Keynote Speakers

Paul Brannen

We are delighted to announce Paul Brannen as your moderator for the 2026 International Softwood Conference. Paul is member of the Board of the English Forestry Commission and he is the author of Timber! How Wood Can Help Save the World from Climate Breakdown, Edinburgh University Press.

Paul leads the advocacy engagement of the European woodworking and sawmill industries towards the EU institutions and likewise to the UK parliament for the Confederation of Timber Industries.

This year he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Institute of Chartered Foresters. Last year he was awarded the Confederation of Forest Industries’ Changing Attitudes Award.

He is a former UK Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and served on both the Environment Committee and the Agriculture Committee during the 2014–2019 parliamentary term. In 2015 he was a rapporteur on the revision of the European Forestry Strategy.

Before becoming an MEP, Paul worked for the development charity Christian Aid as Head of Advocacy, where he worked primarily on climate change. Earlier roles were with the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Labour Party, Hobsbawm Macaulay Communications and Common Purpose.

Morten Bergsten

Morten Bergsten has been working with softwood import/export for 38 years.

He is currently a major shareholder and chairman at Bergsten Timber A/S. Before that, he spent 23 years with Dalhoff Larsen & Horneman (DLH). Morten is also a member of the board at ETTF, representing Softwood, and is chairman of the board at The Danish Timber Trade Federation (DTTF).

Tommi Sneck

Tommi Sneck has over 25 years of experience in the sawmill industry. He began his career at Stora Enso, working in various locations including Gruvön in Sweden, Kotka in Finland, and Estonia until 2007.

In 2007, he joined Koskisen as Sawmill Industry Director, a role he has held for more than 18 years. He has also served as chairman of both the Finnish Sawmillmen Association and Finnish Sawmills, and currently serves as President of EOS, the European Organisation of the Sawmill Industry.

Marc Brinkmeyer

Marc Brinkmeyer is the owner and chairman of the board of Idaho Forest Group (IFG), one of America’s largest lumber producers. With a capacity of 1.5 billion board feet per year, IFG operates five sawmills in Idaho, as well as a new sawmill in Mississippi.

Born and raised in Iowa, Brinkmeyer graduated from Buena Vista University with a bachelor’s degree in finance. He began his career as a CPA with Arthur Andersen & Company before becoming CFO for a private forest products company. In 1981, he acquired his first sawmill in Laclede, Idaho, within the Inter-Mountain Forest of the Northern Rockies.

Based in Coeur d’Alene, IFG manufactures and markets lumber and wood by-products to customers in the United States and abroad. Over the past 40 years, the company has grown to become the largest lumber producer in the Inter-Mountain West and is expanding in the US South. It employs over 1,300 people and works with 2,500 partner contractors. The company continuously invests in advanced technology and is committed to conservation, research and development, and innovation in wood products and biomass utilization, including collaborations with universities in the USA and Europe.

Brinkmeyer has decades of involvement in industry organisations. He is a past chairman of the Softwood Lumber Board, past chairman of the American Wood Council, and a current member of the Bi-National Softwood Lumber Council. He also serves on the board of the National Wild Turkey Federation and is a member of the Boone and Crockett Club.

The Brinkmeyer family supports many organisations committed to education, the arts, and conservation, contributing to university programmes and initiatives. Brinkmeyer was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Natural Resources by the University of Idaho.

Gerd Ebner

Gerd Ebner is editor-in-chief of Holzkurier and its English-language online version, Timber-Online. He is also responsible for two additional B2B timber publications, leading the largest specialist editorial team in the timber industry in Europe.

Ebner studied forestry in Vienna and has been with Holzkurier for 30 years, serving as editor-in-chief since 2002. In 2017, he launched the data visualisation platform Datacube.

Among his professional highlights is being named Journalist of the Year 2021 in the “Politics and Economy” category by the Austrian Magazine and Trade Media Association. He is also a sought-after speaker at international events.

In his private life, Ebner is a passionate long-distance cyclist.

Hiroki Hayashi

Hiroki Hayashi has held several roles across Sumitomo Forestry’s international marketing and sales operations.

From 2012 to 2013, he worked in the International Marketing Division at headquarters, focusing on European lumber procurement. From 2014 to 2017, he worked in the Sales Branch in Nagoya.

Between 2017 and 2022, he returned to the International Marketing Division at headquarters, focusing on North American and European lumber procurement.

Since 2022, he has been Manager at Sumitomo Forestry Europe Limited.

Russ Taylor

Russ Taylor worked as a forester in the 1970s (5 years at Northwood, Houston, BC) and in lumber sales, marketing and custom cutting in the 1980s (7 years at Interfor) before starting his consulting career in 1988 and forming International WOOD MARKETS Group in 1992.

Russ has conducted wood products market analysis and business assessment analysis on timber and wood products for global industry clients and has published 45 strategic outlook reports. He travels extensively to key producing, exporting and importing countries in China, Asia, Russia, Europe, the Southern Hemisphere and within North America to obtain first -hand insights.

Following the sale of WOOD MARKETS, Russ started up the next phase of his career in 2020 with RUSS TAYLOR GLOBAL – Wood Business & Market Consulting.

Mr. Taylor has a forestry degree (BScF) and an MBA, both from the University of B.C., and is also a B.C. registered professional forester (RPF-Ret).

