Alberto Arroyo Schnell is responsible for policy and programmes at the European Regional Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He has held leading positions on EU environmental policy for the past 15 years. His current focus is working together with the key sectors related to / impacted by / benefiting from biodiversity and nature, aiming to find ways to achieve the environmental targets jointly and to ensure ownership of these targets by all stakeholders. He is Spanish, with a background in Forestry Engineering.
Oana Neagu is Director of the General Affairs team at Copa Cogeca. The team covers topics related to the circular and bio-economy, the environment and climate change, research and innovation, food waste, etc. Oana is an agricultural engineer and has a Master’s degree in business administration. She previously worked at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture as a policy officer, in charge of managing market measures. Prior to joining the Commission in 2006, she was the adviser on European integration at the Ministry of Agriculture in Romania, and was involved in preparing Romania’s accession to the European Union.
She is a member of the management committee of the multi-stakeholder platform on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals in the EU and actively involved in various expert groups on the bioeconomy, forestry and rural development.
Copa and Cogeca are the united voice of farmers and agri-cooperatives in the EU. Together, they ensure that EU agriculture is sustainable, innovative and competitive, guaranteeing food security for half a billion people throughout Europe. Copa represents over 23 million farmers and their families whilst Cogeca represents the interests of 22 000 agricultural cooperatives. They have 66 member organisations from the EU Member States https://copa-cogeca.eu/Menu.aspx Copa and Cogeca is one of the founding members of the European Bioeconomy Alliance - http://www.bioeconomyalliance.eu/
As an adviser for environmental and climate policy, Leon de Graaf particularly follows policies related to the circular economy, trade and climate, low-emission mobility, implementation of the Paris climate agreement (COP21) and the European emission trading system (EU ETS). He is also deputy manager of BusinessEurope's corporate Advisory and Support Group (ASGroup). Prior to joining BusinessEurope, Leon worked at the research consultancy Ecorys, focusing on renewable energy and international development issues, at DG COMP on energy and environmental subsidies in Europe, and at the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) on indirect ETS costs for energy-intensive industries. Leon has a MSc in environmental economics and climate change from the London School of Economics, and a BSc in business economics from the University of Groningen.
