Michael Matarasso

Michael “Mike” Matarasso serves as the Director for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) at the World Cocoa Foundation. He oversees M&E strategy and communications, and leads a team responsible for working with partners to implement M&E on WCF programs.

Mike is driven by a desire to help organizations deliver programs with the greatest level of respect, relevance, impact, efficiency, sustainability, and accountability possible. He has worked for the last 10 years with Heifer International, Mercy Corps, Save the Children, Zerion (iformBuilder) and CRS where he led the design and roll out of technology based M&E systems. In these 10 years Mike supported many agricultural market system and value chain projects including those for high value crops such as cacao and coffee. Previous to this, he worked for more than 10 years with World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International where he led the design of community based participatory behavior change communications, education, and M&E strategies for nature conservation and sustainable development projects across Africa, Latin America and Asia. Prior to this, Mike also worked in Malawi as an agro-forester.

Mike holds a B.A. in International Affairs with a minor in Biology from Norwich University, an M.A. focused on Conservation and Economic Development from the University of Connecticut where he also completed part of his studies in Conservation Biology with The Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica. He also holds a Post graduate diploma in film from Prague Film School in the Czech Republic and a certificate in GIS from Penn State University.