Oliver Barnes has experience in greenfield project development and institutional agricultural investment.
He joined Alterra as executive director in January 2019 and became managing director from March 2019 to July 2021. Mr Barnes was also the chief operating officer of privately-owned WA Sandalwood Plantations and was responsible for managing relationships with institutional asset owners, implementing enterprise resource planning systems and involved in productivity gains across 13,000 hectares of sandalwood located in the Central Wheatbelt of Western Australia. He was also part of the team that established Dutjahn Sandalwood Oils. On immigrating to Australia in 2013, Mr Barnes became commercial manager of ASX- and TSX-listed Avenira (formerly Minemakers) and was part of the commercial team that was involved in its restructure. Between 2008 and 2013, he was based in the Middle East where he advised family offices on agricultural investment in emerging markets, set up Miro Forestry plantation forestry businesses, and facilitated over US$70m of investment into the African agricultural sector.
