Connect and create for transformation, impact and possibility

Jayne Bryant MS
Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government
Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet dros Lywodraeth Leol a Thai

Born and brought up in Newport, Jayne Bryant was elected as the Assembly Member for Newport West in 2016. Jayne was appointed Chair of the Standards of Conduct Committee in the Fifth Senedd, and also sat on the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee and the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs committee.

Re-elected in 2021, Jayne was nominated to Chair the Children, Young People and Education Committee in this Sixth Senedd and also sat on the Special Purpose Committee on Senedd Reform and the Local Government and Housing Committee. Jayne has also chaired Cross-Party Groups on Diabetes, Preventing Child Sexual Abuse, Arts and Health and Suicide Prevention and acted as Vice Chair for the Cross-Party Groups on Dementia and Intergenerational Solidarity.

All her working life Jayne has tried to help advocate and support people and is particularly passionate about encouraging young people to be active and interested in politics, believing politics matters and young people must be at the heart of it.

Jayne was appointed Minister for Mental Health and Early Years on 21 March 2024.

On 11 September 2024, Jayne was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government.

Anna Lisa McSweeney
UK Networks Lead, Built by Nature
Anna Lisa is the UK Networks Lead at Built by Nature, leading a global transformation of the built environment by accelerating the responsible use of timber and biobased materials for the benefit of climate, nature and people. A qualified architect, she brings design expertise and strategic insight to her work convening frontrunners across the built environment to scale up low-carbon, regenerative construction in the UK.

She was a founding member of the Architects’ Climate Action Network (ACAN) and served on the steering committee of Architects Declare, championing systemic change to align architecture with planetary boundaries

Tabitha Binding
Climate Conscious Construction Professional
Tabitha’s background is in timber and new construction from forest to timber product and onwards to post occupancy evaluation. In 2015 after bringing visual structural softwood strength grading to Wales and delivering a Ty Unnos from Welsh timber for Coed Cymru, she undertook her Certified Passivhaus exam to understand building physics and how to build better with timber. This led on to successful engagement, educational and development roles at Woodknowledge Wales, TRADA, BM TRADA, TTF, TDUK & NMITE. She currently works part time, from her personal deep retrofit in mid-Wales, for the Passivhaus Trust UK and Coaction Training CIC.

Paul Brannen
Director Public Affairs, CEI-Bois, EOS and Confederation of Timber Industries
Paul leads the advocacy engagement of the European woodworking and sawmill industries towards the European institutions and to the UK parliament for the Confederation of Timber Industries. He’s a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) who in the 2014-19 parliament served on both the Environment and Agriculture Committees. Before becoming an MEP Paul worked for the development charity Christian Aid as head of advocacy, running their climate change campaign. Paul is the author of Timber! How wood can help save the world from climate breakdown Agenda Publishing 2024.

Mark Breeze
WLB Manager, Construction, Coleg Cambria
Mark joined Coleg Cambria in July 2016 as a Carpentry and Joinery Assessor and has progressed into his current management role. Prior to this, Mark worked in other colleges teaching carpentry and joinery skills. He is experienced in various areas of construction and construction management. Mark has a passion for training in the construction industry and for the skills development in apprentices and their future careers.

Ian Chriswick
Director & Lead Educator, Cymbrogi
Educator and change-maker, Ian is our lead on all things Curriculum for Wales. With 20 years teaching & senior leadership at secondary level under his belt, Ian is passionate about putting the new curriculum for Wales to work – for both learners and educators. A former Maths teacher and senior leadership member at Ysgol Bro Dinefwr in Carmarthenshire, Ian decided to leave mainstream education to pursue his passion for a different way of teaching and learning…(We like to think his visit to Cymbrogi helped him make that decision..;-) And we’re delighted he’s joined us as Core Crew! When he’s not working with us, he is part-time College Lecturer at Gower College, Swansea, putting his passions to work with young adults, through garden and landscaping projects.

Tim Coleridge
Senior Lecturer and SA, SABE, SAP and GB Programme Leader
Working for eight years at Hopkins Architects, Tim has worked on a huge range of projects that tackled head-on the challenges of sustainable and low energy design. He is now the Programme Leader of the CAT MSc courses validated by the University of East London.

Timothy Clement
Director of Social Value & Sustainability, Morgan Sindall Construction
Tim is Director of Social Value & Sustainability for Morgan Sindall Construction, where he empowers internal and external stakeholders to improve wellbeing in local communities, and to responsibly deliver low carbon, resource efficient and nature-rich built assets. With a background in design management, he studied Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment at the University of Cambridge, with a focus on the empirical and sociological aspects of the sustainability of buildings. He also created CarboniCa, the innovative and award-winning whole life carbon reduction tool for the built environment.

