If the Civil Service had had its way Stuart Goodall could have been working on projects such as the replacement of Trident rather than issues such as the replanting of the UK’s commercial woodlands and raising the profile of the forestry and timber sectors. Fortunately he was able to dodge that particular bullet and has been happily ensconced as Confor’s chief executive since 2006.
Stuart was born in Uganda and lived there until he was four when his parents returned to the suburbs of Edinburgh.
“My father was a teacher and got an early posting to Uganda,” said Stuart. “He came from a humble background – his mother was a milkmaid and his father was a ploughman who came to Edinburgh to be a bricklayer. My father was very ambitious and was also very keen to explore and do something positive for the world, so he leaped at the chance to go and teach children in Uganda.”
By all accounts the four-year-old Stuart was less than happy when the family returned to Edinburgh.
“My mother said I was miserable when we came back but I think that may have had something to do with having spent the first four years of my life on the equator and arriving back in Scotland in winter. The cold and the snow were a shock.”
Stuart’s father and grandfather built the family home, which gave Stuart an interest in construction and the idea of creating one’s own space. The house’s location on the edge of Edinburgh also fostered an enduring love of the great outdoors.
“I had fields and woodland 100 yards from the house and whenever I wasn’t at school my friends and I were always exploring, climbing trees and running around in the countryside.”
At school he developed a real passion for history and went on to study the subject at Edinburgh University. When it came to career choices on graduation, however, he realised he didn’t want to be “a history teacher or a librarian” and he turned back to his childhood love of forests and open spaces.
He applied to join the Forestry Commission and sat the Civil Service common entrance exams. Here’s where the brush with the Ministry of Defence came in.
“I passed the exams and interviews and was phoned by the Civil Service personnel department and told I was very fortunate and had been offered a post with the MoD in Bath. I told them I didn’t want to do that but it was followed by three more phone calls which started with the words ‘I’ve got good news for you’ and which all involved various places in Bath or Bristol and usually the MoD.”
Stuart stuck to his guns, however, and eventually a job at the Forestry Commission was offered. However, it wasn’t exactly what he had hoped.
“Naively I associated the Forestry Commission with being outside in forests, but not being a practicing forester they weren’t going to allow me anywhere near a forest. Effectively mine was just a desk job, dealing with grant schemes for planting and managing forests, which I did find frustrating,
After about 18 months Stuart moved into the FC’s IT department and found it much more enjoyable, progressing through the ranks of programmer, analyst, and project director. By 1997 he’d hit another crossroads. There weren’t many more options left within his part of the FC, so did he follow an IT career path with another organisation or did he switch to something entirely different?
His mind was made up for him when he was offered the opportunity to work in the FC’s International Policy Division. This involved representing the UK in international matters connected with the EU and sustainable forestry, so Stuart found himself travelling all over Europe, and occasionally further afield, spending a fair bit of time in Brussels and schmoozing with European officials.
“I really enjoyed it and it was fascinating meeting people from other countries and understanding what they did. It was also useful in the practical sense because UK forestry receives considerable funding from the EU through the Common Agricultural Policy.
“I had the opportunity to influence funding for UK forestry. The UK’s general approach is to operate through very formal channels – working hard and effectively and bringing good practice and intelligence to issues. However, the really successful countries were the ones where their representatives would build relationships with key officials in the European Commission and elsewhere. By doing so they were able to learn what was going on and influence much earlier. So that’s what I did, too, and as a result we were far more successful in bringing funding into the UK to support planting new forests and providing business grants.”
After four or five years Stuart was looking for an additional challenge and he became interested in forest certification, which was starting to take off in the UK.
“I got involved with facilitating and developing an FSC-compliant standard to judge our forest management against,” he said. “We developed what became the UK Woodland Assurance Standard in 1999, which is still the mechanism by which all UK forests are measured against FSC and/or PEFC certification.”
Stuart had always been interested in politics and political systems so working with politicians across the four countries of the UK during this period was particularly rewarding.
In 2004 the FC gave him the opportunity to work in the private sector on sustainability issues and he was seconded to the Forest Industries Development Council (FIDC). In the following year, the Confederation of Forest Industries (Confor) was launched by the Forestry & Timber Association (F&TA) and the UK Forest Products Association (UKFPA), with the expectation that other trade associations would also come on board.
Shortly after the foundation of Confor, the FIDC was dissolved and all its operations were transferred to Confor, which was run from the F&TA’s offices in Edinburgh. Stuart also made the move to Confor – initially still on secondment from the FC – and then as a full-time employee when he was appointed executive director for policy and research in 2006. The following year the chief executive David Crichton left the organisation and Stuart stepped into the role.
Confor was still a young organisation and its early days had seen some turbulence. The F&TA (itself the result of a merger between the Timber Growers’ Association and the Association of Professional Foresters in 2002) had voted overwhelmingly in favour of a merger with Confor in May 2004 but by early 2006 the UKFPA membership had rejected a merger and withdrawn from the federation.
“Confor hadn’t brought together all the organisations that had been hoped for and there was some unhappiness within parts of the sector over how it had been established,” said Stuart. “So there was a real need to demonstrate that Confor could actually work.
