Frances Stevens will take over as director general of CEPI, the Confederation of European Paper Industries. She succeeds Jori Ringman, who has held the position since 2019.

The leadership change at the top of Europe's paper and board industry association comes at a demanding point for the sector it represents. CEPI's membership spans the pulp, paper and board producers whose fibre streams anchor Europe's packaging recycling system, and whose positions the director general carries into Brussels negotiations on packaging, waste and circular economy files.

Ringman leaves the post after more than five years in the role, a period in which the European paper industry navigated the revision of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation and the broader recalibration of the EU's circular economy framework. The organisation's advocacy on fibre-based packaging recyclability and on collection systems for paper and board has been central to those dossiers.

Stevens now inherits the task of representing those positions. The appointment itself signals continuity in personnel terms — one director general replacing another at the same institution — but the transition places a new lead negotiator in front of the European Commission, Parliament and Council at a moment when implementing rules for packaging and recycling targets are still being written.

For the recovered paper chain, the practical significance lies in who argues the industry's case on fibre availability, collection quality and the competitiveness of recycled content in paper-based packaging. Those are the files where CEPI's positions translate into regulatory text, and where the new director general's priorities will become visible.

What happens next: Stevens's first months in the post will show how CEPI positions itself as the EU finalises implementing measures under the packaging and waste framework — the regulatory milestone that will define her early agenda.