AFRY hires Guillermo Velarde as head of North American wood products
AFRY, a Stockholm-headquartered design and engineering consultancy, has hired Guillermo Velarde, PhD, as leader of its North American wood products and surfaces team.
Velarde joins the firm’s management consulting division in New York as a principal. In his new role, he will advise industry and financial clients on corporate strategy, product strategy, market analysis, and due diligence projects.
Velarde brings over 15 years of industry experience, with expertise across composite panels, surfacing materials, engineered wood products, mass timber, and flooring products.
He joins AFRY from Arclin, a manufacturer of bonding and surfacing solutions, where he spent three years and was director of downstream business development. Before that, Velarde spent over a decade at North Carolina State University, latterly serving as program manager at the Hodges Wood Products Lab. He was also previously project leader or the university’s biomass energy and pellet characterization service center.
Velarde has a doctorate in forest biomaterials and a master’s degree in integrated manufacturing and systems engineering from North Carolina State University, as well as a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Andrés Bello Catholic University, Venezuela.
“We are very pleased to have Guillermo join our team of experts at AFRY. His wide experience in the wood products industry value chain within the North and South American markets makes him a great addition to our wood products team,” said Frank Goecke, global director of wood products, AFRY Management Consulting.
AFRY’s management consulting division has 700+ consultants providing strategic advice, market analysis, organizational and digital transformation, and M&A and transaction services. The firm’s consultants have domain expertise in energy transition, sustainability, bioindustry, and investment banking.
The wider firm has 19,000 people delivering services across architecture, engineering, environment, health and safety, operations, and project management.
