ILG Membership

Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands – Co-chair

Mairi Gougeon was previously a councillor for Brechin and Edzell, during which she was chairwoman of the East of Scotland European Consortium. She is a history graduate from the University of Aberdeen.

Mairi was elected as the MSP for Angus North and Mearns in May 2016. She was appointed Minister for Public Health and Sport in December 2020, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands in May 2021, and most recently Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands in March 2023.

John Clegg Consulting Ltd – Co-chair

John Clegg Consulting Ltd provide business, economic and rural development consultancy services. Guy is a forestry graduate of Aberdeen; has a B Litt. in forest economics from Oxford and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Foresters.  Guy has undertaken a wide variety of consultancy assignments connected with forestry and wood processing in the UK and overseas.

Gilmour & Aitken

Nicola Aitken is Marketing Manager for hardwood specialist firm Gilmour and Aitken Ltd, and secretariat for the Scottish Timber Trade Association (STTA).  STTA is an organisation representing ‘sellers’ of timber and timber related products, covering both homegrown and imported timber products.  Key STTA initiatives include training and education, similar to ILG focus areas, and as such offers good cross over.  I am delighted to be involved in this ILG as it highlights the hardwood sector, and needs and ambitions of imported timbers to the Government steering groups.

South of Scotland Enterprise

Jayne Ashley is Head of Natural Capital at South of Scotland Enterprise.  She has been a sustainability practitioner for over 30 years, advising, facilitating and mentoring communities and the private and public sectors, from the local to the European level.  In delivering the national Natural Capital Innovation Zone, Jayne is helping to maximise the South of Scotland’s natural assets through forging new partnerships and influencing strategies and projects, across the region and beyond.

Lantra

Liz is the Director of Lantra in Scotland, an organisation committed to the development and support of skills in Scotland’s land-based, aquaculture and environmental conservation sectors. Prior to taking on this role Liz was Head of Natural and Applied Science for Inverness College UHI, a role which included management of the Scottish School of Forestry, as well as the science and aquaculture provision. With an academic background in plant science, Liz holds a degree in Botany and PhD in Agronomy. In 2011 she gained an MBE for her work engaging young people in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), through the Inverness Science Festival and STEMinars.

Pallet Sector

With 40 years experience in the timber industry, which started at his father’s sawmill, John Dye is now the Sales & Industry Affairs Director for the pallets and packaging business of James Jones & Sons Ltd. He is also the current President of the Timber Packaging & Pallet Confederation (TIMCON) which represents UK wooden pallet and packaging manufacturers, reconditioned pallet sector dealers and repairers and pallet poolers. The affiliate membership includes many of the UK and Irish Sawmilling companies, timber agents and overseas members from the EU including the Netherlands, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia. He sits on various domestic and International industry committees and associations including in Europe Federation Europeenne des Fabricants de Palettes et Emballages en Bois’s (FEFPEB) Technical & Policy committee and in the USA the National Wooden Pallet & Container Association (NWPCA) Board of Directors. Others being UK Governments Advisory Committee on Packaging, the Global Forum, UK Plant Health UKWPMMP Advisory Council (ISPM 15), Industry lead Wood Packaging Material Brexit working sub group.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise

Morven is Head of Housing, Skills & Population at Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE) where she has over 30 years’ experience of economic and regional development. Her current focus is on addressing depopulation and the related housing shortages in the region alongside her work in supporting the development of the university and skills system in line with regional needs .

Glennon Brothers

Joint managing director of Glennon Brothers with sawmills in Scotland (Glennon Brothers UK Ltd.,Troon and Windymains Timber Limited, Edinburgh) and Ireland (Longford, Fermoy and Balcas in Enniskillen), Timber Frame Manufacturing facilities in Irvine Scotland –  Alexanders Timber Design, and DTE Manufacturing Ltd in Longford Ireland as well as CHP Plant (Balcas) in Invergordon Scotland.

Donaldson Offsite

Tulloch Timber

Managing Director of Tulloch Timber (Nairn) Ltd and Perthshire Timber Company Ltd, independent family sawmilling businesses that have been established together for over fifty years, with each mill producing complementary products of British sawn timber. Responsible for the groups key head office financial management functions and strategic planning.

Built Environment – Smarter Transformation

Associate Director of Housing & Manufacturing

Sam leads BE-ST’s team on advancing Industrialised Construction, sustainable product development, and health & safety. He led projects which delivered demonstrators for the UK’s first ‘homegrown’ mass timber home and the modular classroom for “GenZero” – the Department for Education’s ultra-low carbon secondary school programme. Collaborations also include work with stakeholders such as Confor, Timber Development UK, the Structural Timber Association, and the UK Government to drive the greater adoption of homegrown timber across the built environment through the “Timber in construction roadmap 2025”.

A W Jenkinson

Commercial Director

Scottish Forestry

Jason has led the team within Scottish Forestry that deals with commercial forestry policy since 2015. The team covers education and skills, timber transport, biomass, timber supply issues, the commercial supply chain from seed to timber processing, working closely with the Industry Leadership Group and ministerial support. He worked in Forest Research on timber properties and tree breeding and then the Forestry Commission to manage research commissioning for sustainable forestry and social forestry research.

