2019 Partnership Meeting

Prior to joining Touton as Head of Corporate Relations in 2016, Isabelle Adam held the position of General Secretary for the European Cocoa Association. Before that she worked with a variety of non-profit and EU trade organisations, holding information and communications management positions for the Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, the Bureau of International Recycling and the European Copper Institute.

Justin Adams has spent over 25 years championing innovation and sustainability in the private and public sector to address the challenge of climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable livelihoods. He joined The World Economic Forum to lead the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) in November 2018. Prior to the TFA he spent 5 years as the Global Managing Director for Lands at the Nature Conservancy where he launched and led all the organization's work on Natural Climate Solutions and set up the nature4climate partnership.

Before joining The Nature Conservancy, Mr. Adams spent 20 years in the private sector with senior roles in the renewable energy and agriculture sectors. He served on the board of multiple cleantech companies in the period 2006-2015 and was a Fellow at the Smith School, University of Oxford from 2012-2018. He is a business graduate from Bath University.

Tawiah Agyarko-Kwarteng is a sustainable development consultant and practitioner with over 15 years of experience working passionately with the non-profit and private sectors to advance progress among rural populations and smallholder cocoa farmers. Since 2013, she has engaged closely with government, supply chain and non-profit partners to design and implement The Hershey Company's cocoa sustainability strategy in the West Africa region. She previously worked with non-profit, World Education Inc. to deliver innovative programs in girls and women's education, adult literacy, and health across multiple West African countries. Ms. Agyarko-Kwarteng holds a Master of Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

JB Aidoo was appointed to the position of CEO, Ghana Cocoa Board in January 2017. Mr. Aidoo served from 2000-2006 as Regional Minister for Ghana’s Western Region under the administration of former President John A. Kufuor, and from 2000-2012 as a Member of Parliament with the New Patriotic Party from the Western Region. He has been a researcher at the Institute for Land Management and Development at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi (Ghana), where he has researched and written extensively on issues related to land tenure and cocoa.

John Ament was appointed Global Vice President of Cocoa at Mars, Incorporated in September 2017. In this capacity he oversees science, research and development, responsible sourcing, sustainability, and corporate affairs related to cocoa for Mars Wrigley. Prior to his current role he was Regional President of Mars Chocolate Latin America, based in São Paulo, Brazil. During his 27-year career at Mars, John has spent time working in Sales, Marketing and General Management in many of the Mars businesses including Chocolate, Food and Petcare, the business he originally joined shortly after graduating as a Veterinary Surgeon. John is a Dutch national, born in Kenya where he spent his earliest years before moving to Brazil where he was educated.

Betty Annan is the Country Director for Ghana at the World Cocoa Foundation. She plays a key role in government engagement, policy dialogue, and collaboration with WCF member companies and other stakeholders on the ground in Ghana. Ms. Annan has 10 years of experience in agriculture and rural development in West Africa, including as the Ghana Country Manager for Fairtrade Africa, Ghana Country Manager for Agribusiness Systems International, and Project Coordinator and Social Development Advisor for Care International on their West African Fair Fruits Project. Ms. Annan holds a PhD in Environmental Science from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in the US; a MSc in Natural Resources from University of Greenwich in UK; and a BSC in Agriculture from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.

As an entrepreneur and social scientist working to fight inequality, exclusion and unsustainable practices, Ms. Arenas has developed and implemented more than 15 initiatives in Colombia and the Latin America region. An important part of her work has been to bring together multiple sectors with a diversity of visions and interests to construct long term common goals. In the Amazon region, Ms. Arenas co-leads AMAZONAS 2030, an accountability initiative for the Colombian Amazon region that emphasizes land use, the impacts of extractives industry and infrastructure. Ms. Arenas is coordinating the ad hoc secretariat of the Cocoa, Forests and Peace Initiative in Colombia that seeks to promote zero-deforestation production models that favor the protection and restoration of forests in the Colombian cocoa supply chain.

Michel Arrion was appointed Executive Director of ICCO in October 2018, where he will serve a five-year term in the post. A Belgian national, Mr. Arrion is an EU civil servant who has served as Ambassador of the European Union in various African countries such as Nigeria, Rwanda, and Côte d'Ivoire.

Augustine Emmanuel Joseph Arthur is the Chief of Asempaneye in the Juaboso District of North Western Ghana. He was enstooled in 2004 as Nana Kwao Asante Bediatuo II. Nana Kwao Asante Bediatuo II is an experienced cocoa farmer and a forester with a Professional Diploma in Project Design and Management from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He has a 35-hectare cocoa farm in Asempanaye. As a traditional ruler he was a representative for the Sefwi Wiawso Traditional Council in Protected Area Development Program by wildlife Division and Forestry Commission in 2008. He also worked as a committee member under the Rainforest Alliance Cocoa Landscape Project in 2010. He became the Chairman for Sefwi Wiawso Traditional Area Land committee in 2017 and has been the chairperson till date.

Alloysius Attah is the CEO and Co-Founder of Farmerline. He launched Farmerline in 2013 to create lasting profit for African farmers. This mission was forged by more than a decade of farming experience and scaling digital tools that increase farmer income through a reliable market and service access. He leads the overall strategy and vision of Farmerline with a specific focus on business development and product innovation. Today, Farmerline and its partners have digitized and served over 200,000 farmers and mapped 1 million acres of farmland across 13 countries. Several organizations and world leaders have endorsed his work including Ms Christine Lagarde of the IMF, CBNC Africa's Young Business Leader Award and the King Baudouin African Development Prize.

