Ranveer has worked in the agriculture commodity sector all of his career - starting in India in the late 1980s and then joining Olam in Nigeria in 1993. He is now based in Singapore and heads Edible Oils and Rubber business at Olam International Ltd.

Ranveer studied Business Management and Leadership at IIM-Ahmedabad(India), Wharton (US) and at the Said Business School at Oxford University, UK.

Ranveer works in Business advisory capacity pro-bono and is Vice Chairman of the African Business Group at SBF (Singapore Business Federation) and also member of the Advisory Board of CAS (Centre for African Studies).

For his investment and business development work in Côte d'Ivoire, the country recognized Ranveer's contributions with a National Award.

Ranveer has been in Singapore since 2009, and to address the gaps in real understanding about 'living and working in Africa' Ranveer co-authored a book and published in Singapore. The book is titled "Amazing Africa: A corporate journey". 

Prof. Moses Zinnah is a distinguished Liberian agriculturist with over 30 years of experience in private and private sectors. He is Dean of the College of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Liberia. Prior to his recent position he served in several high-level positions in Liberia, including Minister of Agriculture.

Prof. Zinnah was the West Africa Regional Coordinator of Sasakawa Africa Fund for Extension Education (SAFE)] set up by Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) and Winrock International to reform higher agricultural education institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. The SAFE project has been successfully scaled up from 1 pilot program in Ghana in 1993 to over 17 programs across 9 African countries.

Prof. Zinnah has taught and supervised students at numerous universities in Africa and USA. He has published 30 professional articles and book chapters. He is a recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation African Career Award, and Fulbright Fellowship.

James is an astute Development Professional and socially adroit with over 12 years’ experience in the Development sector across West Africa with focus on Climate change Adaptation, community based natural resource management; land use planning / Resource mapping using participatory methodologies, Biodiversity Conservation, livelihoods activities for poverty alleviation in forest dependent communities; experience in Entrepreneurship / Market chain analysis for agriculture and forest products, High Conservation Value Assessment, Environmental Auditing as well as Social and Environmental Impact Assessments. James was the Social NGO representative at the participatory multi - stakeholder Nigeria National Interpretation Working Group of RSPO Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Palm oil.

James is currently the Project Manager, Entrepreneurship & Value Chain Development with Cuso International in Nigeria. Prior to joining Cuso International, James was the Project Director of African Research Association, a local Non-Government Organisation in Nigeria. He also coordinated a climate change Network in the South-South region of Nigeria, served as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Calabar, Nigeria and have rendered consultancy services in Nigeria and other West African countries.

James holds a BSc in Geography and Environmental Science and an MSc in Geography of Forest Ecology from the University of Calabar, Nigeria. He also obtained a certificate in Livelihoods and Markets from the Coady Institute, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Professor Lee White CBE is head of Gabon’s National Parks Service (ANPN). Appointed in 2009 by President Ali Bongo Ondimba, he has overseen the development of ANPN from a nascent parcs authority with under 100 employees to a professional parks management agency employing over 700 staff, including a dedicated national parks “gendarmerie” - an armed police force.

Professor White is an honorary professor at the University of Stirling who was awarded a CBE in 2011 for services to conservation in Central Africa. As a scientist he has published over 70 scientific articles and authored and edited 15 books on the ecology and conservation of the African rain forest.

As head of ANPN he is a police officer responsible for the respect of the parks and forestry laws with hundreds of officers under his command. He has played a key role in the fight against poaching and other illegal natural ressource use in Gabon. He is an advisor to the President of Gabon, and a “Chevalier” in the National Ordre of Merit.

Professor White has worked across the Central and West African forest belt in a career spanning over 30 years. He is a dual citizen of the UK and Gabon and has been working in Gabon’s protected areas for 27 years.