Gresham House

Olly has been Managing Director and Investment Committee member of the Forestry division of Gresham House since January 2019. He is responsible for managing the growth and development of Gresham House’s forestry activities including acquisitions, fund and private client management and forestry asset management. He started his career at ING Barings in 1995 focusing on asset backed structuring and since then has focused his career on real asset investment management. 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.

ILG Executive

Andy currently acts as the ILG Executive supporting the co-chairs and working closely with other ILG members to achieve the delivery of Roots for Further Growth. In his day job, he is the Deputy Chief Executive of the Confederation of Forest Industries UK (Confor) which is the leading trade association in the UK that promotes sustainable forestry and wood-using businesses. His main responsibilities are leading on membership engagement and technical support, and industry development.

Prior to taking on this role Andy had over 30 years’ experience working at various operational and policy roles in public sector forestry, latterly focussing on economic development and innovation. He has also had periods of secondment to Edinburgh Napier University managing the Wood Product Innovation Gateway and with Scottish Enterprise as senior advisor for Forest Industries. Andy is currently a Director for Wood for Good and Scotland’s Housing Expo, and was previously a Director of Scottish Quality Wild Venison. He currently chairs the ILG Skills Group, the SIRT Management Board (Strategic Integrated Research into Timber) and the Strategic Timber Transport Scheme Evaluation Panel. He is also a member of various industry groups including the EGTTS (Expert Group on Timber Trade Statistics), the Private Sector Production Forecast Working Group, FISA (Forest Industry Safety Accord) Steering Group, the Scottish Bioeconomy Council and the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland Implementation Steering Group. Andy is a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.

James Jones & Sons Ltd

Joint Managing Director of James Jones & Sons Ltd, Scotland’s largest independent sawmiller and one of the largest suppliers of British timber in the UK. He is responsible for the Groups roundwood procurement, co-products and logistics as well as the companies three Northern Sawmills at Kirriemuir, Aboyne and Mosstodloch and Timber Systems site at Forres. In addition to his position on the ILG, David is a board member of PEFC, Confor and SIRT (Strategic Integrated Research into Timber), a member of EGTTS (Expert Group on Timber Trade Statistics) and the Institute of Chartered Foresters.

UPM-Kymmene (UK) Ltd

Bryan has been General Manager of UPM-Kymmene (UK) Ltd for 3 years responsible for operations at the paper manufacturing site in Irvine.   Previous to this he has worked in various finance positions within UPM.

Land Energy

EGGER

John has over 45 years’ experience in the forestry and wood products sector and attended Newton Rigg College from 1981-84. In 1999, after three years of study, he received an MBA from Northumbria University.

He has worked for EGGER UK for 36 years and up until 2020 was Director of Forestry and headed up Wood purchasing for EGGER in the UK.

He now holds the position of Public Affairs Manager and Advisor to EGGER Wood Purchasing and Forestry.

Forestry and Land Scotland

Graeme Prest is Director of Land Management and Regions at Forestry and Land Scotland.

The Land Management and Regions Directorate is responsible for national land management services including Planning and Environment; Technical Services; Marketing and Sales; Community and Visitor Services; and accountable for operational delivery across our five regions.

Graeme has over 30 years’ experience of leading and managing operational delivery in both Scotland and England, including most recently Scotland’s forests and land in our North Region. This has included protecting and maintaining the forests, working with others on award winning projects and initiatives on natural regeneration and peatland restoration, and co-ordinating all aspects of forest management to contribute to Government objectives. His particular interest and passion is nature conservation and connecting people with the natural environment.

Scottish Woodlands

Ian Robinson has worked with Scottish Woodlands since 1987, working in a variety of roles with experience in forest management, harvesting, forest certification and staff management. Ian became Operational Director in 2017, Forestry Director in 2021 and Managing Director in 2023. As well as leading the direction of the business Ian represents the Company on a number of industry committees and forums.

BSW Timber

Harry Stevens leads the forestry division of BSW Timber part of Binderholtz the largest sawmillers in Europe. The forestry division comprises three elements Tilhill Forestry, Dick Brothers Timber Harvesting and Maelor Forest Nurseries.

Offsite Solutions Scotland

Euroforest

David 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.

Wood Recycling

Julia has been Executive Director of the Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA) since October 2016. She has a wealth of experience working alongside the recycling sector, having joined from WRAP, the Waste and Resources Action Programme, where she worked for 12 years in a variety of roles including securing European funding, setting up a recycling infrastructure development programme in the West Midlands and market development for the recycling industry. Before that, Julia worked in the tyre and fleet industry as a Head of Marketing.

Since joining the WRA, Julia has been working with key waste wood industry stakeholders to spearhead two major industry-wide initiatives in collaboration with the Environment Agency: Developing waste wood specific guidance on Fire Prevention Plans; and Waste Wood Classification, which is about ensuring that waste wood is properly classified at the front end of recycling and is then processed for the appropriate end uses.

In 2023 Julia was named on the first powerlist published by the Trade Association Forum of inspiring women in trade associations.

West Fraser