Aminata Bamba is an agronomist engineer. She began her career in 2012 in sustainable agriculture certification programs. In 2014, she joined ECOOKIM, a union of 29 cooperatives with more than 28,000 producers, as Sustainable Development Manager. She is responsible for the UTZ, RA, FAIRTRADE and BIO certification programs and trainings in good agricultural, environmental, social and management practices of producers, their families and their farms. She also manages community-based projects and supports women's empowerment. She exchanges with the partners on development of cooperatives, monitoring and advancement of projects.

Eduardo Brito Bastos is an agronomist engineer with an MBA from FDC. He is the CEO of the Brazilian Cocoa Grinder Association (AIPC), and a board member of the Brazilian Agribusiness Association and The Forests, Climate and Agriculture Coalition.

Leonardo Bonanni is the CEO of Sourcemap, a software company specialized in supply chain transparency and traceability. He created Sourcemap in 2008 as a solution for digitizing massive supply chains through cloud-based mapping and database technology. Since 2012 Sourcemap software has been used in the cocoa sector to manage sustainability programs across hundreds of thousands of farmers, and to trace individual sacks of cocoa from farms to factories. Mr. Bonanni has been named among the '100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics' by Ethisphere and 'America's Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs' by Bloomberg. He has a PhD from MIT and is a frequent lecturer on supply chain transparency.

Osei Bonsu has been the National Chairman of Kookoo Pa Farmers Association in Ghana since 2016. He is also the former Chairman of Akuafo Adamfo, a subsidiary of Finatrade based in Kumasi. Mr. Bonsu has four cocoa farms in the Ashanti region of Ghana with a combined size of 20 acres (8 hectares). To diversify his income, he has engaged in the plantain sucker multiplication program that is part of the WCF Cocoa Livelihoods Program. Since receiving technical assistance on how to perform the split corm technique, he has been able to master the method and support farmers in his community to plant plantain.
Mr. Bonsu also has a cocoa purchasing clerk for various Licensed Buying Companies and has been in the business of purchasing cocoa for close to 15 years. He is a teacher at the local district assembly school in his hometown, Betinko, and is married with seven children.

Duncan Brack is an independent environmental policy analyst, working on issues including forest governance, deforestation, agriculture, commodity supply chains and climate change, illegal logging and the trade in illegal timber, bioenergy, international environmental regimes and institutions and the interaction between environmental regulation and international trade rules. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), and an Associate of Green Alliance. He has a background in Chatham House and UK government and politics.

Andrew Brooks is Vice President, Head of Sustainability at Olam Cocoa based in London. He is a serving member of the World Cocoa Foundation Technical Working Committee and a Board member of GrowCocoa; the Sustainability partnership between Blommer Chocolate and Olam Cocoa. Mr. Brooks has 36 years’ experience in cocoa trading, management and sustainability, and has been with Olam for over 12 years. He graduated with a Combined Honours degree in Business Administration and French from the University of Aston in Birmingham, England.

Hugo Byrnes joined Ahold in 2006 and was subsequently appointed to the position of Vice President Product Integrity. He is responsible for Ahold’s food and non-food product policies, which cover product safety and responsible products. This includes social compliance, animal welfare and environmental issues.

Mr. Byrnes has a Dutch Law degree from the State University Leiden, the Netherlands. He is a food lawyer whose career has focused on the food business and in particular on quality management and standardization. From 2000 onwards he was the Director of The Global Food Safety Initiative. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative and a member of the Retailers’ Cocoa Collaboration.

Lorenzo Casaburi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich. His main line of research focuses on agricultural markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on market structure, behavioral insights, and agricultural finance. His projects have received funding from several donors, including the European Research Council, USAID, DFID, IGC. Mr. Casaburi holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard and a B.A from the University of Bologna. He is also a Research Affiliate at BREAD, CEPR, IGC, IPA, J-PAL.

Paul Chang is the Global Leader for Blockchain in the Distribution & Industrial Markets at IBM. In this role, he is responsible for the evangelism, enablement, and business development of IBM’s Blockchain offerings – Food Trust, TradeLens, and Supply Chain Transformation. Mr. Chang has deep industry expertise in the Retail, Consumer Products, Wholesale/Distribution, Automotive, and Industrial sectors and is a globally recognized domain expert in supply chain, advanced analytics, and IoT. Mr. Chang has years of experience in market development for new technologies having worked with several venture-backed startup companies prior to joining IBM. He received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Julia Christian is a lawyer trained in the UK and US who has been working with Fern since 2014. She specializes in climate and development issues, and has worked on forest policy in West and Central Africa, Central America and Europe. Within Fern, she works to strengthen EU policies to tackle deforestation from imported commodities, focusing in particular on cocoa. Before coming to Fern, Ms. Christian worked at ClientEarth, Human Rights Watch, Reforestamos Mexico, the Liberian NGO Sustainable Development Institute, and the Gabonese NGO Brainforest.