“The concern about Confor was that it was a cross-supply organisation and businesses in the sector weren’t convinced it could represent both buyers and sellers. There was a real need for us to build the organisation so that it became representative of the whole supply chain – and also demonstrate that the fundamental model of having a single, better resourced voice would work.”
Confor started to gain momentum but was hit by the economic crash in 2008 and its income dropped as members worried about their financial exposure. It took a couple of years to recover from that but by 2010/2011 Confor was in a positive cycle of building membership and representing that membership in an effective manner.
“Membership and income has increased significantly and we now represent the majority of activity at each point of the supply chain, from the nursery through forest management, harvesting, haulage and into sawmilling.”
In terms of Stuart’s day-to-day role, it’s rare for him to be in the office for a whole week at a time – he makes frequent trips to Westminster’s corridors of power, for example.
“I take a lead on the political lobbying side of Confor’s work,” he said. “I’m very much a people person and I find politicians and the whole process of influencing people really interesting. I’m also passionate about the forest products sector and it’s really satisfying that Confor has influence and is able to help it grow.”
Working with government does have its frustrations, however.
“We are a relatively small sector and, historically, our influence has been very poor. Forestry was seen primarily as an environmental or recreational sector in the UK and the idea that you grew trees to harvest them, make products and employ people just wasn’t promoted by the FC and wasn’t widely recognised in political circles.
“I’ve seen a real change to that in recent years and there is a growing awareness among politicians, the Civil Service and the wider public that forestry is an important economic activity.”
The trick with politicians, he said, is to provide them with the answer before they even know the question.
“In the past the forestry sector went to government and said ‘I’ve got a problem and I want you to fix it’. Some organisations still have that approach, which is fine if you’re the banking sector but when you’re a tiny sector and ministers have got hundreds of different things to deal with it won’t get you very far. So we always go in and say ‘here’s a problem – or rather, an opportunity – here is the action you need to take and this is how it fits with your agenda’.
“We do as much work as we can around that, preparing the ground through the politicians we work with and through the media.
“That creates an awareness of the topics and by constantly engaging we get the underpinning, fundamental message over about forestry being an economic activity and all the benefits it provides. Every time we engage we get those core messages over so they become understood and entrenched in people’s minds.”
Communicating the integral role the forest products sector has in the UK economy is another key part of Confor’s function and one that Stuart also takes a lead on. Media coverage ranges from newspaper articles to slots on television programmes, messages on Twitter and articles on LinkedIn.
“I’m constantly looking for opportunities to communicate with our members but also outside the sector,” said Stuart. “We promote the fact that this is an important industry to the economy but that is also environmentally and socially responsible and that needs support to enable it to be successful. For example, the need to ensure we have supplies of wood in 30-40 years, not just the next 20 requires constant communication and activity.”
He takes pleasure from the fact that Confor’s efforts are gaining traction and it is making “tangible progress”. “It is often very difficult as a trade association to be able to see the fruits of your labours but we have a strong team and we are getting good feedback from our members and we are doing more for them each year, so it’s a stronger and stronger picture.”
Stuart is as keen to serve the forest products sector as he was when he first swerved the MoD assignment on graduation. He has always been very self-motivated, a trait he attributes to his early days as a triathlete – he was in the top 10 triathletes in Scotland in his 20s.
“I did most of the training by myself at the same time as working quite long hours,” he said. “I’ve always been self-motivated and if I didn’t believe in this sector and feel I was in a position to deliver, I would have to find something else.”
He’s not planning on moving on yet but were that situation ever to arise, he would consider politics as his next career.
“I really like the whole idea of understanding how the economy works and how government can make a difference. If you get a ministerial post you have a real opportunity to influence things that matter. I find that fascinating.
“The only reservation is the scrutiny politicians and their families come under – I’ve never been very good at being loathed.” When he’s not on Confor business Stuart enjoys cycling, particularly mountain biking, and hill walking.
“I do some form of exercise most days,” he said. “It’s always been a big thing in my life and I love being outdoors in the fresh air and pushing myself hard physically.”
He goes on a mountain bike holiday every year with a friend – “the Dolomites this year” and enjoys travelling, both for work and for pleasure.
He is very close to his three daughters and recently spent the summer holiday with them in Andalucía.
Stuart now lives in the centre of Edinburgh.
“I had always lived in the suburbs by the sea where I went sailing and kayaking. I recently had a flat in Edinburgh overlooking the Firth of Forth and had the most stunning views. I miss that but living in the centre has its advantages – it’s so easy to meet up with friends and I like to go to the art house cinema which is just 15 minutes walk away.”
He also enjoys cooking, particularly for his daughters who are regular visitors and who, apparently, are fans of his lasagna.
“I listen to the radio when I’m cooking, either music or podcasts – podcasts are a wonderful thing – and it’s a great way to relax and unwind.”
Personal Data Favourite book – Anna Karenina
Favourite music – Motown
Favourite artist – William McTaggart
Favourite building – Natural History Museum in London
Favourite food – Italian
Favourite car – a bicycle
Last holiday/Next holiday – Andalucia/Cuba hopefully!
