CONTACT PERSONS

If you want to be a member of the Fair Rubber Association, have questions concerning fairly traded natural rubber, need further information or have suggestions, please contact us. We are looking forward to reading or hearing from you.

Stefan Hörmann, Chief Operations Officer

Stefan Hörmann is since June 2021 Chief Operations Officer of the Fair Rubber Association and thus succeeds Martin Kunz. Stefan has studied political science and administration. He is also deputy executive secretary of the environmental foundation Global Nature Fund (GNF). He is in charge of the Bonn office of GNF and is project in charge for the programme ‘Companies and biodiversity’. His area of expertise is the support of companies in their attempts to establish and improve sustainable supply chains. He gathered international experience e.g. when he was project manager for the global network ‘Living Lakes’ as well as satellite offices in the Middle East and the Caribbean.

Olaf Paulsen, Project Manager

For more than 20 years, Olaf has been connected to Fair Trade – it all started during his work in development cooperation when he was supporting producer groups and bringing them into contact with Fair Trade actors (traders). Back in Germany, he worked for TransFair International which then became FLO (Fairtrade Labelling Organisations) where he worked until the end of 2004 as the head of Standards & Policies and member of the management team.
Since 2005 Olaf has been a freelance consultant but still mainly involved with Fair Trade matters from different perspectives, i.e.value chain analysis of the coffee sector in Jemen, developing a monitoring system for suppliers of German worldshops, and conducting audits for WFTO.

Dr. David Löw Beer, Chairman

David Löw Beer has been chairman of the Fair Rubber Association since 2014. He has studied international economics and political science in Tuebingen, Germany, Burlington, US, and Niteroi, Brasil. He has written his dissertation on “economic education for a sustainable development”. David Löw Beer works as a research associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany. His work focuses on sustainable investment, divestment, capital theory as well as political and economic education.

Felix Jahn, Deputy Chairperson

Felix Jahn is the Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Schwalbe, Europe’s market leader for bicycle tires and tubes. His responsibilities include establishing transparency across Schwalbe’s supply chains, from the rubber tapper to the consumer, managing the company’s various circular economy projects and leading its CSR-reporting. Prior to his role in CSR, he worked as a product manager in Schwalbe’s R&D department, where he worked on product sustainability and urban mobility. Felix holds a MSc in International Management from King’s College, London. He has expanded the Executive Board of the Fair Rubber Association since May 2022.

David Croft, Board Member

David is Global Director Sustainability, Environment & Human Rights for RB, the leading global health and home hygiene. He is responsible for their work on environmental and social sustainability, working with farmers, communities and manufacturers across an international supply alongside RB’s global supply chain and brand teams. His work stems from a personal goal to develop inclusive growth at scale through the organsiations and partnerships he is part of.
David has a wealth of leadership experience from major global companies, holding senior roles within Diageo, Kraft Foods and Cadbury, and the UK retailers, Waitrose and the Co-operative Group.
David chairs the Business Industry Advisory Council’s Development Committee, leading private sector input to the OECD Development Committee and is a member of the Food Ethics Council.

Dr. Shawn MacDonald, Board Member

Dr. Shawn MacDonald is chief executive officer of Verité, a civil society organization that promotes workers’ rights in global supply chains through research, consulting, training, assessments, and policy advocacy. Shawn has broad international experience in labor rights, social entrepreneurship, workplace health, and multi-sector partnerships from his roles as Director of Accreditation at the Fair Labor Association; Vice President of Ashoka; Senior Advisor at Meridian Group International; and co-founder of the Development and Employment Policy Project. He also worked for a variety of civil society initiatives in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

He holds a Ph.D. from George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and an AB in History from Harvard University.

Dr. Martin Kunz, Advisor

Martin Kunz has focused on Fair Trade for over 45 years. As a university student, he co-founded a World Shop in his hometown, Ludwigsburg, Germany. His doctoral thesis on “World Shops” has been the first dissertation world wide on Fair Trade. He was the first chairman of the board of Fair Trade wholesaler GEPA, cp-founder and first excutive secretary of the international Fair Trade umbrella associations Transfair International and its successor Fair Trade Labelling Organizations (FLO) International.When he is not working for the Fair Rubber Association, Martin Kunz sets up production chain for sustainable products for a number of companies and he is co-chair of the criteria committee of the ethical investment fund Oekovision. His latest activities involve honey from Asian bees (to help enhance agricultural yields of small farmers in India) – and the preservation of meadow fruit orchards in Swabia (southwest Germany): To him local things have always mattered, on a global scale. More about Martin Kunz here.