Marieke Leegwater coordinates the global Solidaridad Palm Oil Program, focussed on building sustainable and inclusive palm oil value chains. Within the programme Solidaridad supports farmers across all major palm oil producing regions to raise yields and cooperates with companies and other stakeholders throughout the value chain to build sustainable supply chains. Within the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil she co- leads the Working Group Smallholders and is member of the Complaints Panel. Before Marieke joined Solidaridad, she worked for the Dutch Product Board for Margarine, Fats and Oils (MVO), the industry association of the Dutch Oils and Fats Industry. In that role she facilitated the set up of the Dutch Task Force Sustainable Palm Oil and contributed to various RSPO and RTRS Working Groups. Marieke holds a master degree in Public Law.

Bakhtiar joined the RSPO Secretariat as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) in January 2017. He holds degrees from Princeton University in Chemistry and Environmental Studies, and from Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Prior to RSPO, he was the Regional Director at the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) based in Kuala Lumpur. He has also worked with various international advisory firms such as PFC Energy and Nexant specialising in downstream oil, after having started his career in Petronas.

Bakhtiar actively works on public health issues in Malaysia, and currently serves in the Malaysian AIDS Council and several grassroots NGOs.  

Bram Stoffele is a consultant for Aflatoun International and currently primarily consults RSPO on its RSPO Smallholder Academy, focusing on project management and its scaling strategies. Bram also consults Aflatoun on its cloud-based partner information and knowledge management system. Independently, he also consults across different sectors in the Philippines on knowledge management and scaling social solutions.

Previously, Bram worked in various roles for Aflatoun and Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI), both internationally awarded children’s NGOs. His work covered international multi-stakeholder advocacy, organizational development and impact scaling models, KM systems, and the development of product Certification and membership systems. Bram successfully closed partnerships between CYFI and UNICEF and MasterCard and co-authored leading publications on youth financial inclusion. He was Innovations Director at Youth at Venture – a Philippines-based NGO supporting out-of-school and unemployed youth through entrepreneurship opportunities – and volunteered for Ashoka Netherlands and the Ashoka Globalizer program, supporting high-impact social entrepreneurs.

Bram holds a MSc in the History and Philosophy of Science from Utrecht University (the Netherlands) – of which he spent one year as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University – and he holds BSc in Physics & Astronomy with a minor in Law from Utrecht University. He is into trail running and jazz piano.

Sutiyana is an oil palm smallholder farmer and a head of Tani Subur Coperative (KUD Tani Subur) in Pangkalan Tiga Village, Pangkalan Lada Sub-district, Kotawaringin Barat District. He is also a member of the Regional People’s Representative Council (DPRD) of Kotawaringin Barat District. On 1 January 2014, Tani Subur Cooperative was established by the spirit of the farmers who were willingly to have a prosperous life. Along with the spirit of the communities and the confidence of Tani Subur Cooperative members, the Cooperative is growing rapidly, and to date, the Cooperative has been developing integrated oil palm programs, such as:

He hopes the programs developed by the Cooperative will increase the welfare of the Pangkalan Tiga communities.

Isabella Tonaco joined BASF in 2011. Since June 2016, she is leading the Global Sustainability Palm Products Team at BASF Personal Care and Nutrition GmbH. Isabella and her expert team are responsible for BASF’s Palm Commitment implementation. They work closely with various partners in the supply chain to transform the market towards responsible palm. Before joining BASF, Isabella worked as researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Germany. She holds a PhD in Plant Sciences from the Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Mareike Felix has been working in the area of sustainable resources since 2010. Before her position as CRI Manager at ALDI International Services, her focus topics were the traceability of agricultural commodities and the integration of smallholder farmers into global value chains via mobile technology.

In this framework, she spent quite some time ‘in the field’ in South America and West Africa, inter alia for the software company SAP and for Soil & More International. She holds a BA in German-Latin American Business and a Master’s degree in International Development Studies. At ALDI SOUTH, next to palm, she works on the international strategy development for the commodities soy, coffee, cocoa and timber.”