Rachel Cook
Networks, Woodknowledge Wales
Rachel’s role is to work with the Communities of Practice (CoPs) and support membership development, events and training. Rachel’s background is in architecture, urban design and construction. She worked for a South Wales contractor for 11years starting as a trainee engineer, and rising to Site Manager. With a passion for developing skills and training within the industry she later went on to work for Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) as a local manger gaining insight to industry needs across Wales. Her most recent role was with Construction Wales Innovation Centre (CWIC) at University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) as a Net Zero Industry Support Manager. As Head of Networks, Rachel will continue to develop the relationship between Woodknowledge Wales and CWIC.

Marlene Cramer
Research Assistant and PhD Student
Marlene is a wood researcher who is passionate about bringing undervalued timbers into use. She has been researching recovered timber and how to reuse it in structures, and is currently doing a PhD that aims to find easier routes to strength grading hardwoods. She is also interested in creative ways of science communication, and has participated in Brightclub, FameLab and Soapbox Science. She publishes regular blogs on The Centre for Wood Science and Technology website.

Steve Cranston
Project lead – Tai ar y Cyd
Steve leads Tai ar y Cyd – a collaboration of 25 Welsh social landlords who are working to use their aggregated pipeline demand to bring forward the next generation of high performing off site manufactured homes. The pattern book launched in January. He led community investment work at United Welsh – supporting local people back to work and enabling residents to become active in their communities. Previous lives have included leading Arts Factory a valleys social enterprise and a secondment into Future Generations Commissioners team.

Steve is a proud grandad and enjoys being outdoors – walking, gardening and sailing.

Julie Godefroy
Julie Godefroy Sustainability, Woodknowledge Wales Board
ulie is a chartered engineer and sustainability consultant. Her work has always focused on low and zero carbon strategies and health and wellbeing. She has been involved from early masterplanning stages through to post-occupancy evaluation, as well as policy work. She has worked in most sectors, with a particular interest in housing and heritage buildings.  She is Head of Net Zero Policy for CIBSE, where she leads the work on climate action.

Dr Ashley Hardaker
Lecturer in Land Management Planning and Economics,
Bangor University
Ashley is an interdisciplinary teacher and researcher with a focus on land and its management in rural contexts. His teaching and research focusses on the way rural land is used and managed, with forestry, agroforesty and agriculture being the main focal systems of this teaching and research activity. He is particularly interested in undertaking research to inform decision making surrounding adaptions and transformations of land use in rural areas to address critical contemporary environmental and social challenges. He engages with a range of research disciplines including decision analysis, qualitative research, economics, life-cycle assessment, ecosystem services modelling and operations research.

Caroline Harrison
Technical Policy Manager, Institute of Chartered Foresters
Caroline is a Chartered Forester with around 30 years of experience in forestry and the wood supply chain. She began her career with the Working Woodlands Project and has held leadership roles at the Confederation of Forest Industries and Evolving Forests. Currently, she serves as the Technical Policy Manager at the Institute of Chartered Foresters and is a Trustee of both the Royal Forestry Society and Woodland Heritage. In her free time, she enjoys gardening and is interested in self-sufficiency and sustainable timber and food production.

Elaine Heckley
National Manager Wales, Confor
Elaine joined Confor in 2023. She previously spent more than five years with Natural Resources Wales (Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru), working on forest operations and delivering sustainable management of the Welsh Government Woodland Estate. Elaine represented NRW on the FISA chainsaw working group and chaired the internal restocking and establishment group. She is a council member and trustee of the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF), and last year Elaine took part in the ICF emerging leaders programme. She studied for her MSc in Forestry at Bangor University. Her goal is to improve and expand forestry in Wales.

Prof. John Healey
Professor of Forest Sciences at Bangor University, Woodknowledge Wales Board
John has spent his whole professional career at Bangor, starting as a specialist in tropical forestry, but now with sustainable management and silviculture of UK woodlands as a major component of his research and teaching. The huge challenges posed by the climate and biodiversity crises are an increasingly dominant focus. He is a section chief editor for the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

Tom Henderson
Forestry & Timber, Woodknowledge Wales
Thomas Henderson is a Researcher at Bangor University. His Masters focuses on Life cycle analysis-based modelling of ‘Welsh timber’ incorporating environmental burdens and ecosystem service impacts. This project uses LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) based modelling to assess the ecosystem service impacts of entire timber product systems, considering where and when the supply and demand of these benefits are distributed along the value chain. Thomas will analyse different options for new woodlands and value chains, and by incorporating a range of ecosystem services, could inform a regenerative approach to timber industry expansion.

