Markus Grulke is co-founder of UNIQUE and since 2018 one of the Managing Directors of Arbaro Advisors, the advisory company to the Arbaro Fund. The Arbaro Fund for sustainable forestry is a joint venture between UNIQUE and the Frankfurt based impact fund manager Finance in Motion.

Markus is the key person behind the strategic development of the Paraguay investment portfolio. He oversees the portfolio and exercises his formal decision making power through the supervisory boards of the different forest companies.

Markus Grulke spent over 25 years working with sustainable wood production in forest plantations and natural forests. Throughout his career, he has managed to develop forest investments that successfully balance out risk adjusted economic returns with social and environmental sustainability.

He has been the principal developer and supervisor of three plantation forest companies, two natural forest companies and one forest industry producing green charcoal with retort technology.

Andrea Braun supervises our different investments and coordinates monitoring and controlling, FSC certification and ESG measures. She is the face and main contact person for our investors and conducts regular reporting.

Most of her 10 years professional experience, Andrea Braun spent with forest investment related matters. As a trained environmental engineer and governance expert, the focus of her work initially has been related to environmental, social and governance related issues. During her years working as a consultant in UNIQUE, she brought several forest companies to achieve FSC certification. Andrea has in-depth experience and knowledge with respect to international reporting standards. She coordinated numerous sustainability, production and financial reports to investors and to the public. In the past years she increasingly took over investor relation management, monitoring and controlling.

Timm Tennigkeit is responsible for the shareholding at Arbaro Fund, our joint venture with Finance in Motion. He is also a member of the Arbaro Fund investment committee.

Timm Tennigkeit is developing and implementing forestry and agricultural investments for more than 20 years. A number of these investments generate carbon credits for which he co-developed a number of carbon accounting methodologies and transaction structures. Timm works primarily in Africa and Asia for the private sector, financial institutions and Governments. Timm is responsible for the investment advisory services provided to the Forestry and Climate Change Fund and the long-term support to the Livelihoods Funds.

Fernando Rossi provides technical support to our investment portfolio, particularly focused on forest management and silviculture, forest inventory, and monitoring. He assists the local forest managers with data collection, conducts on-the-ground capacity building, coordinates teams to develop software applications, and conducts quality control of operations and monitoring.

Fernando has in depth knowledge of remote sensing technology, forest inventory, and charcoal production. He has strong practical experience with the design and implementation of forest-related analytical tools in private companies and research and consultancy projects in South America, Central Europe, and the Scandinavian Boreal forests.

Verónica Alonso provides analytical support to our investment portfolio, related to financial controlling and cost monitoring. She develops analytical tools and supports the local team with their implementation and interpretation of results.

Veronicas has a strong background with macroeconomic and microeconomic analytics in the energy and forestry sectors, including value chain analytics, business model development, and policy analysis. She is experienced in leading and working with inter-sectoral teams and topics, and communicating with clients, industry leaders and governmental agencies.

Irene Calo provides analytical support to our investment portfolio, particularly focused on forest monitoring, carbon accounting, and data management. She works at the interface of finances and forestry, and assists the team with analytics, including production growth models, forest asset valuation, and data management and interpretation.

Irene has proven experience with all the core aspects of forest investment, including due diligence of forest companies, the development of forest business models, forest asset valuation, and carbon accounting and certification. She has strong practical experience in Latin America.

Fernando Fernández holds a MSc in spatial engineering and specializes in GIS, spatial analysis and ecological modelling. He supports the development of the Forest Information System and its implementation across the investment portfolio. This includes the continuous assessment and adjustment of the monitoring tool according to the portfolio’s needs, data collection and quality control, as well as training of the technical team on the ground. He also conducts spatial analysis needed for monitoring, reporting, and certification purposes.

Laura Hempelmann is a trained forester working in the black forest in southern Germany. She is experienced with forest management planning, the implementation of forest operations and analytical tools related to forest and timber production. She advises the Team with regards to harvesting planning, health and safety measures, and the development of the monitoring tool through the Forest Information System (FIS). She also acts as a liaison with FIS developers and provides training for FIS implementation to the team.