Johan Verburg works for Oxfam, the international confederation for poverty alleviation. Oxfam’s agenda contains land and labour rights, gender and the voice of farmer families.

He has been representing the social NGOs in the RSPO Board since RT4. Johan is responsible for engagement with the agribusiness and financial sectors about inclusive value chains.

Sarah completed her PhD at the University of York (UK) in 2016, and her PhD research focused on ways to improve biodiversity and connectivity in tropical agricultural landscapes. She combined the collection of new field data from oil palm plantation landscapes in SE Asia and computer modelling techniques to examine issues of connectivity in relation to land-use and climate change. Sarah has since worked as a researcher on the SEnSOR (Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Oil Palm Research) project.

This research was funded by the RSPO and examined the impacts of the RSPO’s environmental sustainability criteria. Since October 2017, Sarah has been working as researcher for SEARRP (South-East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership) on a grant awarded by the Rainforest Trust. As part of this research, she will use high-resolution maps that integrate land-use with biodiversity information to help determine where to create new protected areas in Sabah, Borneo.  

Dr. Kimberly Carlson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management. A land systems scientist, Carlson’s research focuses on the sustainability of tropical agriculture. Her work has contributed to our understanding of agriculture’s impact on the environment and natural resources, and informs the effectiveness of voluntary environmental governance strategies such as certification systems.

Carlson has published more than twenty scientific articles, included highly cited works in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and Nature Climate Change. She received her PhD from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology from Stanford University, and worked as a GIS specialist at the Carnegie Institute’s Department of Global Ecology. Most recently, she was a Post-doctoral Research Scholar at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. Carlson lives in Honolulu.

Nia Kurniawati Hidayat was born in Sukabumi, Indonesia, on February 1, 1988. She holds a Bachelor degree in Agricultural and Resources Economics from Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia and in 2012, she completed the Master Program Agricultural Economics from the same university. She is currently a lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Resources Economics, within the Faculty of Economics and Management, at Bogor Agricultural University (IPB).

In 2013, she successfully applied for a DIKTI scholarship that allowed her to join International Center for Integrated Assessment for Sustainable Development (ICIS) - Maastricht University (the Netherlands) as a PhD student. She finished her PhD in September 2017. During her study she focused on the social and economic effects of palm oil certification and on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Soo Chin first joined RSPO in 2013 as the Biodiversity and Conservation Manager under the Technical Division and moved to ​​the Impacts and Evaluation Division in 2016.

In this capacity, she will be leading the team to understand the impacts of RSPO certification, communicate these impacts to stakeholders and incorporate lessons learned to continuously improve the standard.

​​​T​he Impacts and Evaluation Division​ ​​is responsible for the ​Theory of Change, Monitoring and Evaluation System, Complaints and Appeal Procedures, RSPO key research priorities, SENSOR, ISEAL compliance and GeoRSPO.​

Soo Chin was trained in Forestry and prior to joining RSPO, she was a Project Coordinator for the Malaysian Environmental Consultants (MEC), where she was attached to for 10 years working on numerous projects and possesses vast experience in HCV assessment, sustainable palm oil auditing, due diligence, natural resource conservation and management in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Rod is the Global Director of the Forests Program at the World Resource Institute (WRI), with oversight of Global Forest Watch, the Forest Legality Initiative and the Global Restoration Initiative. Before joining WRI, Rod worked as the Forests Director at WWF International, and before that led WWF’s forest work in the Asia Pacific region. Earlier in his career, Rod worked as a forest policy adviser in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Rod began his career as a lawyer in Australia and has a Masters Degree in Environmental Law from the Australian National University.

Dr Gan Lian Tiong has been involved with palm oil plantations since 1975 (37 years). He is working for PT Musim Mas from 2007 to present where he is now Director of Sustainability, responsible for the Group’s sustainability initiatives. Specific functions include amongst others Certification of RSPO P&C for all Group plantations and Scheme Smallholders, Certification of RSPO Supply Chain Certification System as well as Certification of EU-Germany International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC).