Franz Kropfreiter

After a short intermezzo in other business areas (Insurance Company & Logistics) Franz started his timber career in 1989 as a sales representative at Holzindustrie Schweighofer in Brand, Austria. While doing some basic roles at the beginning, in 1992, he took on the great challenge to enter and develop the Japanese and wider Asian markets together with Gerald Schweighofer, marking the beginning of his long-standing involvement in international timber trade.

In 1998, when HS sold their Austrian/Czech sawmill group to Stora Enso Timber, Franz had been a “part of the deal” and continued to handle the Japanese timber market for SET over the next decade. From 2004 until 2008, he led the Stora Enso Timber Tokyo Office as an expat. (During the period from 2004 to 2008 SET sold about 1 million cbm sawn timber every year to Japan!)

At the end of 2012, he decided to leave SET and seek new challenges. He re-joined the HS Timber Group - a return to his roots - and became Managing Director of their trading company DABG, which specialises in the MENA markets.

Maurice van Sante

Maurice is a passionate sector economist specialising in the European construction and building materials sector. At ING Research, he strives to make economics accessible and comprehensible for clients and colleagues, empowering them to make better financial, sustainable and strategic decisions.

His current role involves writing, research, publishing articles, delivering presentations and engaging with the press. His expertise includes construction sector forecasting, analysing the impact of innovation, productivity developments, industrialisation, digitalisation and the pathway towards net zero.

Additionally, he leads a team of sector economists who also conduct research across various industries, including real estate, manufacturing, hospitality, retail, healthcare and the public sector.

Antti Koskinen

Antti Koskinen has over 20 years of experience in the global wood and forest products industries. He holds master’s degrees in both forestry and economics.

He works in the Wood Products practice area within AFRY Management Consulting. AFRY provides engineering, project management, and advisory services that enable the energy and industrial transition and strengthen resilience in society. With 18,000 experts worldwide, AFRY combines a global reach with local insights and deep sector knowledge to make a lasting impact for generations to come.

Antti’s work focuses on strategic analysis and business development in the wood products value chain. He has worked in projects in all continents and with all major European and Russian wood products companies.

Assignments have included feasibility studies, M&A, market research, forecasting, sourcing and benchmarking. Antti has closely followed the growth and transformation of the Russian wood product industry for over 20 years.

Stephen King

Stephen King has worked in the softwood industry for over 40 years, primarily with Swedish companies. A significant part of his career was spent with SCA Wood, where he served as Sales Director and later as Managing Director until early 2024.

Following his departure from SCA in June 2025, he became UK Project Manager for Swedish Wood, the promotional and educational organisation of Skogsindustrierna, the Swedish Forest Industries Federation.

Stephen is also a member of the Confederation of Timber Industries board and represents Timber Development UK (TDUK) on the board of Cei-Bois, the European Wood Industry association. He was previously honorary President of the predecessor of TDUK, the Timber Trade Federation.

Hazel Ahern-Flynn

Hazel Ahern-Flynn is Senior Economist at Ibec, Ireland’s largest business representative organisation. She provides regular analysis of economic issues for a business audience, engages with stakeholders and government on Ibec’s economic and policy positions, and advises companies and sectoral organisations.

She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and the University of Amsterdam, holding a BA in Economics and Political Science, as well as an MSc in Economics.

Hazel is co-author of the Ibec Quarterly Economic Outlook and is also a regular speaker on the Ibec Responds podcast.

Mike Glennon

Mike is Joint MD of Glennon Brothers, a third-generation family business in the timber processing, timber frame home manufacturing and green energy sectors.

Having spent his summers working in the sawmill, Mike joined the company full time in 1985, after completing a Business Studies degree from DCU.

Together with his brother Pat, Mike became joint MD in the mid 1990’s. Through a series of strategic acquisitions, and robust organic growth, the business has grown from a turnover of €8 million in the 1990’s, to over €400 million today.

In 2009, Mike led the team which made history by being the first sawmill in Ireland or the UK to send shiploads of timber to France.

In 2010, Pat and Mike won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year industry category award. In 2013 Glennon Brothers were awarded a coveted Ruban D’Honneur, in the European Business Awards.

Today Glennon Brothers operates timber processing facilities in Longford, Fermoy and Enniskillen in Ireland, and Troon, Humbie, Irvine, and Invergordon in Scotland, with sites recently added in England and Wales. Employing over 1400 people directly and over 600 indirectly.

Mike served on the Board of Coillte Teo from 1998 – 2003. He was a member of Coford and chaired the Coford Wood Mobilisation and Production Forecasting Group between 2010 – 2019. Mike chaired the IBEC Building Materials Federation (BMF) which represents the largest manufacturers of building materials in Ireland from 2023 - 2025.

Mike currently Chairs the Enterprise Ireland Timber Sector Leadership Group. He is also the Chair of the Octabuild, which represents 8 of the leading Irish manufacturers with the objective to promote the benefits of high quality, Irish manufactured products for the building, constructions and DIY sectors.

Mike Glennon | LinkedIn

JÉRÔME PELLETIER

Jérôme Pelletier has served as Vice President of the Sawmill Division at J.D. Irving, Limited since 2015 and has been with this company since 1998.

With over 28 years of experience in the forest products industry, Jérôme has developed deep expertise in operations, sales, finance, and market development. He currently serves as Chairman of the Maritime Lumber Bureau, First Vice Chair of the Softwood Lumber Board, Chair of the New Brunswick Lumber Producers, and is an active member of the Canadian Wood Council (CWC) Board of Directors.

Jérôme holds a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from the Université de Moncton and an MBA from Western University in Ontario.