Cristianne Close is the Global Markets Practice Leader at WWF International; she has twenty years of experience in sustainability, strategy and business development. Having worked in the private and non-for-profit sector she has built multidisciplinary teams and engaged stakeholders in Africa, Europe, India and Latin America; both in small and large organizations, giving her a deep understanding of cultures and systems. She has worked at the intersection of business, innovation and sustainable development and forged positive change in large organizations such as McDonald´s and Syngenta, through her drive and results oriented approach. In addition, Cristianne founded and managed Choco Emprende Foundation in the Colombian jungle working with Afro-American communities.
She is a Brazilian-Argentinean national and holds an MBA from IMD, Switzerland; she lives in Florianopolis, Brazil with her husband and children, Nicolas and Olivia.

Rev Dr Emmanuel Ahia Clottey is a Crop Scientist who has worked with Ghana Cocoa Board for over 24 years in different capacities. He started as a District Cocoa Officer and later became the Principal of Bunso Cocoa College. In 2015, he was appointed the Deputy Executive Director of Cocoa Health and Extension Division and is currently the Executive Director of the Seed Production Division of COCOBOD. He has extensive field experience interfacing with cocoa farmers for more than two decades and has been involved in COCOBOD’s Productivity Enhancement Programmes.

Stephanie Daniels is Senior Program Director for Agriculture & Development at the Sustainable Food Lab, a global network of corporate, NGO and research leaders in the food and agriculture sectors. Ms. Daniels leads the Lab’s current partnerships on the Living Income Community of Practice, the USAID Climate Smart Ag Learning Community and the Business Action on Food Loss & Waste. Her background is in the cocoa sector in supply chain management and inclusive business. She holds a B.S. Environmental Science/Wildlife Biology, a M.A. International Development and Organizational Management, and is currently a fellow in the Academy for Systems Change.

Birgit de Vos is Senior Manager of Social Sustainability at the Sustainability Consortium and Wageningen Research. Ms. de Vos does impact research on child labor, forced labor and living wages in international supply chains, and develops tools for retailers, brand manufactures and traders to help them with their human rights due diligence reporting.

Nicko Debenham is VP, Head of Sustainability at Barry Callebaut and serves as the Chairman of the Cocoa Horizons Foundation. Previously at Armajaro, he was Head of the Africa Cocoa Division, Director of Development and Sustainability, and Director/Chairman of Source Trust. Mr. Debenham served as Chairman of the World Cocoa Foundation in 2013-2014, when he played a key role in bringing together knowledge from the chocolate and cocoa industry to lead the strategic direction of WCF in the development of cocoa sustainability programs benefiting cocoa farmers and their communities around the world.

Koffi Dibby owns a five-hectare cocoa farm in Tulakro, near Toumodi, Côte d'Ivoire, and is a member of the SOCODD Cooperative. As part of CocoaAction activities, Koffi Dibby has received training on good agricultural practices. Koffi Dibby sends his four children to school and is currently building a new house for his family with 7 bedrooms and two bathrooms. Koffi Dibby also invested in diversification activities and now has two shops in his village, including a digital money outlet that helps bring digital finance services to his community.

Adeline Dontenville is a governance and finance expert at the EU REDD Facility of the European Forest Institute, based in Barcelona, Spain. At the Facility, Ms. Dontenville supports governments and stakeholders in Central, West Africa and South-East Asia in designing and implementing strategies to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. She also leads the Facility’s global work on land-use finance analysis. Prior to that, Ms. Dontenville was based in Manila, Philippines, as climate change and environment project officer for the French Development Agency (AFD). She started her career at the European Commission in Brussels, as part of the EU international climate negotiations team, focusing on climate finance. Adeline is a graduate from Sciences Po in EU Affairs and holds an MA in Risk Analysis from King’s College London.

Assata Doumbia is the President of ECAM, an Ivorian cocoa farmer cooperative. She has an engineering degree in International Trade, and personally produces 15 ha of cocoa and 4 ha of rubber. Ms. Doumbia began her cocoa career in 1997 as Assistant to the Commercial Director of the Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire Coffee and Cocoa Export Corporation. She continued as a sales representative for Balmac in Abidjan and joined ECAM in 2007.

In 2014, she received 1st prize as the Best Manager of a Coffee-Cocoa Cooperative in Côte d'Ivoire, and in 2015 was recognized with the Best NAWA Regional Cooperative Award.

Alexander Ferguson is Vice President for Communications and Membership at the World Cocoa Foundation. A British national, he brings more than 30 years of professional experience from international development, journalism, financial publishing, and the automobile industry. For 14 years, Mr. Ferguson worked at the World Bank in a variety of leadership positions, including Senior Manager for External Affairs for South Asia, Chief of Staff and Communications Advisor for World Bank President Robert Zoellick, and Senior Communications Officer to the Chief Financial Officer. Prior to the World Bank, he worked for 18 years at Reuters, including as the News Editor and Economics Editor in Washington, and earlier as a correspondent in Africa, the Middle East, United Kingdom, and Germany.

Abel Fernández has spent nearly 30 years at CONACADO in many roles, including Quality Control, Exports, and Logistics. He began his work in cocoa as an assistant on the Improvement of Dominican Cocoa Quality Project from 19850-1990 with the German Technical Cooperation Agency.