Prior to his work as General manager for plantation projects of RSPO in Kuala Lumpur Kepong from 2004 till 2007, he worked for Sime Darby Plantations from 1975 - 2004 (29 years) serving several functions: Planter, Head of R&D, Head of Business Development, Head of Special Projects (Life Cycle Assessment, Food Safety & RSPO).

He has been actively involved with RSPO since its inception in 2004, and was part of the Criteria Working Group, the Verification/Certification Working Group, the RT6 Organizing Committee and the P&C Review Task Force. He is currently a member of the Biodiversity and High Conservation Value Working Group and is serving as the co-chair of the Emission Reduction Working Group.

Dr Simon Lord is the Group Chief Sustainability Officer for Sime Darby Berhad. He has over 30 years of experience in promoting responsible palm oil plantations.

Lisa Li is from China. She is now Mars global oil & fats Commercial Director based in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. She has more than ten years of procurement experience and took over Mars global Palm oil sourcing responsibility starting from 2015. She works hand in hand with Mars sustainability team to ensure the company implement the Mars sustainable palm standard and policy into their sourcing and supplier selection process. She is also leading the Mars global palm sustainable sourcing program. 

IOI Loders Croklaan is a global palm oil processor and part of the IOI group. As Director Sustainability at IOI Loders Croklaan, Ben is responsible for building a transparent and sustainable palm oil supply chain and stakeholder management. Ben was educated at the Agricultural University of Wageningen, the Netherlands. He has worked in both the food and feed industry for over 20 years, with assignments in Europe, South East Asia and South America.

He first joined IOI Loders Croklaan in 1999 and held various commercial positions. His areas of expertise lie in the field of general management, customer relationship management and long term business development.

Prior to working for IOI Loders Croklaan Ben worked for Alltech Inc. a US based animal feed company. Stationed in the Philippines, he was responsible for developing and overseeing commercial activities in the region.

Bakhtiar joined the RSPO Secretariat as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) in January 2017. He holds degrees from Princeton University in Chemistry and Environmental Studies, and from Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Prior to RSPO, he was the Regional Director at the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) based in Kuala Lumpur. He has also worked with various international advisory firms such as PFC Energy and Nexant specialising in downstream oil, after having started his career in Petronas.

Bakhtiar actively works on public health issues in Malaysia, and currently serves in the Malaysian AIDS Council and several grassroots NGOs. 

Dr Simon Lord is the Group Chief Sustainability Officer for Sime Darby Berhad.  He has over 30 years of experience in promoting responsible palm oil plantations.

Darrel Webber joined the RSPO as Chief Executive Officer (formerly known as Secretary General) in January 2011, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His last position was Senior Associate of Global Sustainability Associates, a role which required him to provide senior counsel to companies and organisations about agricultural development (including oil palm).

Prior to that, he was Senior Manager Palm Oil Sector Engagement at WWF-International and regional manager for companies such as Permanis Sandilands Sdn. Bhd. and Shell Malaysia Ltd. From 2007 until 2009, Darrel Webber was a RSPO Executive Board Member representing the Environmental NGOs constituent through his position at WWF International.

Darrel was also actively involved in the initial discussions and development of the RSPO Principles & Criteria. Darrel speaks in numerous thought leadership forums and conferences all around the world on sustainability.

Perpetua “Pep” George has a career spanning work in forest conservation, sustainable production consulting, the FMCG industry, and oil palm plantations. Previously working for Unilever, Proforest, and WWF - she joined Wilmar in 2015 and is currently the General Manager for Group Sustainability in Wilmar International.

