His Excellency. Mr. Lennart Linnér has had a long and distinguished career with the Swedish Foreign Service. His current appointment, held since 2007, is that of Ambassador of Sweden to Thailand, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Kingdom of Cambodia and the Union of Myanmar. Prior to that, he served as Ambassador of Sweden to the Republic of Indonesia and to the Democratic Republic of East Timor from 2003 until 2007. Between 1978 and the present he has served in many different functions and in many different Embassies of Sweden in countries including, Lebanon, South Africa, the United States and Canada.

The EU member states take turns to hold the Presidency. The presidency rotates every six months. The current Presidency is held by Sweden, so that Ambassador Linnér represents the EU presidency at this event.

Mr. Karl Falkenberg has a great deal of experience as a negotiator in the European Commission. He started his career in the Commission as a textiles negotiator. He has dealt with international fisheries issues and since 1985 with the GATT. In 1990, he served as foreign policy advisor to EU President Jacques Delors, with particular focus on the German unification process. He was involved in the Uruguay Round negotiations and has been negotiating the telecommunications and financial services agreements in the WTO. From 1997 to December 2000 he was in charge of the coordination of all WTO issues. In 2001 he was appointed Director in charge of Sectoral Trade Policies and Bilateral Trade Relations with North America, Japan, the Mediterranean area, Africa, and Caribbean and Pacific countries. In 2002, Mr. Falkenberg served as Director for Free Trade Agreements, Agricultural trade questions, ACP. From 2005 to 2008 he coordinated all bilateral trade policies as Deputy Director General. In January 2009, he took up the position of Director General of the Environment, covering the EU's environmental policy in both its domestic and international dimensions.

Mr. Falkenberg is a trained economist and journalist.

Since 2008, Associate Professor Adis Israngkura has been the Director of the Center for the Studies of Sufficiency Economy, National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA). He has also been a Research Specialist of National Resources and Environment Program at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) since 1994.

His main research areas include Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, Environmental Valuation, Public Economics and Policy and Project Cost Benefit Analysis. Currently, he is working on “The Impact of Environmental Regulations on Thai Industries” and “Tax Provisions for Clean Development Mechanism in Thailand”.

He received the Award of Fulbright Program in 1989 and a McNamara Research Fellowship from the World Bank in 1999.

He was a consultant to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) for the report on “Economic evaluation of natural environment: case studies of Khao Yai and Kho Samed National Parks” in 2001.

Stefan Agne started his professional career as Research Associate at the University of Göttingen, Germany. The focus of his research was on natural resource economics and environmental taxation. From 1994-1996, he was based at CATIE, an international research centre in Costa Rica, conducting research on the economics of pesticide use and pesticide taxation.

His first assignment in the European Commission was on plant health and food safety in the Commission's Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin. In 2002, he joined the Asia Department of the Commission's EuropeAid Cooperation Office, where he was in charge of EC environmental and rural development cooperation programmes in Asia. In 2004, he was appointed Head of Sector in the EU Delegation in China responsible for EU-China cooperation programmes on environment, energy and climate change. In his current function in DG Environment, he coordinates work on climate strategy, international climate negotiations, and monitoring of EU action.

Stefan Agne holds a doctoral degree in Agricultural Economics.

Thomas Bergmark has over 25 years experience in business management. He has worked with IKEA for more than 20 years in various positions, including, purchasing management, Managing Director for varoius IKEA companies and Business Area Manager. Mr. Bergmark, also an engineer, has been the Sustainability Manager within the IKEA Group for the past 7 years.

In addition, Mr Bergmark is also member of the IKEA Strategical Purchasing Committee and the Retail Board of IKEA in Spain and Portugal. He also holds the title of Chairman of the Saw a Seed Foundation, created by IKEA. In 2007, he became a board member of the US based organisation, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR).

In 2007, Mr. Bergmark was ranked the 13th most influential person in Business Ethics by the US magazine Ethisphere.

Dr. Alexander Paufler joined the Daimler-Benz AG company in 1981 in their Tax Department. Over the next 9 years he served in various capacities including as a Certified Tax Consultant and Senior Tax Manager. In 1990, Dr. Paufler was appointed Chief Financial Officer, as well as Chief Information Officer of Mercedes-Benz Japan. In 2000, he left Mercedes-Benz to become head of finance and tax in the role of Senior Executive Officer of Mitsubushi Motors. However, in 2004, Dr. Paufler returned to Mercedes-Benz to take up the position of President & CEO of Mercedes-Benz Hellas S.A., Greece. At the beginning of this year, Dr. Paufler returned to Asia as the President & CEO of Mercedes-Benz (Thailand) Ltd.

Mr. Paul Rowsome is Environmental Manager for the Carrefour Group, a position he acquired in 2002. The Carrefour Group is the leading retailer in Europe and 2nd worldwide. In his role Mr Rowsome is responsible for Group sustainability reporting, environmental project management in the fields of merchandise, logistics, supply chain and store activities as well as communication to socially responsible investors and rating agencies on the Group’s performance.

Prior to this Mr Rowsome was Environmenal Affairs Manager with Philips Consumer Communications. Mr Rowsome worked on product and packaging eco-design, competitor benchmarking and management of health issues related to mobile telephony.

Mr. Cholathorn Dumrongsak start his career at Siam Cement Public Co., Ltd., as Section Manager for Procurement Division and then moved to be Senior Production Engineer at Ta Luang Cement Plant and then Chief Engineer for Engineering Division before promoted to be the Director Total Quality Promotion Center and Secretary of SCG Sustainable Committee at Siam Cement Public Co., Ltd.

He also has many other experiences such as Board member of Management System Certification Institute (Thailand), Lead Accessor of Thailand Quality Award, Advisory board of Strategic Planning Committee (Foundation of Thai – Japan Association), Secretary of Standards Committee of the Thai Federation of Thai Industries, Technical Committee on TISI Quality Management and Quality Assurance and Chairman of working committee corporating between TISI and FTI editing and publishing “Guideline Manual for Implementation ISO 9002 & ISO 14001”.

Mr. Thavephong Vajanapath is currently General Manager – Engineering at Siam Furukawa Co., Ltd. He started his career at Siam Furukawa in 1993 in the Engineering department before becoming Section Head of Production Assembly in 1994. In 1996, he was promoted to Assistant Manager of Production Assembly and then became Manager of Engineering & Production Planning in 2001. In 2002, he continued his career as Manager of Engineering and then onto Manager of Production in 2005, then Manager of Technology Development Center in 2006. In 2008, he was promoted to be Deputy General Manager of Engineering before assuming his current position as General Manager of Engineering.

Mr. Bundit Phonghirun started his career with Siam Furukawa Co., Ltd. In 1999 as a Technician in Engineering before being promoted to be the Assistant Manager of the Technology Development Center in 2004. Later he was promoted to the position of Manager of Technical & Product Development which he has held since 2008.

Mr. Chen Namchaisiri has been the Executive Director & President of Asia Fiber Public Company, Limited since 1997. From 1984 until 1997 he served as the Vice President of the same company he now serves as President. Prior to working with Asia Fiber Public Company, Limited, he had various positions at various companies including, Managing Director of Chen Ann Chul Company, Limited and Managing Director of Bangkok Union Economic Company Limited, both from 1982 until 1984.

In addition to his professional responsibilities, Mr. Namchaisiri is currently Vice Chairman of The Institute of Industries Energy, The Thai Synthetic Fiber Manufacturers’ Association and The National Federation of Thai Textile Industries. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of The Federation of Thai Industries.