Rafał Chudy has over 11 years of professional experience in project management within natural resources, forest economics, and finances. During the last years, Rafal worked for private equity and consultancy companies from the United States, Australia, and Norway where he was responsible for ensuring that strong research and evidence-based insights underpin companies’ sustainable investment programs and services in real assets, mostly forestry & carbon, agriculture, or infrastructure.

In 2016, Rafal and his wife Karolina established a company – Forest Business Analytics (FBA) – that organizes biannually the International Forest Business Conference. In FBA, Rafal oversees the development of the forest valuation department that is offering global forest appraisals and consultancy services. FBA’s global network allows the company to identify and analyze forest investment opportunities in the Asia-Pacific, Americas, Africa, and Europe, and help to raise capital for private-equity forest funds. 

Recently, Rafal together with a group of well-recognized scientists established a new international peer-reviewed open-access journal – Journal of Forest Business Research (JFBR). JFBR publishes original research and reviews about forests managed as investment with focus on forest investment, finance and business, forest-related industries and wood market dynamics, forest silviculture and management, and forest economics and policy. JFBR is an official journal of the International Forest Business Conference.

Rafal’s research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at the international forest and natural resource economics conferences. He has a Master of Science (Forestry) degree from Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Master of Science (Forestry and Environmental Resources) from North Carolina State University, Master of Science (Forest Management) from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and a PhD in Forest Economics (specialising in Forest Sector Modelling) from Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Rafal also has a post-graduate diploma in Financial Controlling in Capital Markets Groups from Warsaw School of Economics.