Her current responsibilities cover the implementation of sustainable practices in Wilmar’s plantation operations and spearheading the sustainable supplier transformation programme. She is also involved in wider engagement with stakeholders within the partnerships and initiatives that Wilmar belong too such as the HCSA executive committee, the Tropical Forest Alliance, and the Sabah Jurisdictional Approach Steering Committee. She is an active participant in various RSPO work streams, where she currently co-chairs the Smallholder Working Group, and is also the chair for the RSPO Smallholder Support Fund Panel.

Pep holds an MSc in botany and anthropology, and her research expertise is in the natural resource use of local communities – focussing on how land and different forest types are valued amongst the indigenous communities of Sabah.

A tropical agronomist by training, Olivier Tichit has worked in South-East Asia for the past twenty years. Olivier Tichit is a Director of the Indonesian subsidiaries of SIPEF, a Belgian plantations group active in palm oil, rubber, tea and bananas, and present in Côte d'Ivoire, Papua New-Guinea and Indonesia.

Prior to joining SIPEF, Olivier Tichit was the Indonesia Country Manager for a major commodities merchant group, and spearheaded sustainable certifications for coffee smallholders.

Rosemary Addico works for Solidaridad West Africa as the Oil Palm Program Manager for Ghana. She is a member of the RSPO P&C Review Taskforce representing smallholders from the “Rest of the World”. She is also a member of the Smallholder Academy Curriculum Development Committee. She has a lot of experience working with smallholder farmers and voluntary standards.

Faizal Parish is the Director of the Global Environment Centre, a Malaysian non-profit organization working throughout East and Southeast Asia on forest and peatland management, biodiversity, water resources and climate change. He is a wetland ecologist by training and has more than 30 years’ experience in assessment and management of peat swamp forests, mangroves and river systems. He is a Malaysian Permanent Resident and has been living in Malaysia since 1983. He has been the Director of Global Environment Centre since 1998 and was the Senior Technical Advisor of the ASEAN Peatland Forests Project (2005-2014) and is currently assisting the ASEAN Secretariat to develop the ASEAN Programme on Sustainable Management of Peatland Ecosystems - 2014-2020 ( APSMPE). He was a Lead Author for Wetland Chapter of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and a contributing author to the 2013 IPCC wetland Supplement.

He has been actively involved in RSPO since 2004. He was the Co-chair of the RSPO Peatland Working Group (2009-2012) and is currently the Co-chair of RSPO Emission Reduction Working Group (2013-2017) and the RSPO Peatland Working Group 2(2017-2020). He coordinated the preparation of Guidelines for Minimising the impact of oil palm plantations and Mills on River water Quality In Sabah (2011); the RSPO Manual for BMPs  for oil palm cultivation on peat. (2012) and the RSPO Manual on BMPs for Maintenance and Rehabilitation of natural vegetation associated with for oil palm cultivation on peat (2012). He is a member of the Task Force on the RSPO 2018 P&C.

As the Manager of Verite Southeast Asia’s (VSEA) Research and Stakeholder Engagement Programs, Daryll Delgado designs, implements, and manages multi-country programs geared towards understanding and improving working conditions in the agriculture, electronics, apparel, footwear, and food manufacturing sectors in Southeast Asia, as well as, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. She directs the Southeast Asia research team, and is principal investigator for Verité's publicly funded research on forced labor and trafficking in persons.

Daryll also represents VSEA in international, multi stakeholder initiatives and forums. She sits in the Advisory Board of the Dispute Settlement Facility, and leads the Labor Task Force of the Human Rights Working Group of the RSPO. She was also a member of the panel that reviewed and revised the RSPO P&C.

Daryll is a key contributor to the development of Verité's public toolkits and primers on various labor issues. She is an accredited lead auditor by IRCA, RAISE, and the EICC, and conducts social responsibility audits and assessments globally, trains and manages audit teams throughout Southeast Asia.

She is one of the Directors of the FAIR Hiring Initiative, Inc. Apart from work with Verité and FAIR Hiring, she is a journalist, a published book author, and a university lecturer.