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AgDevCo |
| AgDevCo is a social impact investor and agribusiness developer operating in Africa. They aim to reduce poverty through the creation and support of commercially sustainable agribusiness ventures. They have reached nearly 18,000 farmers in five countries. |
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Mariana Graca, Associate. Mariana focuses on agribusiness investments in Mozambique and Zambia. Previously she worked for UNHCR, in Rwanda supporting the implementation of self-sufficient school models and helped companies improve on ESG and DD compliance in emerging markets at Arachnys and EIRIS. |
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Alexander Simuyandi, Senior Operations Manager. Alex has overall responsibility for AgDevCo’s portfolio management, risk management processes, and business plan. Prior to joining AgDevCo, he worked at Czarnikow, the global commodity trader, with responsibility for the group’s Global Operations, Risk and Business Development. |
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Ashoka |
| Ashoka is the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs, supporting nearly 3,000 ‘Ashoka Fellows’ in 80 countries to thrive and enabling citizens to think and act as changemakers. |
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Stephanie Schmidt, Programme Director for Ashoka Changemaker Alliances in Europe. Stephanie joined Ashoka 10 years ago to launch Ashoka’s Full Economic Citizenship initiative from its global headquarter in Washington DC before relocating to Mexico where she led the initiative to build social-business partnerships for the small-scale farming, nutrition and recycling sectors. Prior to that Stéphanie worked for World Relief in Rwanda and in management consulting. |
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Barry Callebaut/Biolands Group |
| Barry Callebaut is the world’s leading manufacturer of high quality chocolate. Since 1999, Biolands has provided Barry Callebaut with sustainably grown cocoa from Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast while supporting independent small farmers. In 2014, Barry Callebaut acquired at 100% stake in Biolands Group. |
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Nicko Debenham, VP Global Cocoa Sustainability at Barry Callebaut and Managing Director of Biolands Group. Nicko brings more than 28 years of experience working on cocoa value chains, working across Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Caribbean. He previously served as Director of Development and Sustainability at Armajaro, as Director and Chairman of Source Trust, and as Chairman of the World Cocoa Foundation. |
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Michael Schlup, Partnerships Coordinator – Global Cocoa Sustainability. Michael coordinates the partnerships with 3rd parties around cocoa sustainability. He is also the General Manager of the Cocoa Horizons Foundation. He previously held executive positions at Bunge Environmental Markets and the Gold Standard Foundation. |
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The C&A Foundation |
| C&A Foundation is working to transform the apparel industry by helping to build more sustainable business models that respect the rights of workers, improve livelihoods and the conserve the environment. C&A Foundation works together with key partners to achieve the best results and greatest long-term impact. |
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Anita Chester, Head of Sustainable Raw Materials Strategy. Anita has over two decades of experience in the apparel supply chain, having previously worked at IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, and as the CEO South Asia of Cotton Connect. |
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Lee Risby, Head of Impact and Communications. Prior to joining the Foundation, Lee worked for over 10 years with the World Bank, African Development Bank and United Nations on environmental sustainability programs in over 30 countries. |
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Cotton Connect |
| Cotton Connect seeks to deliver business benefits to retailers and brands by creating more sustainable cotton supply chains. They work across all of the new sustainable cotton standards and across the whole value chain to increase transparency and security of supply. |
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Alison Ward, CEO. Before joining Cotton Connect, Alison Ward served as Associate Director, Sustainability at Kraft Foods as well as Head of Global Corporate Responsibility at Cadbury. She has extensive experience building partnerships between large multinational corporations and the NGO sector. |
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Empresa de Comercialização Agricola (ECA) |
| ECA is an AgDevCo-funded market-oriented extension program that aims to boost the incomes of 50,000 farmers in Mozambique. ECA helps form farmer clubs to which it supplies a comprehensive package of inputs, extension advice, weather insurance and processing services. |
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Moses Muchayaya, Operations Manager. Moses joined ECA in 2010. An agriculture specialist, he spent many years teaching the subject. Moses works with small-scale farmers for the past 15 years. |
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Fairtrasa |
| Fairtrasa is a for-profit social enterprise empowering small-scale farmers in developing coutries to lift themselves out of poverty through sustainable production, agro-entreprepreneurship, and fair trade. With a fully integrated supply chian, Fairtrasa now includes 15 companies in 12 countries and represents over 6,500 small-scale farmers. |
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Patrick Struebi, Founder and CEO. Eleven years ago, Patrick left a successful corporate career in international trade to devote himself to social entrepreneurship, founding Fairtrasa in 2005. He is an Ashoka, Endeavor, Schwab, and Yale World Fellow, a World Economic Forum New Champion, and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. |
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Hystra |
| Hystra is a strategy consulting firm based in Paris that works with business and social sector pioneers to design profitable and scalable solutions to development challenges. Hystra is the author of an upcoming report on improving smallholder farmer incomes and productivity through market-based approaches. |