Mr. Fernández is a member of the board of the Latin American Network of Fairtrade Producers (CLAC) as a cocoa product representative.

Antonie Fountain, is Managing Director of the VOICE Network and co-author of the Cocoa Barometers. He acts as one of the key spokespersons for civil society in cocoa, and has been actively advocating a sustainable cocoa sector for more than a decade.

Hans-Joachim Fuchtel has been Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture since March 2018. Following his studies of law and economics, he worked in the senior civil service of the federal state of Baden Württemberg. He has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1987. Mr. Fuchtel served as Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 2009 to 2013 and as Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development from 2013 to 2018.

Martina Gaebler leads the Cocoa Team within the GIZ Programme Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains and Standards. She joined the Programme in 2009 and has since worked on sustainable value chains in various sectors as advisor and project manager. In her current position she advises the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development on sustainability issues in the cocoa value chains, focusing on West Africa. She also leads a project component of the Green Innovation Center on sustainable and deforestation-free cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire. She holds a Masters degree in International Development from the University of Manchester.

Gigi Gatti is the Technology for Development Director at the Grameen Foundation. Formerly, she was Grameen’s Regional Director for Asia. Ms. Gatti led the Community Agent Network program and the Farmerlink program in the Philippines and led the delivery of farm development plans for cocoa smallholder farmers in Indonesia.
Ms. Gatti has over 25 years work experience in the IT, banking, insurance and microfinance industries. She holds an MBA and a Computer Science degrees, is a Certified Microfinance Expert and a Certified Information Systems Auditor. She is a board member of the Fair Training Agency.

Sandro Giuliani has an MBA from the University of Zurich and holds a Master of Advanced Studies in development and cooperation from ETH Zurich. From 1999 to 2009, Mr. Giuliani worked for Pestalozzi Children Foundation, most recently as head of its international programs and member of the Board of Directors. He joined Jacobs Foundation in 2009 as Program Officer. Between 2013 and June 2019, was the Managing Director of the Foundation, and since 2015 he has been Delegate of the Board. Sandro Giuliani is member of the Governing Board of the University of Bremen, Member of the Governing Board of the German Children and Youth Foundation, Member of the Advisory Board of the Italian Foundation “Compagnia di San Paolo” and Member of the Managing Board of Swiss Foundations.

Viwanou Gnassounou, from Togo, is an economist, financial expert and project manager with about 20 years of experience in private sector development policy formulation, design of financing instruments, agricultural and natural resource policy formulation, aid programming, sectoral commodity export strategies, and trade. Before joining the ACP Management Team in April 2015, he was co-manager of a consulting firm, which provided support in the areas of public and private sector development policies. He also set up and managed an agricultural products industrial processing company based in Togo.
Mr. Gnassounou served as an expert in commodity trade policy at the ACP Secretariat for 10 years. Prior to that, Mr. Gnassounou participated in setting up PlaNet Finance (now Positive Planet) in Paris, France, where he served in various positions from 1998 to 2002, including the latest of Director of Knowledge Management and Business Development Services.

Uwe Gneiting is a Senior Researcher in Oxfam’s Private Sector Department. He leads Oxfam’s research engagement in the Farmer Income Lab, a collaborate think-do tank initiated by Mars to improve farmer incomes. His broader work at Oxfam focuses on the intersection of business and sustainable development with a particular interest in global value chains, inequality, and human rights. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin and is currently based in Abuja, Nigeria.

Joost Gorter is Director of the Sector Transformation Domain at NewForesight, working in sustainable market transformations, principally in agri-commodity sectors. He has helped structure sector-wide initiatives for more sustainable practices, and has continued to work with these coalitions to design strategies that can scale-up their potential. Mr. Gorter supported the Sustainable Coffee Program as interim manager throughout its development phase, and did so again after its merger with the 4C Association to form the Global Coffee Platform. He also managed the start-up phase of CocoaAction with the World Cocoa Foundation. Previously, Mr. Gorter has worked for the World Bank, GIZ, USAID, the United Nations and the Dutch Government. He obtained an MA with honors in International Relations and Economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) on a Fulbright Scholarship, and holds an MA in History from the University of Amsterdam.

Charlotte Grant serves as Communications & Marketing Manager at WCF. She brings to this role 15 years of international experience acquired across four continents, working for government organizations, nonprofits, and private sector companies. She is notably in charge of coordinating the WCF Partnership Meeting. A French and British citizen, Ms. Grant is fluent in both languages, and has notions of Dutch, Spanish and German. Ms. Grant graduated from CELSA – Paris Sorbonne University (MA in Marketing and Brand Communications) and holds a Professional Certificate in Social Media Management from Georgetown University.

Heidi Hautala is a Vice-President of the European Parliament and a former Minister for International Development and State Ownership Steering of Finland. Currently she is a member of the International Trade committee. She has focused on fair trade, human rights, transparency and responsible business. She has established a cross-party working group on Responsible Business Conduct at the European Parliament, which she chairs. Ms. Hautala is also a member of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and a substitute member of the Legal Affairs committee. In addition to the ongoing parliamentary term, she was an MEP from 1995-2003 and 2009-2011. She was previously a Member of the Finnish Parliament and a presidential candidate for the Finnish Green Party in 2000 and 2006.

