Our team.

BN Strategic Communications is led by a senior practitioner and guided by a board drawn from the heart of the forestry and natural-resources community.

Leadership

Alejo Barbero

Founder & CEO

Alejo Barbero is the founder and principal strategist of BN Strategic Communications. With a rare blend of strategic clarity, storytelling craft, and sector fluency, Alejo partners with CEOs, VPs, and changemakers navigating regulatory pressure, public scrutiny, and shifting market dynamics, turning their vision into narratives that move people and accelerate progress.

Prior to launching BN Strategic Communications, Alejo held senior roles in-house, where he led high-stakes messaging, reputation management, and stakeholder engagement efforts at the intersection of business, environment, and community.

Alejo's work lives at the crossroads of strategic thinking and emotional resonance. Whether developing brand platforms, sustainability case studies, or fine-tuned messaging for investor decks, he brings calm to chaos, structure to strategy, and voice to values.

Board of Directors

Kate Gatto

Chief Strategy Officer

National Alliance of Forestland Owners

Kate Gatto is NAFO's Chief Strategy Officer. She drives the strategic direction of the organization to advance its vision, mission, goals and objectives, ensuring alignment within the organization and pursuing external opportunities for engagement through partnerships, coalitions and alliances. A member of the forestry community herself, Kate's family owns a small working tree farm in Mississippi. Kate knows from her own generational experience that it takes long-term vision, a significant investment, and a lot of love and patience to grow trees. Kate joined NAFO in 2017 from Hill+Knowlton Strategies, where she spent more than 10 years leading national advocacy and reputation building campaigns for a variety of organizations, campaigns and businesses. Kate holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Mississippi. She also earned her Master's Degree in Mass Communication and Integrated Marketing Communications from the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Kathryn (Katie) Fernholz

President / CEO

Dovetail Partners

Kathryn (Katie) Fernholz is president/CEO of Dovetail Partners, a non-profit environmental think tank based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA (www.dovetailinc.org). Kathryn is a forester by training with 24+ years of experience in the forest sector. Her career has focused on sustainability concerns, including small-holder and family forestry, community-based decision making, supply-chain assurances, and certification. She is an experienced lead auditor for forest certification assessments having served on audit teams for industrial, Tribal, public, and family forest lands. She has led projects addressing urban forest management and urban wood utilization. Since 2010, Kathryn has been an author addressing policy and green markets in the Forest Products Annual Market Review prepared by the FAO/UNECE. Kathryn served as chair of the Minnesota Society of American Foresters and was appointed to the Minnesota Forest Resources Council in 2002 and 2019. She is past chair for the Board of Trustees for the American Forest Foundation and a member of the Steering Committee for the Women's Forest Congress. Kathryn has a B.S. in Forest Resources from the University of Minnesota.

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