Meet our people

Bert joined Forest Enterprises in 2010 to lead the expansion of the company’s forest management capability. Bert brought with him a depth and breadth of expertise from a 30-year forestry career, having held senior management and executive roles across the industry.

Bert is at the helm of Forest Enterprises as Chief Executive Officer, taking over former Managing Director Steve Wilton’s leadership responsibilities from 1 February 2018. As CEO, Bert is responsible for overseeing all Forest Enterprises activities across the two companies – Forest Enterprises Limited, the licensed forest investment management company, and its parent Forest Enterprises Growth Limited, the land and tree crop management company. Bert is a Chartered Director. He is a shareholder of Forest Enterprises Growth Limited and a director of both companies.

Bert is also Forestry Director and, as such, heads our team of professional foresters. The team is collectively responsible for the entire tree crop cycle from establishment to harvest, including all aspects of harvest operations including log sales and marketing, and all-important contractor management.

Bert’s focus is on understanding the market and getting our investors’ product as close to the buyer as possible.

“Although wood is a commodity product, we add value by understanding what the product is used for and how it is promoted to the end user. Therefore, our relationships with customers and marketing partners are critical to understanding cost and price, and managing risk. Investors must have faith in ultimate transparency of information, and our technical competency to make decisions and put good plans into action.

“My major responsibility as Director is to strike the balance between making our investors better off, the company better off and our land better off. Forestry as an investment has a perpetual value and our role as Manager is to therefore protect the two assets – the cashflow and the residual value of the land.”

Bert is an elected Board member of The New Zealand Forest Owners Association and Forest Growers Levy Trust Incorporated and Past President of Marlborough Forest Industry Association and a founding trustee and Treasurer of the Southern North Island Wood Council. He manages his own forest estates on tranches of family land. Bert and his family live in Masterton and he enjoys fishing, hunting, surfing, skiing and the great outdoors.