decision analysis, multifunctional forestry, forest planning. >350 publications, H-index (GS) 55. Scientific Achievement Award by IUFRO. Board member of A. Ahlström Real Estates Ltd. Positions of trust have included e.g. Chair of the Foundation for European Forest Research, Vice-President of EUSTAFOR.

Róbert Marušák is a Full professor of forest management at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (Czechia), dean of Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences (FLD). His research focuses on closer-to-nature and integrated forest management, optimization models of forest ecosystem management, forest inventory and on assessment of the alternative management strategies and their impact on wood-supply chain. He is head of Forest Risk Research Centre at FLD focused on understanding the mechanisms of forest disturbance by various factors, such as drought, wind, bark beetles, and fire, assessing the development of forest ecosystems under climate change, and designing appropriate strategies and measures. 

Elena Paoletti is a Research Director at CNR-IRET. She is forest ecophysiologist with research and teaching experience on air pollution, climate change and vegetation in many countries; member of the Board of the European Forest Institute (EFI), and incoming Vice President of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO); Editor-in-Chief of Science of the Total Environment; active mentor of young scientists from all over the world; published 270 peer-reviewed papers (h-index 57).

Sanja Perić is a director of Croatian Forest Research Institute, a scientific advisor with permanent position and assistant professor. Her main research interests are in the field of forest silviculture, nursery production and adaptation of forests to climate change.

She is a member of EFI board, a national IUFRO representative for the Republic of Croatia, a member of scientific board of Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and head of the Forestry Section, vice president of Croatian Academy of Forestry Sciences and member of Croatian Forestry Society Board. From 2001 till 2005 she was Head of the Department for Ecology and Silviculture, from 2004 till 2006 a President of the Scientific Panel of CFRI and a member of numerous commissions of Ministry of agriculture. 

Sanja holds a master’s degree and a PhD in silviculture from the University of Zagreb.

Margarida Tomé is a Full Professor at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa with an extensive research experience in the areas of Natural Resources Inventory, Forest Growth Modelling, Forest management, Non-wood Forest Products and Ecosystem Services. She was coordinator of Division 4.0 of IUFRO between 2005 and 2014. She was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Forest Institute (2000 – 2004) and President of the European Institute of Cultivated Forests (2002 – 2006).