Nadia Hewett leads Blockchain and Distributed Ledger projects at the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. These project convene broad, multi-stakeholder communities to co-design governance frameworks to accelerate the most impactful uses of blockchain in a manner that is strategic, forward-thinking and inclusive. Previously she worked on the Maersk and IBM blockchain solution. She also has an extensive background in supply chain and logistics, having worked on major supply chain initiatives across Asia, Americas, Europe and Africa.

Mawuse Hotor hails from Akome Gbota in the Volta Region of Ghana. And is a cocoa farmer participating in the MASO programme. Ms. Hotor enrolled in the agro academy component of the programme with encouragement from her parents and, after the training, she started her farm. Currently Ms. Hotor is a proud owner of a two and half acre cocoa farm. She has started earning money from the food crops that are intercropped in her farm. She has been able to save some money from this and hopes to begin teacher training in the coming months. She has also honed her leadership and soft skills and has had the chance to travel outside Ghana. Ms. Hotor is a member of the Youth Forward Initiative National Steering Committee representing Youth in Agriculture.

Pomasi Ismaila is Chairman of the Council of Cocoa Abrabopa Association (CAA), a farmer-based organization in Ghana with a membership of over 8,000 certified smallholder cocoa farmers. Mr. Ismaila has been a cocoa farmer for over 18 years. He joined CAA in 2007 and became Regional Representative (Ashanti Region, Ghana) to the Council of CAA in 2014.

Mr. Yosuke Kobayashi has served as the Senior Director of the Governance Group of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since April 2018. He began a partnership with ACE, a Japanese NGO, to co-design a new plan for supporting Ghana’s efforts to eliminate child labor issues in the cocoa industry in collaboration with Japanese NGOs and businesses. Prior to his current position, he was the Senior Representative of JICA USA Office, responsible for Japan-US collaboration. On assignment in Vietnam between 2005 and 2009, he was awarded the Medal for People’s Health by the Vietnamese Government. He holds a Master’s degree from the School of Law, University of Virginia and is a member of the New York State Bar.

Petra Kollmannsberger is founding shareholder of 12Tree and holds currently the position of CSO Business Development and Sales. She has been working with the Group of companies since 2003, from 2008 as General Manager Latin America. Before joining the forestry world, Ms. Kollmannsberger worked from 1999 until 2003 as a Senior Consultant at Ketchum Public Relations in Munich on international consulting projects for various countries in Latin America and in Crisis Communications and Marketing. She is currently president of the German Chamber of Commerce in Panama, founding member of the Biodiversity Alliance Mesoamerica and was for many years board member of the Association of Forestry Companies in Panama.

Yves Brahima Koné has been Director General of the CCC since August 2017. He is an agronomist engineer, CEO of the company Cocoa Products Côte d'Ivoire (PROCACI/UNICAO), president of SOTRA, and honorable member and president of the economic and financial affairs committee of the National Assembly, and officer of the national order and commander of the Order of Agricultural Merit.

David Loue was appointed Deputy General Manager of Côte d’Ivoire Rural Land Agency (AFOR) in 2017.
From 1999 to 2016, David developed a rich experience in the cocoa industry, at ADM COCOA, as West Africa Cocoa Research and Sustainability Manager. His professional career started in 1982 at the Ministry of Agriculture in Côte d’Ivoire, in the specific area of project planning and implementation, before joining BNETD, the national government consultancy bureau. Mr. Loue is an agronomist who holds an MSc in Agricultural and Resource Economics, obtained as African Graduate Fellowship Program Alumni, at Oregon State University.

Paul Macek is the Vice President of Programs at the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), where he manages WCF’s global portfolio of projects and programs. Mr. Macek leads WCF’s resource mobilization and the technical areas of agricultural productivity, social development, and the environment. He is particularly passionate about social impact investing and smallholder agriculture on the African continent where he has lived and worked for more than 20 years. Mr. Macek holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and an MA from American University.

Ouattara Mahamane is an Agro-Economist engineer with an advanced master’s degree in innovations and policies for sustainable food systems from SupAgro of Montpellier, France. He is an expert of REDD+, and has worked as a Monitoring and Assessment Specialist since 2015 at SEP-REDD+. Focused on reforestation and the REDD+ mechanism, Mr. Mahamane also works on the Forest Investment Program. Mr. Mahamane has twelve years of experience in rural and agricultural development, sustainable cocoa farming and rubber. He has experiences in sustainable tree crops programs, cocoa livelihoods program (Technoserve) and with the African Society of Rubber plantation (SAPH).

Gerard Manley is the Chief Executive Officer of Olam Cocoa. He is a member of Olam Group’s Executive Committee and is Executive Chairman of the group’s Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Function and has oversight on Olam’s European operations. He is a Board member of the ECA and the World Cocoa Foundation and a Founder member of CocoaAction. He is a former Chairman of the Federation of Cocoa Commerce and has served on the Boards of the Cocoa Association of Asia and the London Cocoa Terminal Market.
Mr. Manley has over 30 years’ Board experience in the cocoa world, joining Holco Trading Company (part of ED&F Man) in 1983. He has been with Olam for the past 21 years. He has a BA Honors in Geography and holds an MBA from the City University in London.

