The Right Livelihood Award Foundation’s course is decided by its Board of Trustees. The Board usually convenes twice a year. Trustees usually also serve as Jury Members.

UK, former Member of the European Parliament
Founder and Co-Chair of the Board
Born in Uppsala, Sweden, Jakob von Uexkull is the son of the author and journalist Gösta von Uexkull and grandson of the biologist Jakob von Uexkull. After schooling in Sweden and Germany he graduated with an M.A. (Honours) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Christ Church, Oxford. He holds both Swedish and German nationality.

Germany, former Member of the German Parliament and former Minister of Environmental Affairs in Lower Saxony, co-founder of Greenpeace Germany
Co-Chair of the Board
Monika Griefahn was born in 1954 in Mülheim-Ruhr, Germany. She graduated in sociology in 1979. One year later, she co-founded Greenpeace Germany, of which she was first Executive Director and later Member of the International Board of Directors.
During her time at Greenpeace Monika was first responsible for campaigns against chemical pollution and for the protection of the North Sea, later for developing training programmes and establishing new offices in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America.
In 1990, Monika became Minister of Environmental Affairs in Lower Saxony, Germany. From 1998-2009, she served as Member of the German Parliament, with her main focus on culture and media as well as on foreign affairs.
She has been on the Board of the Foundation since 1986.

UK, Professor of Energy and Environment Policy, University College London
Vice-Chair of the Board
Paul Ekins has a PhD in economics from Birkbeck College, and a BSc in electrical engineering from Imperial College (both University of London). He joined the UCL Energy Institute at University College London as Professor of Energy and Environment Policy in August 2009, having held a similar position at King's College London and, before that, been Head of the Environment Group at the Policy Studies Institute and Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Westminster.
Paul Ekins' academic work focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy, with a special focus on energy policy, and the modelling of the energy system, on innovation, on the role of economic instruments such as environmental taxes, and on sustainability assessment.
Paul Ekins is the author of numerous papers, book-chapters and articles in a wide range of journals, and has written or edited several books.
Paul Ekins' other organisational and policy experience includes being a Founder and Associate Director of the sustainable development charity Forum for the Future; Senior Consultant to Cambridge Econometrics; a Member of the UK Government’s Sustainable Energy Policy Advisory Board and a Member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution; and, from 1997-2005, a specialist adviser to the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons. He has also been an adviser to the UK Government's Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment and the Round Table on Sustainable Development.
Paul Ekins was Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation from 1987-1990 and has been a member of the Board since 1995.

Sweden, former Member of the Swedish Parliament
Board member
Marianne Andersson graduated from Gothenburg School of Economics and worked in several small companies. From 1985-2002 she was Member of the Swedish Parliament (Centre Party), serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee for eight years.
Marianne Andersson has a long time commitment to issues of refugees and people’s movements. She was Chairman of the Swedish Committee for Human Rights in Turkey. She is a Member of the Board of the United Nations Association of Sweden and chairs the Kvinna to Kvinna foundation board.
One of Marianne Andersson's main foci are human rights. She is especially interested in women’s rights and has a special focus on Africa. She joined the Right Livelihood Award Foundation's Board in 2004.

Sweden, Deputy Director of International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC)
Board member
ILAC is an umbrella organisation for a number of international associations of judges, prosecutors and lawyers, with the objective of resurrecting judicial systems in post-conflict countries.
Born in Sweden in 1959, Agneta Johansson is a lawyer, specialised in international law and human rights law. She has worked at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and as a legal advisor at the Swedish Red Cross. After the Balkan wars, Agneta served three years in Bosnia and she has also lived and worked for three years in the territories occupied by Israel. She was a board member from 2003-10 of the organisation Kvinna till Kvinna, which received the Right Livelihood Award in 2002.

Germany, strategy consultant and entrepreneur
Board member
Juliane Kronen was born in 1963 in Neuss, Germany. She studied business administration at the University of Cologne (Dipl.-Kfm.), was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Missouri in Columbia (B.S.), and completed her doctoral degree at the University of Cologne in 1994.
Juliane Kronen built a career in strategy consulting, working with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on worldwide assignments from 1994 to 2010, from 2002 on as a partner and managing director. She specialized in aligning business and information technology strategy. She has been the global sector head for information technology in the telecommunications industry and served as the European head of BCG´s global Women Initiative from 2004 to 2007, which aimed to sustainably increase the share of female consultants by improving recruiting and retention measures. She has frequently published articles and papers on her research and professional work.
Together with her sister, Juliane Kronen owns and runs a small family business in the third generation and dedicates a considerable part of her capacity to develop various charitable organizations by providing her skills and experience. She has served as an advisor on strategic and organizational issues to the board of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation from 2007 until 2010, when she was appointed as a Trustee.
Sweden, Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation
Board member ex-officio
Ole von Uexkull holds Masters degrees in Environmental Science (Lund University) and European Studies (Freie Universität, Humboldt Universität, and Technische Universität Berlin). After his studies, he won a fellowship for the Postgraduate Programme in International Affairs of the Robert Bosch Foundation, the German National Academic Foundation, and the German Foreign Office.
Ole has worked at the German Parliament in Berlin, the United Nations Environment Programme in Paris, and the European Parliament in Brussels. He is the nephew of the RLA founder Jakob von Uexkull.