Our Board

Lena Sommestad - Chair

Professor of Economic History and Swedish politician – Former Minister of the Environment in the Ministry of Sustainable Development Lena Sommestad is a professor in Economic History, formerly at Uppsala University. She was previously the Managing Director of the Swedish Institute for Future Studies (Institutet för Framtidsstudier), Minister for the Environment (2002-2006), and the CEO of the industry organisation Svensk Fjärrvärme. Between 2014 and 2020 she was governor of Halland County. She has been politically active in the Social Democrats for many years and holds a firm belief in knowledge and progress.

Victor Galaz

Associate Professor Stockholm Resilience Centre Victor Galaz's research focuses on financial systems, and their connection to large-scale environmental change with global repercussions. He is programme director of the Beijer Institute’s Governance, Technology and Complexity programme, and also co-Editor-in-Chief for the journal Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (COSUST). Victor Galaz has substantial experience operating and evaluating trandsiciplinary projects. He will provide essential advice and guidance to MISTRA FinBio, and can help the project avoid administrative, policy, or scientific challenges related to transdisciplinary work, research ethics, or potential conflicts of interests.

Marten Winter

Head of sDiv - Synthesis Centre German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Marten Winter is a highly cited macro- and invasion ecologist. As head of sDiv, Synthesis Centre for Biodiversity Sciences, he is also a science manager, with a focus on biodiversity research and strong networks across the broad global community of researchers working on biodiversity, especially in Europe. sDiv is part of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Halle-Jena-Leipzig. sDiv hosts working groups and visiting researchers to address big questions in biodiversity by integrating diverse knowledge to increase the generality and applicability of results and yield novel insights and explanations.

Magnus Emfel

Senior Sustainability Strategist Länsförsäkringar Magnus Emfel is Senior Sustainability Strategist at Länsförsäkringar AB and the former Chief economist at WWF Sweden. He is the founder of Sweden’s Sustainable Investment Forum (SWESIF) and has worked in management consulting, business coaching and strategic analysis. He specialises in the role of economics and finance in the transition towards science-based sustainability goals.

Katherine Richardson

Professor in Biological Oceanography University of Copenhagen Prof. Katherine Richardson is currently the Chairman of the steering committee of the University of Copenhagen’s Sustainability Science Centre and was previously the Chairman of the Danish Commission on Climate Change Policy. She is a principle investigator in the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, where her research focuses on how changes in climate and biodiversity in the ocean interact to influence the global carbon cycle. She is also a co-leader in the development of the Planetary Boundaries framework aiming to identify a safe operating space for humanity in relation to its perturbation of the global environment.

Ian Thomson

Professor of Accounting and Sustainability University of Dundee Prof. Ian Thomson is based at the University of Dundee. He was previously the director of Lloyds Banking Group Centre for Responsible Business, testing innovative ideas and creating tools in interdisciplinary environments to create sustainable business strategies. Prof. Thomson’s research focuses on how current accounting practices hinder or promote sustainable transformation as well as designing new sustainability-accounting hybrid practices that are aligned with sustainable development concepts.