Pietro Girgenti

Board Member, Australia


Originally from rural Australia, Pietro brings a strong legal and business background. Having built and led a successful practice that serviced clients across Queensland and the NT in Commercial Law, Business Law, Corporations Law, and Agricultural Law he is now Director of a private IT enterprise. As a lawyer, Pietro was admitted to the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia.

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He was formerly the President of the Mareeba Chamber of Commerce and was a Ministerial Appointment to the Mareeba Shire Transfer Advisory Committee in 2012-13.

Pietro is passionate about rural Australia and believes we can do better for our rural landscapes and communities.

John McDonald

Board Member, Australia


John is based in the UK. He is an investment specialist and has extensive networks across Europe, Asia, and Africa, and brings a strong governance background. His professional background has given John wide-ranging exposure to multinational entities including the World Bank, UN, Asian Development Bank, the European Union, and a range of large corporations. John’s expertise assists to guide Forever Wild’s pathways for investors. John is a member of the Personal Finance Society and Read More

holds the Financial Advisors International Qualification through the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). John also holds additional professional accreditations including Financial Services Regulations Rules & Ethics and Financial Protection. John is continuously advancing his professional development to ensure he maintains the highest standards of integrity, technical competence, and business capability.

John has travelled the world and has a passion for the outdoors, wild landscapes and Indigenous cultures.

Misty Neilsen

Board Member, Australia


Misty is an ecologist/conservation biologist with experience in accounting, funding and business across the community and social services sectors.  She is passionate about the future of our planet and creating better ways of sustaining thriving environments and ecosystems (socially, economically and environmentally). She has previously led an economic recovery and resilience project for regional agricultural communities following natural disasters. Read More

Misty has a working understanding of critical social, economic and environmental mechanisms that underpin agricultural practice change, environmental protection and ecosystem recovery, but it is her experience in executive management, business, and accounting that supports her comprehension of the strategy, leadership and financial viability required by organisations to sustain and deliver tangible outcomes that align with their mission and purpose. Misty lives on a forestry grazing property surrounded by agricultural and protected forestry lands in rural Queensland with her partner and children.

Miguel Castillo

Board Member, Australia


Miguel is passionate about creating positive and long-term impacts on natural capital and communities through his strategic thinking related to emerging markets such as carbon and environmental markets. Miguel has nine years of experience in assisting organisations to understand, design, measure, and report financial and non-financial outcomes. Read More

Miguel has extensive experience in providing advisory and assurance services to domestic and global organisations in relation to decarbonisation strategies, climate risk and opportunity assessment, development of impact assessment frameworks, conservation finance, program evaluation and greenhouse gas inventories. 

Fiachra Kearney

Board Member, Australia



Fiachra's career has spanned the globe, tackling some of the planet’s most pressing environmental and societal challenges. He has extensive experience in Africa, Australia, and S.E. Asia working with diverse landscapes and cultures. He conceived and leads Forever Wild as he believes we must link natural and social capital with the economic system in a truly sustainable way, and implement new ways to produce food while protecting our planet. He advocates thinking at a spatial, societal, and temporal scale that is truly meaningful - if we don't think at scale we won't act at scale. Read More
Fiachra is a former research scientist with the CSIRO in the Rangelands & Savannahs Research team. He then spent several years in Africa and Australia working on livestock agriculture and conservation in large landscapes. In 2011 Fiachra founded and led a highly successful private enterprise that consulted to the US and European Governments, which he sold in 2019 to focus fully on Forever Wild. He holds a Master of Science from the University of Queensland, Australia.

Investment Committee, Forever Wild (Group)

Michael van Neikerk

Investment Committee


Michael is an impact investment professional with over 30 years of experience in large complex corporates, working with the most senior-level executives and their teams.  For the past decade he has been the Chief Impact Officer for a Sydney-based impact fund, and is a highly respected advisor to Super Funds, Corporates, Foundations, and Family Offices on how best to invest for impact.  

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Areas of specialty include impact investing and impact management & measurement. His thematic areas of expertise include ocean impact, plastics and circularity, regenerative agriculture, and biodiversity. Over the last five years, he has been supporting a range of nature-based organisations as an adviser and helping them raise capital.

Michael holds a Masters in Sustainability Leadership (Cambridge University), a Masters of Business Administration (Monash University), and is a Certified Practicing Accountant (ASCPA), AICD, FINSIA.

John McDonald

Investment Committee



John's role with the Forever Wild Investment Committee includes liaising with impact investors, strategic investment analysis and aligning investment with the organsiation's charitable mandate.

Fiachra Kearney

Investment Committee



Fiachra brings a background in large-scale land management, landscape strategy, and natural capital to ensure impact investment is closely aligned with the ecological and social outcomes. He oversees the impact measurement framework.