Gerard Busse joined the FSC Africa team as Marketing Manager in South Africa on October 2019. He has a wide-ranging commercial and marketing experience in the retail, financial services, wood preservation and wood products sectors. Achievements include the first treated timber guarantee program, first Continuous Professional Development training program for Architects in South Africa, first certification in South Africa of wood preservative-treated timber as a green building product and he was instrumental in founding an industry marketing forum bringing together various industry associations in the forestry, sawmilling, paper products, wood preservation and timber construction sectors. Gerard’s role as Marketing Manager for the FSC in South Africa is in addition to developing marketing strategy include marketing communications, stakeholder engagement, planning events and promotions, local support to the FSC International Marketing Team and growing and managing the Trademark License Agreements in South Africa. Gerard in his three months on the job has already engaged with many stakeholders in South Africa and has already travelled to Johannesburg and Cape town to meet COC license holders from the printing, packaging and construction industries. He also participated in the Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) conference which took place in Pretoria on November 6th-7th. Gerard is based in Durban, S.A and can be reached at his email: g.busse@fsc.org