Göran Persson served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Since leaving office, Mr Persson has been a consultant for the Stockholm-based consulting firm JKL. In 2008 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Sveaskog by the Swedish Government and he is also the President of the European high-level forum on the future of forests, ThinkForest, facilitated by the European Forest Institute.