Christian Marlin is an agro-economist engineer from the University of Montpellier-France, with a master's degree in Rural Development. He is an expert of the European Union in Ecuador, in charge of a post-earthquake productive reactivation program, and advisor to several ministries for the formulation of competitive improvement plans.
Mr. Marlin has 30 years of experience in rural development and formulation of public policies for the agricultural sector in Latin America and is the co-author of several research publications on Inclusive Businesses with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Dutch NGO SNV.

Friederike Martin is one of the leading experts on living income. She works as an advisor at GIZ to support the German Government in the fields of sustainable agricultural supply chains and is one of the facilitators of The Living Income Community of Practice, an international working group that aims to reach a decent standard of living for smallholder producers and their families in global supply chains. She is She has a master in agricultural economics from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as well as China Agricultural University.

After working five years with NGOs and cooperatives in Nicaragua, Jaume Martorell Mir started to work in the cocoa world with Ritter Sport. Now he is the Quality Officer of 12Tree where he advises projects in quality issues: post-harvest, GMP, exportation conditions, storage, and tasting samples for our clients. He is also a member of the Sales Team. Mr. Martorell has more than 12 years of experience in projects, international cooperation and tropical value chains. He has supervised cocoa projects in six countries in Latin America.

Tim McCoy is Vice President for Country Relations at the World Cocoa Foundation. He is responsible for all public-facing strategic global communications efforts and manages reputational risk engagement on behalf of the chocolate and cocoa industry. Joining WCF in 2012, Mr. McCoy served as the acting president from January to July 2016. He brings more than 25 years’ experience in international affairs and political and economic development programs, primarily in Africa. Before joining WCF, Mr. McCoy was vice president for business development at the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA). He holds a BA in political science and French from the University of Tennessee and attended Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). He has visited nearly 60 countries around the world and is fluent in French.

Leonard Mizzi became Head of Unit at the European Commission, Directorate-General (DG) for International Cooperation and Development - Rural development, food security and nutrition in January 2017. Prior to this post he was Head of Unit for 10 years in DG Agriculture and Rural Development, first in charge of agri trade and development issues and led the inter-institutional unit hence relations with the European Parliament, Council, and consultative bodies, steering Civil Dialogue Groups.
Mr. Mizzi has a broad working experience in the Maltese public administration and the Maltese private sector. He is a graduate in Public Administration from the University of Malta and has degrees from CIHEAM-Montpellier (Master of Science) and a PhD in Agricultural economics from the University of Reading (UK). He has been an author of a number of articles and publications on agri food issues and nutrition in the Mediterranean region.

Beatrice Moulianitaki holds a Masters in International Business and has 18 years of experience working in the Food & Beverage industry of which half working in the cocoa sector and actively contributing to its journey to become more sustainable and inclusive. Since 2017, Ms. Moulianitaki has been the Head of Sustainable Sourcing at The Hershey Company, leading the Cocoa For Good program. She has a particular focus on business service development and youth in cocoa growing communities. In May 2016, she launched the Women’s Network in Cocoa and Chocolate (WINCC).

Anthony Myers is the editor of confectionerynews.com and has a wealth of experience in the confectionery and general food and drink industry. Previously he was web editor on thegrocer.co.uk and a production editor on The Guardian digital and mobile platforms. He has also held senior editorial positions on The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, the Press Association and The Bahrain Tribune.

Ms. Osei-Sampah is a social development professional with over 18 years of experience in sustainability protocols, capacity building, social auditing, and monitoring and evaluation strategies. Ms. Osei-Sampah is the Executive Secretary at the Coffee Federation of Ghana. She has previously worked for Agro Eco, the Ghana Organic Agriculture Network, Burgeap/Otui, Colan Consult and Ergs Consortium, and freelanced for FLOCert and TUV Rheinland. She provides leadership and technical inputs within social auditing for policy development and implementation of sustainable agricultural interventions for the economically disadvantaged. She has facilitated social, sustainable agricultural and trade auditing on the entire continent of Africa and Europe. She holds a Master of Business Administration Degree in Supply Chain Management and a BA in Economics from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Yuliya Panfil is a senior fellow and director of New America’s Future of Property Rights program. Prior to joining New America, Ms. Panfil worked at Omidyar Network, where she sourced and managed property rights investments. Prior to joining Omidyar, she was a land governance and legal advisor at USAID. She previously worked as a corporate lawyer at White & Case, LLP where she focused on capital markets transactions as well as several land rights and indigenous rights projects for the United Nations and other organizations.
Ms. Panfil holds a law degree from Columbia Law School and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and international studies from Northwestern University.

Cathy Pieters is the Director of Cocoa Life, Mondelēz International’s global cocoa sustainability program. Cocoa Life reflects Mondelēz International’s purpose to empower people to eat snacks that are made right. Ms. Pieters joined the company in 2007, then known as Kraft Foods, to lead media strategy and buying for the Benelux business before taking the helm of the Côte d’Or and Toblerone brand strategy. Before joining Mondelēz International, Ms. Pieters gained over 15 years of experience in brand planning and media strategy across several advertising agencies.

