Confor is a not-for-profit organisation.
The Advisory Board provides a high-level forum for members to work with the CEO to establish and monitor Confor's programme of work, to ensure strong communication with members and to advise on arising matters.
The Advisory Board consists of the Management Board members and the following:
Ian Duncan
Lord Duncan of Springbank PhD FGS
Appointed a working peer by UK Prime Minister in 2017, Ian is currently Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords.
Previously Ian was a UK Government Minister, serving in each of the territorial departments (Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) and laterly as Minister for Climate Change with responsibility for international negotiations. Before joining the Government, he spent over a dozen years in Brussels, finally as an MEP. During his time in the European Parliament, Ian sat on the committees responsible for Environment and for Energy (ITRE). He was the Parliament’s chief negotiator on the reform of EU carbon markets and was his group’s chief negotiator on nine pieces of environmental legislation. During his tenure he was ranked the 10th most influential MEP on environmental policy and 6th on energy by Votewatch; and 15th most influential individual in the EU on Energy by Euractiv. Ian previously worked for BP, the Scottish Refugee Council, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and the University of Bristol.
In addition to his other roles, Ian is Chair of the National Forest, President of the English-Speaking Union (Scotland), a Board Member of the Schwarzenegger Institute and a Fellow of the Geological Society. He holds degrees in geology from the Universities of Bristol and St Andrews.
George Birrell
Jim Colchester
Pat Glennon
Joint managing director of Glennon Bros with sawmills in Scotland (Adam Wilson and Windymains) and Ireland (Longford and Fermoy), as well as Alexanders Timber Design, a timber frame manufacturer at Troon.
Ronald Gordon
Joint Managing Director of John Gordon and Son Ltd, a family business based in Nairn, North Scotland, who celebrated their 150th year of trading in 2012. John Gordon and Son convert locally grown softwood, into timber products for the fencing, construction and packaging markets. Ronald has 30 years of experience in sawmilling and is an ACCA ( The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants )
Tony Hackney
Tony Hackney, Chief Executive of BSW Timber Ltd, joined the Confor Board in 2016. Tony won Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award in Scotland for increasing BSW Timber Group profits by 60% within a space of four years.
Simon Hart
Simon has over 30 years’ experience in a wide range of commercial forestry activities with EFG, Tilhill, Egger Forestry Management, RTS Forestry and in January 2021 he joined John Clegg and Co in the position of Director, Head of Forestry Scotland, specialising in woodland acquisitions, sales, valuations and asset management.
Laura Henderson
Forestry Business Lead for English Woodlands Timber Ltd – a role that Laura took up in March 2021. Prior to that she worked with the Forestry Commission on the development of post CAP incentives, and for Forest Research on national woodland condition data and biodiversity related projects.
Olly Hughes
Managing Director and Investment Committee member of the Forestry Division of Gresham House. He is responsible for managing the growth and development of Gresham House’s forestry activities including acquisitions, fund and private client management and forestry management across the UK and global forestry portfolios. Prior to joining Gresham House, he was a Partner and Head of Infrastructure at Oxford Capital where he built and managed a portfolio of over £300m of solar and wind renewable assets. Olly has over 25 years of investment experience and holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master’s degree from the University of Oxford in Biological Science.
Athole McKillop
Studied Forestry at Aberdeen University, is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Foresters, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a Partner with Galbraith where he specialise in forestry in rural land matters. With a focus on forestry and woodland management, from farm woods to large commercial forests in the north of England and across Scotland, Athole is actively involved in many aspects of silviculture, timber production, woodland carbon, forestry valuations and transactions well as broader aspects of rural land management.
Nursery Producers Group representative
Jamie Dewhurst of J&A Growers and Harry Frew of Cheviot Trees are both vice-chairs of the Nursery Producers Group and share the Advisory Board role.
Richard Palmer
Richard, a Chartered Forester, is a Director at A.W. Jenkinson Forest Products supporting the owner across all areas of the business with specific responsibility for Berite Sawmills and international development in Europe and the Baltic states. He previously worked at Scottish Woodlands as a Regional H&M manager before moving to Kronospan as the Raw Materials Buyer moving up within the business to become Forestry Director. Richard joined AWJ in 2000 serving as Commercial Director 2006 to 2019 . AWJ is active throughout the UK, supplying, transporting and processing a wide range of forest products for the UK and European markets.
David Symons
David Symons has over 30 years experience in harvesting and marketing timber, first with the Forestry Commission before moving to Euroforest Limited. David is Managing Director of Euroforest Limited an award winning provider of nationwide harvesting and marketing services.
Iwan Lloyd Williams
The following members of the Management Board are also members of the Advisory Board: