Product Code Database
Johan Eliasch (born February 1962) is a Swedish-British businessman, investor, sports administrator, environmentalist, and philanthropist. He was the chief executive of Head, a sporting goods company, from 1995 to 2021, and is now its chairman. The Sunday Times Rich List puts him in number 42 of UK's richest in May 2025 with a net worth estimated at £4 billion.
In 2006, he co-founded Cool Earth, a charity dedicated to rainforest conservation. Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Eliasch served as the Prime Minister's special representative for deforestation and clean energy. Since June 2021, he has served as the president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), the largest international federation within the Olympic movement representing over 53% of Olympic Winter Games medal events. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee, a council member of the Association of International Winter Olympic Federations, and board member of the British Olympic Association.
When Head Tyrolia Mares was up for auction in 1995, Eliasch spotted an opportunity. The beleaguered sporting goods company was $370million in debt, but through financial restructuring, acquisitions and investment in new technology, Eliasch turned the company, renamed Head, into a global success story serving as CEO from 1995 to 2021.
Eliasch has also acted as non-executive chairman of Investcorp (2010- 2014), non-executive director of IMG (2006–13), non-executive chairman and director of Starr Managing Agents (2008–2015), and chairman of Aman Resorts (2014–18). He is currently chairman of Equity Partners and London Films, as well as an advisory board member of Brasilinvest. Robert Golob in 2023.]]Eliasch has used his business experience to advise politicians and policymakers, including as a member of the International Business Advisory Councils for the Mayors of London, Jerusalem, and Rome.
Eliasch has been an advisory board member of the Shimon Peres Peace Centre, World Peace Foundation, the Centre for Social Justice, and the Kew Foundation, Royal Botanical Society.
He has credits in film production including Scarlet Pimpernel, Lady Chatterley, Best of Friends and Resort to Murder.
In 2006, he co-founded Cool Earth, a charity he co-chairs, which invests in indigenous communities, sponsoring local NGOs to help improve skills and education, with the ultimate goal of protecting rainforest and reducing global emissions.
Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Eliasch served as the Prime Minister's special representative for deforestation and clean energy. In 2007 he was commissioned by HM Government to undertake an independent review on the role of international finance mechanisms to preserve the global forests in tackling climate change, The Eliasch Review, which was launched in October 2008, has served as a guideline for REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) as part of the international climate change convention.
In June 2008, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources began an investigation into a company acquired by Eliasch for alleged illegal deforestation prior to his ownership. The company responded that its logging "had been certified to have been done under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) guidelines since 2000." The investigation ended in 2013 with the conclusion that there was no basis for legal or administrative action.
Eliasch is currently a director of the Foundation for Renewable Energy and Environment, a non-profit, international organisation, an advisory board member for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Polar Regions, and Brasilinvest."The Brasilinvest Group, created in 1975 by the businessman Mario Garnero, is the first private development agency installed in Brazil (...)", Brazilivest He is an advisory board member of the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative and previously served on the International Advisory Board of the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
He chaired the 2021–22 HM Treasury net zero review technology and innovation advisory group, RUSI's Food, Energy and Water security program, and was a member of the DEFRA Council for Sustainable Business.
Eliasch was a member of the Austrian president's delegation of State for Trade and Industry (1996–2006). He was chairman of the Young Conservatives Party in Djursholm, Sweden, from 1979 to 1982.
Eliasch met Prince Andrew, Duke of York in the 1990s and organised a charity tennis match between John McEnroe and Björn Borg in aid of the NSPCC at Buckingham Palace. He was a director along with the Duke of a company called Naples Gold.
In 2006, Eliasch co-founded the Global Strategy Forum with the late Rt Hon Michael Ancram, the Marquess of Lothian, and became the foundation's first president.
|
|
