Dr. Alexander Rinnooy Kan was born in the Netherlands. He is married and has three children. Rinnooy Kan has degrees in Mathematics from Leiden University and Econometrics from Amsterdam University.

He was employed as mathematics editor at the Spectrum Encyclopaedia for the period of a year, and at the University of Delft for three years. In 1977 he moved to Erasmus University in Rotterdam, where he became a professor in operational research in 1980, Director of the Econometric Institute in 1983 and Rector Magnificus in 1986. In the meantime he was also visiting professor at Berkeley, California and MIT, Boston, among others.

In 1991 he became Chairman of the Confederation of Dutch Industry VNO, which became VNO-NCW in 1995, Mr. Rinnooy Kan joined the Executive Board of ING and became Chairman of the Board of both ING Insurance Central Europe and ING Insurance & Asset Management Asia/Pacific. He held these positions until June 2006.

As of August 2006 he is Chairman of the Social-Economic Council (SER).

Guangchun Lei, born in 1960 in Southern China. Currently, he is dean of the Nature Conservation School at Beijing Forestry University.

Over the past 25 years, he has developed his career from Forester, Ecologist to Conservationist. After succeeding his Master Degree in Agronomy in 1985, he realized nature conservation is the best solution for forest protection.

In 1988 he moved to the government office, as Chief of protected area management in Hunan Provincial Government. In order to improve his knowledge in nature conservation, he moved to Finland for his PhD studies on ecology in 1993,and returned to China after defending his PhD thesis.

Upon returning to China, he worked at the Beijing University as professor in ecology, and meanwhile, work with WWF as the Yangtze Program Leader. In 2003, he was appointed as the Senior Advisor for the Asia and Pacific region of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

Dean, Professor College of Nature Conservation
Beijing Forestry University

Beijing, China

Herman Wijffels (1942) is a Dutch economist and politician for the CDA. From 1981 to 1999 he worked for the Rabobank ultimately as chairman of the board of directors.

As farewell present, the Rabobank established the Herman Wijffels Innovation Award. The award recognizes enterprising people who take the initiative to develop innovations that not only produce benefits for themselves, but als for the society as a whole.

From 1999 until 2006, he was chairman of the Social-Economic Council and he was chairman of the Society for Preservation of Nature in the Netherlands. In 2006 he was appointed as Dutch representative at the World Bank, succeeding Ad Melkert.

For the 2006-2007 Dutch cabinet formation, Herman was appointed by Queen Beatrix to lead the negotiations between the political parties for the cabinet to be.

Nowadays, Herman is together with Sylvia Borren co-chairman of Worldconnectors, a Dutch think tank with the aim of working towards a just, sustainable, inclusive and peaceful world. Herman is also professor Sustainability and Social change at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Co-Chair
Worldconnectors

Maarn, The Netherlands

Joyce has over 20 years experience working within Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences industry.

Her role within Automation Compliance supports quality operations automation strategy development of technology for new manufacturing facilities worldwide.

Joyce has experience with GxP regulatory consulting and has formerly worked for Sanofi Aventis, Astra Zeneca, and Rhone Poulenc Rorer.

"Participating with People for Earth is an honor. I would like to support and advocate balance of ethical consumer products, work practices, science, and ultimately people worldwide as we enjoy our planet earth. To me it is all about sharing community, knowledge and best practices creating an environment that is healthy for all to enjoy."

Whitehouse Station, USA

After graduating in Biology at the Free University in Amsterdam, Wouter van der Weijden (1946) worked at Leiden University developing visions on sustainable agriculture.

In 1980 he co-founded the Centre for Agriculture and Environment (CLM) aimed at promoting sustainable farming in the Netherlands. He is still co-director of CLM.

Wouter was involved in numerous projects covering farmland birds, on-farm nutrient and energy management, farm policy and ecolabeling. He wrote hundreds of articles and columns, was co-author of Values of Agrarian Landscapes across Europe and North America and is lead author of Farmland Birds across the World (forthcoming).

Birdwatching is among his passions.

Director
Stichting CLM

Culemborg, The Netherlands

In 1984 he started working with Solidaridad, an organization for development cooperation which initially focused on Latin America, but later on started operating worldwide. Initially, he was employed as campaigner. In 1990 he was appointed director of Solidaridad. Under his direction Solidaridad has developed into an internationally recognized organization, with a very specific expertise in the development of models which have contributed significantly to bridge the gap between the work of charities on the one hand and industry, trade and retail companies on the other.

In 1988 Nico launched the Max Havelaar label for fair trade coffee. This was the world's first fair trade label and it has formed the basis for local fair trade labeling initiatives in Europe, Japan, Australia/New Zealand and the USA and Canada.

As from 2000 on he started developing a model for fair trade textiles. In 2001 he launched the trendy fair trade jeans brand Kuyichi, which has developed into a European jeans and tops brand.

As from 2003, Solidaridad has been developing or co-developing a number of programmes aiming at creating workable tools for companies willing to take up their corporate social responsibility. Nico is the current President of the Board of Utz Certified.

In 2009, Nico Roozen was invited to become member of the Task Force Biodiversity and National Resources as installed by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (presided by former Minister Hans Alders), as well as the Committee for Biodiversity, recently installed by the same Ministry.

Wilson Ang is the founder and President of the Environmental Challenge Organisation (Singapore), also known as ECO Singapore. The organisation was established on 7 January 2003. It has since expanded with an outreach of empowering more than 2,000 youths and educating up to 60,000 members of the public, all geared to doing their part to protecting the environment.

Thou being involved in volunteering work since the age of 9 in various volunteering sectors, his awareness on the environmental sector only got more attention when he attended the ASEAN Youth Forum on the Environment in 2000. Subsequently, his trip to the United Nation's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002 inspired him to take on the path of the environment as the focus to make the world a better place.

Wilson was a full time air traffic controller in the Republic of Singapore Air Force from 2002 to 2006 while he pursued his passion. Despite the job intensity during his working days, he was still involved in various environmental movements, activities, and projects. This includes the formation of ECO Singapore and used it as a platform to reach out to more youth as drivers to educate the general public.

Having seen the state of the environment in many developed and developing nations, Wilson believes that the only way to create a better planet for human survivability is for every individual to take responsibility of their own action by being more conscious about their daily choices in consumption habits.

He strongly believes that environment plays a very vital role in society that his life mission can simply be phased into one sentence: "To create and maintain a sustainable lifestyle and culture". This is his way to try to make a difference and in his words, "... to save the world".

Founder and President
ECO Singapore

Singapore

Lodewijk de Waal is General Director of Humanitas since July 2006. Born in Rotterdam he went to high school for a number of years. In this period he started a student union and he joined the Socialist Youth.

From 1968 and 1972 he worked for the insurance company RVS in Rotterdam at the real estate department. In 1973 Lodewijk joined the NVV Bond Mercurius and two years later he was appointed as district director, later he was appointed as rural collective negotiator in several industries such as unions, cinemas, dental technology and commercial insurances.

In 1985 he was appointed as Coordinator of collective negiotations at Dienstenbond FNV and three years later he was chosen as chairman of this union. As chairman of FNV he was vice-chairman of the Social Economic Council (SER) from 1997-2005, chairman of employees at the Labour Foundation, member of the Bank Council, member of the Executive Committee ICFTU and ETUC.

Lodewijk is the proud father of Daan and Hanna.

Director
Humanitas

Amsterdam, The Netherlands