David Brand
Executive Chair of Standwell Forest Investments
David Brand is the Executive Chair of Standwell Forest Investments, a new company established to invest in partnerships for sustainable land use with First Nations in British Columbia, Canada. David is also the founder and former Executive Chair and CEO of New Forests, an Australia-based, international investment management firm. Under David’s leadership, New Forests grew from a small startup to one of the world’s largest forestry and agriculture investment firms, managing approximately $8 billion USD in assets across Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Its diversified portfolio spans areas managed for timber production and conservation, carbon and climate-finance projects, agriculture, renewable energy, wood fibre processing, and infrastructure.
David was also the inaugural Chair of the International Sustainable Forestry Coalition, a group of 23 major forest-sector companies working together to expand the role of the forestry sector in society and promote the increased use of wood, wood fibre, and biomass as substitutes for higher embodied carbon and energy sources. He is based in Sydney, where he is Managing Director of Arborcrest Investments, a company he founded, and serves as Director of the David Brand Foundation, which supports education in conservation and sustainable forestry finance. He is also an operating partner at Los Angeles based clean tech growth equity firm Angeleno Group. Earlier in his career, David was an Investment Director at Hancock Natural Resources Group (HNRG). Prior to joining HNRG, he was the Executive General Manager of State Forests of NSW, where he led foundational transactions in the development of environmental markets. From 1985 to 1995, Dr. Brand worked with the Canadian Forest Service as Director of Scientific Programs and as National Director-General of Science and Sustainable Development.
David has a PhD in Forestry from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from the University of Toronto. In 2023 he received the UBC Alumni Award for Entrepreneurship for his role as an internationally influential trailblazer in forestry investing in support of a sustainable future.
