Speaker Bios

Gunnar Olofsson
President and CEO
Sveaskog AB

Mr. Olofsson has been the President and CEO of the Sveaskog AB since 2004. Previous employment includes Head of Forestry at Sveaskog, President of Persson Invest Forestry and Senior Administrative Officer at the Swedish Forest Agency. Mr Olofsson is also Chariman of Sveaskog's subsidiary Sveaskog Nature Experiences AB, board member of Inatur Nordic and member of the Business Council at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). He has an MSc in Forestry.

Ben Gunneberg, BScFor, MICFor, MBA,
Secretary General
PEFC Council

A graduate from Aberdeen University, a chartered forester and a business graduate from the Open University, Ben has spent most of his working life in Forestry. His career started as a forestry contractor and after university he worked as a researcher at the University of Wales, Bangor in Forest Economics.
Thereafter he worked for the Timber Growers Association in the UK in various posts covering all technical and policy aspects of forestry. As Technical Director he became actively involved in the development of forest certification schemes and became the PEFC Council's Secretary General at its inauguration in Paris in June 1999.
In 2000 he relocated to Luxembourg to set up the PEFC Council's international headquarters. Since then the PEFC Council has developed into an international organisation with 31 member countries around the globe with more than 191 million hectares of PEFC certified forests.

Mary C. Blackburn
Senior Consultant and Director Chlor-Alkali & Vinyls
CMAI

Mary is a chemical engineering graduate from the University of Texas with more than 26 years of experience in the petrochemical industry. Mary's career with Oxirane/Arco Chemical included project engineering, process engineering, olefins production planning, and product movement coordination. With Lyondell Petrochemical Co., Mary developed Lyondell's petrochemical market research function and later added Customer Service to her supervisory responsibilities.
With 10 years of experience in the petrochemical industry, Mary joined CMAI in April 1990 as a general consultant. For about five years, Mary had responsibility for polyester raw materials (C8 chain and ethylene glycol) as part of the Aromatics Consultant Service. Also during that time, she authored the World EO/EG Analysis and the World Xylenes/Terephthalates Strategic Review.
In 1996, Mary accepted the challenge of managing the conversion of CMAI's extensive database to a new software. In 1997, Mary transferred into the position of Director, Chlor-Alkali & Vinyls Studies, where she is one of the consultants supporting CMAI's services chlor-alkali, vinyls, and soda ash. These responsibilities include Chlor-Alkali Consultant Service, China Chlor-alkali Service, World Chlor-Alkali Analysis, World Vinyls Analysis, World Soda Ash Analysis, and project work focussed on the chlor-alkali, sodium chlorate, vinyls, and soda ash areas.

Robert Barnden
Global Forest, Paper & Packaging Leader
PricewaterhouseCoopers

Robert Barnden became the Global Leader, Forest, Paper and Packaging Practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP on July 1, 2005. He is based in Stockholm, Sweden and is the lead audit partner on various forest, paper and packaging clients.
He has in-depth knowledge of the industry and provides strategic direction to the industry practice.
Robert has 35 years experience in advising international companies in mergers, acquisitions and disposals, capital markets transactions and corporate reporting.
Robert is an Authorized Public Accountant in Sweden and a Fellow member of the Institute Chartered Accountant in England & Wales.
Outside the work he enjoys family activities, as well as travel and a range of sports.

Brad Kalil
Director of Tissue
RISI

Brad Kalil joined RISI in 2008. In his role as Director of Tissue, Brad serves as product manager for RISI's tissue economic analysis and news and is a major contributor to several of its reports. RISI's tissue coverage, recognized worldwide as the most comprehensive tissue information available, includes World Tissue Business Monitor Service, Outlook for World Tissue Business, U.S. Tissue Monthly Data, an annual World Tissue Capacity Report, and a World Tissue Annual Historical Data report.
Prior to joining RISI, Brad spent seven years at Weyerhauser, Inc. as the Business Intelligence Manager to the Cellulose Fibers business and as the Research Manager to the Market and Economics Research corporate group. As Business Intelligence Manager, Brad identified, analyzed, and communicated customer and pulp marketing information and supported the sales force in educating customers on market movements. In addition, he pinpointed and commercialized new market, service, and product opportunities.
Brad's career within research and analysis stretches back to 1987; he previously served as Research Director, Director of Market Research, and Vice President for other organizations in Washington state.
Brad received his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Washington. He resides in Seattle, Washington with his two children.

Kurt Schaefer
Vice President, Fiber
RISI

Kurt's responsibilities at RISI are focused on the area of wood pulp. He publishes a monthly commentary and forecast on the world pulp market, World Pulp Monthly. He also produces to RISI's long-term pulp forecasts, focusing on variables such as pulp consumption, capacity, production, production costs, and pricing. Just prior to joining RISI, Kurt was Director of Pulp & Paper Forecaster. As the sole economist working on Forecaster, he was responsible for forecasting prices and market conditions across all of the major grades of paper and paperboard in North America. His work on Forecaster included developing detailed end-user driven demand models for the key grades, including newsprint, coated papers, and containerboard. He also directed a number of editorial projects, including a major long-term study of global newsprint markets. He reached ABD status in the Ph.D. program in Economics at the University of Virginia.
In 1995, he received the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) from the Association of Investment Management and Research (AIMR).

Tom Wright
Director
Hawkins Wright

Tom Wright joined Hawkins Wright Ltd in September 1998. Since his first field trip to the Philippines in 1998 Tom has travelled regularly to Asia and is the principal author of the Asian multi-client studies at Hawkins-Wright. He works on all of the regular Hawkins Wright publications and private client studies, and is the principal author of the Asian reports. Tom also frequently addresses private meetings and industry conferences.
He holds a BA Hons degree from Newcastle University in Economics & Spanish and worked in Financial services for two years in central London before joining Hawkins Wright. Tom lives in London with his wife and 2 young daughters.

Timo Teräs
Leading Advisor
Pöyry Forest Industry Consulting

Timo Teräs is a Leading Advisor at Pöyry Forest Industry Consulting. He joined the Pöyry in 1996 from Finncell (sales association for Finnish market pulp producers), where he worked in 1970-1995 in various positions, most of the time as Senior VP in charge of Market Research, Planning and Statistics. From June 1998 Timo has also been Managing Director of first the Finnish Options Exchange (FOEX) and then - after organisational changes - of FOEX Indexes Ltd., while continuing to work at Pöyry Forest Industry Consulting. At Consulting, his areas of expertise are in supply and demand forecasts, economic and price analyses, price risk management systems as well as in company specific marketing planning and in analyzing the factors affecting competition between regions and between pulp and paper grades, including forecasts on long-term pulp and paper demand and supply.
He graduated from Helsinki School of Economics with a B.Sc. in 1971 and an M.Sc. (Marketing) in 1974. His hobbies include bridge, skiing, fishing, squash and golf. He is married and has three grown-up children.

Richard A Cockram
Marketing Consultant
NLK Associates

Mr Cockram has been involved as a marketing consultant to the global pulp industry since joining BIS Marketing Research Ltd in 1976, having previously worked for six years with English China Clays (now Imerys). He has been a regular speaker at international conferences around the world and has been retained by both banks and pulp producers who have been planning to invest in new pulp mills. He publishes a monthly report which includes a five-year forecast for market pulp prices and maintains capacity databases which include all known pulp and paper mills as well as recent capacity changes and plans for the future. Having worked for engineering consultancy companies in Sweden and Canada since 1986, Mr Cockram now runs his own marketing consultancy.