RSPO CEO to step down, search for successor begins

KUALA LUMPUR: The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) chief executive officer (CEO) Datuk Darrel Webber will step down effective Jan 16, 2020, after more than eight years at the helm.

The board of governors would begin to search immediately for his successor, RSPO said in a statement.

During his tenure, the RSPO has grown exponentially from a small multi-stakeholder organisation with a primary focus on Southeast Asia to a global organisation with members across 92 countries.

Co-chairs of the RSPO board of governors, Anne Rosenbarger and Datuk Carl Bek-Nielsen, said the board would like to thank Webber for his more than eight years of service to the RSPO as its secretary-general and then as CEO.

“This doesn’t even take into account the immeasurable contribution he played as a member of an environmental nongovernmental organisation prior to joining the organisation. Darrel has played an important role in the on-going transformation of the palm oil sector,” they said.

Meanwhile, Webber said it was not an easy decision to leave the RSPO.

“It is something I have ruminated over for some months. I must start a new journey and I am proud to leave RSPO in a financial standing that is the envy of most, and confident that this transition will be a smooth one,” he said.

He said during his eight years at the organisation, the RSPO had grown from five staff to more than 80, while membership rose from 300 to over 4,000. — Bernama