Warren Sako is the Secretary General at World Cocoa Farmers Organization (WCFO) and the CEO and Co-Founder at Farmgate Cocoa Alliance (FCA). He participated in the development of the WCC4 Declaration and contributed in the development of ISO/CEN Standard on Sustainable and Traceable Cocoa. His focus and interest is on the promotion of small-scale cocoa farming entrepreneurship and the push for reform in the cocoa sector, particularly in West and Central Africa. He introduced the only cocoa sector farmers-driven event the Global Cocoa Farmers Conference (GCFC) to act as a platform where farmers and other stakeholders come together to better understand each other and secure long-term cocoa sustainability.

Alejandra Sarasty was appointed Chief International Business Officer at Compañía Nacional de Chocolates, Chocolate Division of Grupo Nutresa, in September 2012. During her 20-year career, Ms. Sarasty has led the international expansion of companies in the Confectionery, Dairy, and Coffee Industries in Colombia, Spain, USA, and Mexico. She is a Colombian national and holds an MBA from ISEAD, Spain.

Sri Auditya “Tya” Sari is the Field Coordinator of Sustainable Action and Advocacy in Kakao (SUBAK) program at the Kalimajari Foundation in Indonesia. She started working with smallholder cocoa farmers in 2016 through the GreenWIN (green growth and in-win sustainable strategies) consortium project supported by the European Commission. She performed a feasibility study to initiate biogas practice in rural districts to promote the development of renewable energy toward climate resilience and better livelihoods for Indonesian farmers. Her work involves lobby and advocacy action, youth engagement in agriculture, and women farmers empowerment. To Ms. Sari, sustainability means a young generation of farmers profiting from farms, where they bring new innovations that are environmentally friendly and climate resilient. Her advocacy work involves working with governments and the private sector to give value added processing to farmers. Ms. Sari and her team strive to give room for women to be heard and to have more economic options.

Sandra Kwabea Sarkwa is a social development expert with skills in research and advocacy at SEND GHANA, a renowned national NGO focused on research and advocacy for governments’ pro poor policies and service delivery through the promotion of livelihoods security in Ghana. Experienced in project management, Ms. Sarkwa has managed different project principals in Ghana’s agriculture sector including cocoa, health, and education. She currently coordinates SEND GHANA’s cocoa sector projects and doubles as the Coordinator for the Ghana Civil-Society Cocoa Platform (GCCP) - an independent advocacy and campaign platform for civil society actors in the cocoa sector.

Barbara Scherle is a reporter and the Berlin anchorwoman for ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland GmbH. She also works as an anchorwoman at German news channel N24, as managing director on the channel's planning team, and presents Kabel1 News. Ms. Scherle coaches NGOs in media law and has specialized in sustainability for event hosting and podium discussions. Since 2010, she has taught news broadcasting in the Karlsruhe study program KulturMedia-Technology. She studied economics at Universität Augsburg with a focus on economic policy and environmental economics.

Stefan Schmitz is Deputy Director-General and Commissioner for the "One World - No Hunger" Initiative at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) in Bonn. For the last eight years he has been leading the rural development, agriculture and food security work at BMZ. From 2007 until 2009 he worked as senior advisor to the Secretariat of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. Before that, he coordinated the German bilateral cooperation programme with South Africa and Namibia and was deputy head of the infrastructure division at the BMZ. He graduated from Bonn University with a degree in geography and mathematics and received a PhD in geosciences from the Free University of Berlin.

Pamela Schreier is the Global Sustainability Manager for Ecom Agrotrade, Ltd. She began her career in sustainable economic development in the Peace Corps working with a cooperative of beekeepers. She has spent the last 6 years successfully implementing sustainable partnerships within the chocolate industry as well as development organizations to leverage resources and continuously improve services provided to cocoa producers in effort to create resilient and sustainable supply chains in Latin America. She has just recently taken on the role of Global Manager for Sustainability within ECOM and now supervises partnerships for sustainability throughout ECOM's supply chains in coffee and cocoa.

Richard Scobey is President of the World Cocoa Foundation, where he leads the strategic development of the organization. Mr. Scobey serves as the primary spokesperson on behalf of member companies, and leads the direction of the cocoa industry on sustainability priorities. He brings to WCF more than 30 years of rural development and poverty reduction expertise at the World Bank Group.

Charlotte Streck is director of Climate Focus an international advisory company on climate policy. She has been actively involved in climate change law and policy throughout her career and is a renowned expert on the causes of land conversation and strategies to address deforestation, agricultural supply chains, land governance, and forest policies.
Before founding Climate Focus in 2004, Ms. Streck worked for five years as Senior Counsel with The World Bank in Washington, DC. She is former lead counsel for climate change with the Center for International Sustainable Development Law with McGill University, is an associated editor of the Climate Policy Journal, and is Chair of the Board of the Climate Strategies Policy research network.

Camilo Tellez-Merchan leads the Digital Payments innovation Hub at the Better Than Cash Alliance. At the Better Than Cash Alliance, he oversees the global research program and innovation hub that helps members execute their digitization efforts and build digital economies. Prior to joining the Alliance, Mr. Tellez-Merchan held positions in the area of digital financial services for over a decade, including at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor; the World Bank; GSMA in London; the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, and at Microsoft Labs in Bangalore. He holds an MA in International Relations and Latin American studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, an MSc in Information Systems and Economic Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Diplome International from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po Paris).

