As incoming Secretary General, I would like to pay tribute to Sara Oldfield, my predecessor, who has helped to build an organization in BGCI that I believe provides a unique and invaluable service to its members and more generally to the plant conservation community worldwide. Like Sara, I believe that the most important issue we need to address as a professional community is the loss of plant diversity. We can do this by bringing our unique, knowledge, skills and resources to bear to prevent species extinctions and by sharing that knowledge with broader society.