Elena Schmidt

Elena Schmidt is RSB’s Senior Strategic Advisor. She joined RSB in 2015, initially serving as Standards Director, and later served as Executive Director from 2021 to 2025. In her current role, Elena continues to support the organisation’s strategic direction and leadership transition, focusing on high-impact partnerships, programme development and long-term organisational evolution.

During her time as Executive Director, Elena led RSB through a period of transformation and growth, expanding the organisation’s reach, deepening its impact, and strengthening its position as a leader in credible and collaborative sustainability systems.

Prior to joining RSB, Elena was Head of the TÜV SÜD Certification Body for Climate and Energy. She brings extensive experience in sustainability programmes, standard development, and product and business model innovation.

As an auditor, Elena gained deep expertise in complex chain of custody systems and led numerous innovation projects to develop new certification services. These included standard-setting initiatives in collaboration with partners across the private and public sectors, as well as strategic business model development.

Elena holds Master’s degrees in Environmental Science and Political Science. She currently serves on the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) Validation Council and the Smart Freight Centre’s (SFC) Assurance Stakeholder Committee. She has previously served on the Advanced and Indirect Mitigation Platform’s (AIM) Governance Committee and as a technical expert at the ICAO Alternative Fuel Task Force and Fuel Task Group.