Mark Hiliard
Head of Projects, Woodland Savers
A passionate belief in the environmental, economic and social benefits well managed woodlands bring to communities has shaped Mark’s personal and professional life. Since graduating from Bangor University with a BSc in Conservation and Forest Ecosystems, he has worked a wide range of forestry and land use roles both in the public and private sector. From managing national pest and disease outbreaks and their impact on trade in government, to supervising large woodland creation projects as a forest manager. As Head of Projects at Common, Mark works directly with communities to deliver projects on the ground. His aim is to improve communication and collaboration between different land use sectors to more effectively to respond to the climate crisis through community ownership.

Jonny Hulson
Land Management Development Officer,
North Wales Wildlife Trust
Jonny Hulson is a Land Management Development Officer at North Wales Wildlife Trust, based in Mold. A Bangor University graduate, he leads woodland restoration initiatives, including the Woodlands for Water project, cultivating over 20,000 native trees to enhance biodiversity and mitigate flooding.

Harriet Jenkins
Woodland Practitioner, Royal Forestry Society Forestry Roots
Harriet is a Woodland Practitioner apprentice with the Royal Forestry Society’s Forestry Roots programme, based at Bron Haul in North Wales. Inspired by time spent with the founders of Reforesting Scotland, she developed a passion for sustainable land management and community-focused forestry. Mentored by forester Ruth Pybus, Harriet is gaining hands-on experience while championing greater inclusion for women in the industry. She highlights the value of mentorship and visibility, crediting initiatives like Lantra’s Women in Forestry fund for growing support. Harriet is committed to shaping a more diverse and sustainable future for UK forestry.

Calvin Jones
Professor at Cardiff Business School,
Director of Natural Resources Wales
Calvin Jones is a regional economist with over thirty years research experience in academia, government and consultancy. His core competencies include economic, climate and environmental modelling and impact assessment, and he has expertise in futures and scenario development, especially around systems change and skills and education. Current interests include regional statistical improvement, climate-ecological transitions and organisational ‘fitness-for-the-future’, particularly around systems change and capability development.

John Kirkby
Executive Director, PEFC UK
Since graduating with a degree in Forest Management from the University of Aberdeen in 2001, John has worked in the timber products industry in a number of roles. From 2001 to 2012, he worked as a technical consultant at TRADA providing problem-solving consultancy with the timber industry.  From 2012 until he joined PEFC UK in June 2023, he ran his own consultancy business which specialised in helping companies in the UK achieve and maintain PEFC chain of custody certification. During this time, John was also a qualified lead auditor for both the FSC and PEFC schemes. As well as promoting the uptake of PEFC forest management and chain of custody certification by stakeholders across the UK,  John is a keen advocate of increased use of timber within the construction sector, in particular from homegrown sources.

Clara Kohler
Design & Architecture, Woodknowledge Wales
Clara joined Woodknowledge Wales to familiarise herself with embodied carbon and explore new ways to become more proactive and help facilitate change within the construction industry towards better choices and design.  She has a background in architecture and urban design with professional experience particularly in the residential sector working across a variety of scales with housing associations, councils, volume housebuilders as well as private clients. Her broad background reflects her interest in the built environment as a setting for everyday life, which has led her on a quest to find ways to challenge standard solutions and traditional ways of working in order to make that ‘everyday’ sustainable for the planet in the long term.

Christiane Lellig
Regenerative Development | Independent advisor, Woodknowledge Wales
Christiane Lellig focuses on societal transformation and regenerative approaches from a living systems perspective. Christiane has been working on social change programmes in Switzerland, Germany and the UK since 1999 ranging from environmental concerns to labour and social justice issues. From 2016-2020 she was responsible for the UK timber industry’s Wood for Good campaign. Her particular interests lie in questions around resilience, society in transition, land-use, forestry, biodiversity, housing and transport. Christiane holds a postgraduate degree in Social Sciences from the University of Göttingen, Germany. She is a member of the regenerative practitioners network affiliated with Regenesis Institute for Regenerative Practice.

Ceri Loxton
Timber skills, Woodknowledge Wales
Ceri has a background in timber processing, having graduated with a degree in Wood Science from Bangor University.  During her early career and more recently, she spent time working at The Biocomposites Centre at Bangor University principally on commercial research projects for the wood based panels sector.

Phil O’Leary 
Director, Filros Timber Consultancy
Phil provides specialist independent consultancy across the timber sector. Previously, he was head of Timber Consultancy at BM TRADA, the technical authority behind TRADA. With over 30 years of post-qualifying experience, Phil has published in local and international journals about wood science. Phil is also chairman of BSI’s Wood Preservation Committee and a member of the Wood Protection Association’s Technical Committee. As one of the UK’s leading authorities for Visual Strength Grading, Phil specialises in condition surveys of historic buildings, performance assessments and determining the structural strength, quality, performance characteristics, deterioration and preservation of timber. He also serves as an expert witness and develops and presents bespoke timber training.

