Board

Charles Nouhan – Chair

Charles was Deputy Director and UK Co-ordinator of Stakeholder Forum from 2000 to 2002, where he worked alongside former Executive Director Felix Dodds and then Chair Derek Osborn in the run-up to the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. He is a Chartered Waste Manager, who worked for 15 years in the UK local government waste and resource sector developing and managing recycling, composting, and waste minimisation services for communities and businesses. As Chair of the Kent Waste Minimisation and Recycling Forum from 2006 to 2010, Charles was part of the team that developed the waste strategy for Kent in southeast England.

Now based in the New York Metropolitan area of the USA, Charles is SF’s New York representative to the United Nations, represents its joint-venture with partner the Earth System Governance Project the Governance for Global Sustainability Partnership, and is developing ventures to make cities and communities sustainable.

Charles’ other activities include developing and leading seminars on the science and drivers of climate change, and teaching participants about the history, politics, and economics surrounding the subject. He also speaks to community and business groups on a wide-range of environmental issues.

From 1998 to 1999, Charles was a project manager and advisor to the directors of the International Hotels Environment Initiative and the Resource Centre for the Social Dimensions of Business Practice, both programmes of the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum.

Derek Osborn – President

As Deputy Director and UK Co-ordinator of Stakeholder Forum (2000 to 2002), Charles worked alongside former Stakeholder Forum Executive Director Felix Dodds and then Chair Derek Osborn in the run-up to the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. He is a Chartered Waste Manager, currently working in the UK local government waste and resource sector where he develops and oversees recycling and waste minimisation services for households and businesses. As Chair of the Kent Waste Minimisation and Recycling Forum (2006-2010), Charles worked within the team that developed the long-term waste strategy for Kent.

Charles’ other activities include developing and leading seminars on the drivers of the climate change debate, teaching the science of climate change and introducing participants to the history, politics, and economics surrounding it. He also speaks to community and business groups on a wide-range of environmental issues.

Charles holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Management, and is a Member of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and Rotary International.

Jan-Gustav Strandenaes

Jan-Gustav had his debut with the UN and the environment in the 1970s through the Stockholm Conference for Environment in 1972 and has stayed with this arena ever since, worked on disseminating information on and teaching about UN issues during the 80s and early 90s, has followed and worked with the UN Commission for Sustainable Development since 1997, when he that year, was a liaison officer between the UN and the NGO community at the UN headquarters in New York. After his first assignments for the UN in Latin America in the 70’s, Jan-Gustav has worked and lived in Botswana, Uganda, the US and Sweden in addition to Norway. He has extensive NGO experience developed through three decades in almost all continents in the world, speaks several languages and has lectured and given workshops all over the world on the UN, governance, the environment and sustainable development, evaluated projects and organisations, advised governments on relations with civil society, chaired UN meetings and facilitated UN processes, translated several books from English to Norwegian and authored two books and numerous articles on the environment and sustainable development.

He serves on a global civil society committee for UNEP and is presently the global UN CSD NGO Co-Organising Partner coordinating global NGO input into the UN CSD process and into preparatory process for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development to be organised in 2012 in Brazil. Jan-Gustav joined Stakeholder Forum in London in 2011.While also operating as a free-lance adviser, Jan-Gustav is part time employed by the Brussels-based, international NGO, ANPED, as their Policy Adviser, advices on CSR issues for a private sector think tank in Norway, but works out of his home outside Oslo, Norway, when he is not travelling the world, writing, lecturing or otherwise working abroad on environment, governance and sustainability issues while observing and writing on political behaviour.

Farooq Ullah

Farooq became a member of the Board of Directors after stepping down as the organisation’s Executive Director in December 2016. He origianally joined Stakeholder Forum in September 2011 as Head of Policy and Advocacy, after his role with the UK Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) for nearly five years. During that time Farooq worked on strategic assessment at the SDC analysing public policy, sustainable operations and procurement, strategy, governance, and decision-making in order to hold the UK Government to account and improve its sustainability performance. Key elements of this work included policy advice, stakeholder engagement and capability building. In all, Farooq has over ten years of experience at international, national and local levels in public policy and sustainable development, with a further three years of private sector consultancy experience.

Farooq is also a Specialist Advisor to the UK Parliament Environmental Audit Committee, a member of Future Earth’s Engagement Committee, and a member of the Alliance for Future Generations. Additionally, he is a founding member of Brighter Future, a climate-change action group in London.

Farooq holds a BComm in Management Science from the University of Alberta and an MSc in Public Policy from the London School of Economics.