Pheakkdey Nguon is a senior forest governance expert for the European Forest Institute (EFI), based in Malaysia. He provides policy support and technical guidance to forest governance processes and climate change at the national and regional levels through ASEAN. Prior to joining EFI in 2018, Pheakkdey worked for 10 years on the development and implementation of projects related to environmental safeguards, extractive industries, sustainable supply chains, and carbon financing for multilateral development banks, United Nations agencies, non-profits, and private companies in Southeast Asia. Since 2013, he has been a member and currently is serving as a co-chair of SUMERNET, an initiative started in 2005 to bring together roughly 800 research and policy partners working on sustainable development issues in the six countries of the Mekong region.

Pheakkdey holds a PhD in geography from Clark University. His research was supported by grants from the Fulbright, IPCC, Cuomo Foundation, ITTO, IIASA, US National Science Foundation, and others. Pheakkdey recently obtained a certificate in implementing public policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a certificate in tropical forest landscapes from Yale School of the Environment.