Karen Paterson
Forests & Ecosystem Services Manager, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
Karen’s role involves helping forest managers and owners to quantify the ecosystem services value of their forest with third-party validation. Karen assists them in attracting investors and sponsors wishing to support their work, to enable ongoing management of the forests to maintain and enhance these ecosystem services. Prior to joining FSC UK, Karen worked for the Environment Agency as a Natural Flood Management (NFM) Advisor and Project Manager.

Iwan Parry
Regional Manager, Tilhill
Based in Llandovery, Iwan Parry is a multi-award winning, experienced, forester of over 25 years’, and has managed a diverse forestry portfolio across Wales, from upland conifer plantations to lowland woodlands and new planting schemes for a wide range of client and management objectives. Iwan is also a Chartered Forester and currently Chairman of the ICF Wales Regional Committee. He is happy and able to communicate fully in both English and Welsh, an attribute that fits perfectly with his new role as Regional Manager for the whole of Wales & Marches.

James Roberts
Technical Co-ordinator, Lowfield Timber Framesl
James Roberts MBE, BSc (Hons), HonScD, MCIAT is a Chartered Architectural Technologist, Certified Passive House Designer, and Technical Co-ordinator at Lowfield Timber Frames. He plays a key role in delivering low-carbon, timber-based solutions across the UK, with expertise spanning architectural technology, offsite manufacturing, and sustainable construction. At Lowfield, James focuses on driving quality and performance through modern methods of construction. A Paralympic gold medallist, he brings the same dedication and attention to detail to the built environment as he did to elite sport.

Ivonne Salamanca
Ecology researcher, Bangor University
Ivonne Salamanca is an ecologist and PhD researcher at Bangor University, focusing on Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) policy. With over a decade of experience as an environmental consultant in tropical wildlife conservation, she leverages her expertise to assess and enhance biodiversity metrics for sustainable development.

Andrew Sowerby BSc (Hons) For, FICFor
Operations Director – Bronwin & Abbey
Andrew Sowerby is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Forester with over 20 years’ experience in UK forestry, specialising in sustainable woodland management, harvesting operations, and strategic land use planning. He is Operations Director at Bronwin & Abbey, leading a forest management team across Wales and England. Andrew serves as Vice President of the Institute of Chartered Foresters and supports organisations such as Confor and Tir Pontypridd. He is committed to forestry that balances economic, environmental and social needs. As a PEFC UK Board member, he supports responsible forest management and certification standards.

Dr Morwenna Spear
Research Fellow, BioComposites Centre
Morwenna has worked at the BioComposites Centre at Bangor University for over 15 years, conducting research into timber and a wide range of bio-based materials. She has worked with companies to scale up new technologies and processes, increase efficiency, reduce waste and to assess materials performance. She is a fellow of the IOM3, Chair of the Wood Technology Society. Morwenna is active in research into novel timber treatments; the physical, thermal, and chemical properties of wood. She is also working on energy efficient buildings and researching the environmental effects of materials.

Robert South
Managing Director, Bronwen & Abbey
Robert joined the business in 2015 as a forest manager and quickly progressed into harvesting and operations management before becoming a company director in January 2021. Robert has a wealth of practical knowledge and a strong history of delivering complex projects on time and to budget. His current day to day duties include oversight of all operations and project finances as well as key client management. Robert is Vice Chair of  Confor Wales and represents the ICF at the Woodland carbon advisory board.

Owen Stacey
Social Value Manager, Morgan Sindall Construction
Owen is responsible for working with the project team to coordinate social value outcomes for the project. Morgan Sindall Construction’s social value offer includes school engagement activities for primary and secondary school pupils, supporting local community initiatives, and providing training and employment opportunities for local people.

John Sweeney
Small Scale Sawmilling | Independent advisor, Woodknowledge Wales
John Sweeny is chair of the small sawmillers community of practice. Born in Ireland, John grew up in Wales while still spending most of his childhood summers on his grandparents’ small dairy farm in Southern Ireland. There he found his connection with the land but also witnessed first-hand the impact of intensified agricultural over the years. As an adult, he served in the Air Force for seven years, then spent five years in the Arctic and Antarctic regions where navigating through the glacial meltwaters opened his eyes to climate change. He turned to forestry so he could continue to work out of doors and now focuses on work that allows him to contribute to decarbonisation and positive change for future generations.

Louise Townsend
Business Resilience & Social Value | Independent advisor, Woodknowledge Wales Board member
Louise Townsend is a leading figure in the sustainability and social value sectors, with a proven track record of shaping and embedding social value frameworks across the UK construction industry. Since 2014, she led the development and implementation of Morgan Sindall Group’s Social Value (SV) framework. Her work will be instrumental in aligning the company’s activities with broader sustainability goals, driving positive social and environmental impacts within communities.