Boukje Theeuwes is a Senior Policy Advisor at Solidaridad, responsible for policy and advocacy related to the organization's cocoa programs in Solidaridad’s regional expertise center in Europe. Ms. Theeuwes represents Solidaridad in various multi-stakeholder initiatives, public private partnerships and roundtables. She holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, where she specialized in supply chain management and operations research. She is a member of the VOICE Network and the Cocoa Barometer consortium, and a convener of the Women in Cocoa and Chocolate network WINCC.

El Hadj Adama Toure is the lead Agricultural economist for the World Bank’s Agriculture and Food Global Practice, West Africa, based in Abidjan. He has almost 30 years of experience, 19 years of which with the World Bank Group. He joined the WB country office in Abuja, Nigeria in to 2013 to lead the biggest WB Agriculture sector portfolio in Sub-Saharan Africa, before returning to Abidjan. He played a leading role in designing and supporting the implementation of World Bank funded operations and analytical works mostly in the in Sub-Saharan Africa, and currently coordinates the WB action plan to support sustainable cocoa development in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. Mr. Toure holds a Masters of Engineering in Agricultural Sciences ENSA/Thiès, Senegal and a Doctorate in Agriculture, Agribusiness and Rural Development Economics from ENSA/SUP-AGRO Montpellier, France.

Suzanne Uittenbogaard is Global Sustainable Value Chain Manager at Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate. She leads the supply chain transparency program - developing Cargill’s first mile traceability, impact transparency and digital innovation capabilities. Ms. Uittenbogaard has a background in BSc Science & Innovation Management and MSc Environmental Policy from LSE.

Thomas Vaassen is co-founder and CTO of Meridia, a technical platform coupled with a social approach that provides farm land certification and shade tree registration for cocoa farmers at scale while generating verified, reliable field data upstream.
In the past decade Mr. Vaassen has has worked as a management consultant, co-founded start-ups, and worked to build the social enterprise ecosystem globally. He has served for seven years as a managing director for Impact Hub Amsterdam and as the founding Chairman of the global Impact Hub Association.

As Associate Director of Cocoa Life at Mondelēz International, Cédric van Cutsem is leading the holistic program roll out across six origins. He is the leading force behind the Cocoa Life Operations Guide and supervises its implementation. Environment being one of the key areas Cocoa Life focuses on, Mr. van Cutsem is also driving the programs environment strategy with a strong emphasis on deforestation and climate change resilience.
Prior to joining Mondelēz International, Mr. van Cutsem was Director for Sustainable Cocoa at Ecom. He also gained significant experience as trader in Switzerland and earlier as Managing Director in Nigeria setting up and managing Ecom’s operations for close to 4 years. Cedric has lived in Nigeria, Switzerland, Côte d’Ivoire and is now located in Belgium. He holds a master’s degree in Business from the University of ICHEC in Brussels.

Jordy van Honk is an economist working on sustainable supply chains and landscapes around food commodities production and trade. Mr. van Honk is the Global Director of Agriculture Commodities – Cocoa/Tea/Coffee at IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative. Over the past 9 years Mr. van Honk had several roles at IDH and led some of the most innovative supply chain programs around living wage, deforestation, gender equality, and smallholder farmer inclusion. He is driven to see the day that agricultural commodities trade works much better for people and planet upstream in the supply chain.

Massimiliano “Max” Wax was born in Genoa, Italy but grew up in Brazil where he was first acquainted with cocoa. After spending years as a cocoa trader in Africa, Mr. Wax joined the World Bank group as a Cocoa Expert in 2001. He joined Rizek Cacao in 2001 as Director of R&D and sales, becoming VP of Strategy & Business Development in 2008. Mr. Wax is the GM of CAFIN SAS, a special cacao farm development, and is a member of the Board of the Italian-Dominican Chamber of Commerce and is Honorary Consul of the DRC to the Dominican Republic.

Nick Weatherill has been the Executive Director at the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) since September 2011, leading the foundation’s efforts to strengthen child protection and tackle child labor in the West African cocoa sector. Prior to joining ICI, Mr. Weatherill worked for 17 years in the humanitarian sector, for the European Commission (DG-ECHO), the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), and for a number of NGOs, specializing in food security, livelihoods, nutrition and public health at operational, strategic and public policy levels.

Honorable Bright Wireko-Brobby is a lawyer and a development planner. He is a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hemang Lower Denkyira and also serves as the Deputy Minister for Employment and Labour Relations. Mr. Wireko-Brobby has over 20 years of experience practicing as a development consultant with special interest in Community Development, Management Training and Development Facilitation. He has worked with the Child Labour Unit of the Ministry of Employment and key stakeholders in developing and ensuring the implementation of the National Plan of Action II.

Richard Wright leads ‘Project Transform’ for Unilever; a £40M 5-year collaboration with the UK’s Department for International Development. ‘Transform’ supports social businesses to develop sustainable market-based approaches that also meet low-income household needs in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Since 2010, he has used behaviour change theories extensively to further Unilever’s sustainability agenda in developed and developing countries.
Mr. Wright received a PhD in Psychology from Nottingham in 1993 followed by post-doctoral studies in Stirling, Vancouver and Glasgow.