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Jessica Graf, Hystra Network Partner. Jessica spent the first half of her career working in developing countries for NGOs, UN agencies and her government. She then joined the private sector, working for McKinsey and an asset management company in Asia. |
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Lucie Klarsfeld, Hystra Project Manager. Lucie has extensive experience on social businesses in ICT, education, health, agriculture, housing and financial services. Prior to Hystra, Lucie worked for Bain & Company, as well as with UN agencies. |
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Jain Micro-Irrigation Systems |
| Jain provides a wide range of productivity-enhancing goods and services to small-scale Indian farmers, including micro-irrigation systems, technical advice, and other technologies. |
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Dr. Dilip N. Kulkarni, President of Jain Agri-food division. Dr. Kulkarni established the Agri-food Research Foundation in India and served as its Executive Director. In addition to his various academic positions and consulting work for several food companies, he has worked extensively in technology transfer and extension services to farmers. |
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Juhudi Kilimo |
| Juhudi Kilimo is a Kenyan for-profit microfinance institution that provides asset financing and technical assistance to smallholder farmers via its 20 rural branches. In 2014 Juhudi Kilimo set up Juhudi Labs, an innovation and incubation unit to discover, test and develop new products and services to better serve small farmers. |
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Kulsoom Ally, Director of Juhudi Labs. Before joining Juhudi Kilimo, Kulsoom worked on corporate social responsibility and sustainability at Nokia, where she led mobile technology programmes in education, health, employability and environmental conservation in over 30 countries in Europe, Africa and Latin America. |
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Khyati Foods |
| Khyati Foods has transformed the lives of over 15,000 Indian farmers and strives to be a global leader in the production, processing and development of high-quality, organic products. In addition to their organic conversion program, Khyati operates a soy processing plant and cotton ginnery. It is one of India’s leading organic exporters. |
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Gunjan Agrawal, CFO. Gunjan has managed the financial operations of the Khyati Foods group for the past eight years. Driven by her desire to make a difference in the lives of the farming community, she helped build Khyati Foods. |
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Pawan Agrawal, Managing Director. Pawan has extensive experience in agribusinesses. He was a member of several Indian government bodies working on Post Harvest Technologies as well as biomass-based energy generation. |
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Dr. Selvam Daniel, Head of International Operations. Daniel worked in organic and sustainable agricultural value chains in food, textiles and cosmetics. Originally an organic farmer, he became a development and organic compliance professional. |
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One Acre Fund |
| One Acre Fund has designed a “market bundle” of services for smallholder farmers in rural East Africa: high-quality agricultural inputs on credit, local distribution, weekly farm trainings, and post-harvest and market support. Together, this innovative bundle enables farmers to increase their farm income by at least 50%, eliminating chronic hunger and providing surplus income to invest in productive uses. |
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Erin McCusker, Business Development Manager. Erin joined One Acre Fund with senior experience from a top-tier management consulting firm. She works to develop and strengthen philanthropic partnerships with private donors, bilaterals, and multilaterals in Europe, Africa, and Asia. |
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responsAbility |
| responsAbility is one of the world’s leading independent asset managers specialized in development-related sectors of emerging economies, such as finance, agriculture, health, education and energy. |
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Eva Tschannen, Senior Technical Assistance Manager. Eva brings over five years of experience as a project manager in the field of economic development cooperation. Before joining responsAbility, she was a manager for the Asia Pacific and MENA region for the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. |
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Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation |
| The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation is an agency within the Swiss government’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. It coordinates overall Swiss international development activities as well as humanitarian aid. |
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Peter Beez, Economist. Peter joined the SDC Governance Division in 2012, and was then posted in Nicaragua as a regional thematic advisor on private and financial sector development. He is now the Head of the Employment + Income focal point in Bern. |
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Manuel Sager, General Director. Manuel served as Head of the International Humanitarian Law Coordination Office, Head of Information in the Federal department of Economic Affairs, and Executive Director of EBRD. He also was Ambassador to the United States. |
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Tetra Laval |
| The Tetra Laval Group consists of three industry groups, Tetra Pak, Sidel and DeLaval, all focused on technologies for efficient production, packaging and distribution of food. Tetra Laval, Food for Development Office (FfDO), a joint initiative between Tetra Pak and DeLaval, applies its parent companies’ in-depth knowledge of the dairy value chain to help develop dairy sectors. Tetra Laval FfDO has developed the Dairy Hub concept to help customers in developing countries access more locally produced and better quality milk. |
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Morgan Tinnberg, Project Development Manager at Tetra Laval FfDO. Morgan is a supply chain specialist, with a background as a military officer and a dairy farmer. He works since 1999 as an international dairy expert with the IFC and other organizations in Easter Europe, South Asia, East and West Africa. |
