Speakers 29.04.2024

Cornelia Frentz leads the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund’s ESG team. Among other things, her team conducts the ESG due diligence of potential investment targets, carries out the fund’s ESG monitoring and accounting, writes ESG reports and takes care of compliance with regulatory requirements.

Cornelia is an equity investment professional with 10+ years’ experience in the management of shareholdings and strategic projects in Europe and the Americas with a focus on the financial services industry. She is experienced as board member and in the realm of political decision-making. She majored in commercial law and international business.

Robert Mavsar is the Director of the European Forest Institute, responsible for the overall leadership and strategic development of the Institute. With a strong international track record spanning over 25 years, he specializes in forest research development, bioeconomy, economic valuation of ecosystem services, and innovative business models for forest products. He holds a PhD in economics and an MSc in forestry.

Gert-Jan Nabuurs is Professor of European forest resources at Wageningen University and Research, WUR. His background is in European scale forest resource analyses, and management under climate change with both scientific aspects as well as outreach to the forest sector. He started the work with the EFISCEN model, the European forest resource, forest management and carbon balance model. Applications are in wood availability, effects of forest management, biodiversity restoration, climate change impacts and CO2 sequestration. Further he was Coordinating Lead Author of the Agriculture and Forestry chapter in the IPCC 6AR. He was Assistant Director of the European Forest Institute in Finland from 2009-2012. He launched the climate smart forestry idea at COP21 in Paris. Recently the climate smart forestry network for the EU was launched.

Helga Pülzl is Assistant Director for Policy Support of the European Forest Institute and responsible for the Policy Support Facility and its Trust Fund. Her main research interests are in European and international forest governance and policy change, bioeconomy perceptions and sustainability indicators development. She coordinates the IUFRO Working Party 9.05.01 on bioeconomy policy and holds a Phd and master’s degree in political science from the University of Vienna.

Diana is the Head of the Bioeconomy Programme. She has a PhD in Sustainability Impact Assessment from the University of Freiburg, and an MSc in Forestry and Wood Industry from the Technical University of Munich. She was previously Principal Scientist and Team Leader for the “Sustainable Bioeconomy” team at EFI. She has been working at EFI since 2009. Prior to that she was research assistant at the University of Freiburg, at Skogforsk and the Technical University of Munich.

Diana’s research interests include topics related to systemic, wholistic and cross-sectoral approaches to sustainability, circular bioeconomy and innovation within the planetary boundaries. She is active in the EFI’s Bioregions Facility, as well as in multiple EU projects (main focus on environmental and socio-economic performance, or tools for ecosystem services/natural capital), as well as several other smaller projects. She is also active in regional and international initiatives and networks, supporting the implementation of a circular bioeconomy.

Esa-Jussi Viitala is a Senior Scientist in Bioeconomy Policies and Markets Research Group at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE). He has over 25-year experience in forest sector and land use studies. His special expertise lies in forest and natural resource economics, industrial economics, forest industry, forest policy, state aid, sustainable financing and natural capital. He holds a PhD in Agriculture and Forestry (Forest Economics) and MSc in Social Sciences (Economics) and Agriculture and Forestry (Forest Ecology). Esa-Jussi Viitala serves also as a member of the European Commission’s platform on Sustainable Finance.

As Head of Illiquid Assets Forestry at MEAG, Wendelin von Gravenreuth is responsible for the strategy, acquisitions and portfolio management of the forest asset class. He has been with MEAG since 2014 and holds an MSc. in Forest Sciences from the Technical University of Munich. Previously, he worked for the Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF) in Brussels, Belgium, and for the European Forest Institute (EFI) in Joensuu, Finland.

MEAG is the asset manager of Munich Re and ERGO and has currently around €340 billion assets under management.