John O’Reilly

John holds a Forestry Degree from University College Dublin and has over 30 years of experience in the private forest sector encompassing all aspects of forest establishment, management, harvesting and infrastructural development.  John is highly experienced in forest promotion, business planning, financial management and business start-ups, along with extensive experience in forestry valuation and portfolio development.

Prior to setting up NewGen Forestry, John was CEO of Ireland’s largest private forest company and was responsible for the management of 30+ full time equivalents with a network of 11 offices throughout the country.

In 2008-9 John established, managed, and sold Hibernian Teak and Panama Teak Investment, two special purpose teak investment opportunities. The portfolio was successfully sold to Wood Creek a Boston based TIMO in 2014.

In 2018, using funding provided by Microsoft John successfully created a platform where corporates could provide co-funding, with the Department of Agriculture, to landowners to establish new native woodlands. The initial investment through Microsoft led to the establishment of 125 ha of new native woodlands and this 1^st project of its type became the pre-cursor to the Woodland Environmental Fund (WEF) a scheme now managed by the Department of Agriculture.  John then went on to deliver, through the WEF, native woodland projects for companies like Accenture, KBI Global and ALDI.

Over the last decade John jointly developed an effective road building and harvesting program within the private forest estate, building an average 20km of roads per annum and harvesting an average of 120,000 tonne of timber.

Furthermore, John has acted as an Industry representative at the National Forest Consultative Forum, an advisory body to the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries and is a member of the National committee of Irish Forestry and Forest Products Association, an umbrella organization representing the forestry sector and affiliated to the Irish Business and Employers Federation.