DC

Jean Louis

World Bank, Head of Climate Technology Program

Jean-Louis Racine leads the Climate Technology Program at the World Bank. The Climate Technology Program aims to catalyze the launch of competitive green sectors through innovative entrepreneurship worldwide. It includes a network of climate innovation centers and other novel support instruments for spurring green innovation. Jean-Louis’ work at the World Bank has ranged from bird’s eye assessments of national innovation systems to designing national strategies, institutions and local programs and implementing support mechanisms. Prior to the World Bank his experience in product design and innovation spanned a range of sectors, having tried his hand as an engineer in traditional sectors, such as rural micro-hydropower and hydraulic systems, as well as in cutting-edge sectors, such as medical devices and robotics. He co-invented a human performance enhancement exoskeleton which led to a successful spin off company. Jean-Louis Racine holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering a from the University of California at Berkeley, and Masters degrees from Columbia University and Stanford University.

Carole Seignovert

Varlhona, CSR program

Carole Seignovert is Head of Sustainability for Valrhona, a high-end chocolate company selling chocolate to chefs. She’s in charge of Live Long, Valrhona’s sustainability programme. From supporting cocoa farmers to halving the company’s environmental footprint by 2025 or training young people into gastronomy jobs, Live Long’s aim is to embed sustainability at the heart of the company. She started her career in South America. First at BNP Paribas Investment Banking and then as a consultant for TechnoServe, working on Base of the Pyramid initiatives and supporting smallholder farmers with business advice. She then relocated to London to coordinate a multi-million pound Lloyds Banking Group financial inclusion programme and then worked as an International Projects Director for Business in the Community, supporting FTSE100 companies with their sustainability strategy.

Suzanne Ngo-Eyok

WCF Country Director, Ivory Coast

Pierre Costet

Valrhona, Taste and Cocoa Quality Department

Pierre Costet has been manager of Valrhona’s Taste and Cocoa Quality Department since 2010.Young agronomist with a specialization in Food Industry, he fell in love with the cocoa in Madagascar, 20 years ago. After dedicating himself to the search and development of the best cocoa beans for the long term needs of Valrhona supplies, he is now managing a team whose sole purpose is Taste and cocoa R&D. This is one of Valrhona’s most specific expertises, which includes creating or developing with Valrhona’s partners innovative flavoured and sustainable cocoas.

Suzanne Ngo-Eyok

WCF Country Director, Ivory Coast

Suzanne is the Director of WCF’s Cocoa Livelihoods Program and is based in its Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire office. Following a consultancy career in London with institutions including Type Museum Trust, Whitechapel Gallery and the Ghanaian High Commission, Suzanne began the West African stage of her career in 2009 as Senior Partner Advisor at Esoko, the Accra-based agricultural information service. Specializing in value chain management, she developed and maintained public-private partnerships, while creating sustainable management information systems for partners across the region. Suzanne then moved to the first of a number of major USAID projects, beginning with the Expanded Agribusiness and Trade Promotion Project (E-ATP), where, as an Institutional Capacity-Building Specialist she strengthened the business capabilities and civil society components of the project and its partners across West Africa. At the same time, she was heavily involved in developing advocacy, and in developing sustainable public-private partnerships in collaboration with PPP and access-to-Finance specialists. Suzanne next went on to hold two simultaneous positions with other USAID-supported projects in the sub-region. As Agricultural Trade & Business Environment Specialist for the USAID West Africa Trade Hub – an umbrella organization for a diverse range of trade promotion projects – she was engaged in identifying and developing partnerships between the Trade Hub and private sector stakeholders, national governmental bodies, ECOWAS and UEMOA. At the same time, she worked as Institutional Capacity-Building Advisor to the Borderless Alliance, a USAID-backed private sector alliance of stakeholders in regional trade before joining the Kuffor Foundation in Ghana.

Vincent Manu

WCF Country Director Ghana

Vincent is the Country Director of World Cocoa Foundation in Ghana and the Country Coordinator of WCF’s Cocoa Livelihoods Program in Ghana and Nigeria. He has been in development practice for about 15 years. In the cocoa sector, he worked with Solidaridad as Country Manager of its Cocoa Programme in Ghana where he helped to establish the programme and raised funding to scale up and expand to Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroon. He facilitated the set-up of Kookoo Pa (a farmer organization) and several cocoa sustainability projects for NGOs and private companies such as Cargill, Touton, PBC Ltd. Noble Resources, Transmar, and others. He previously worked as the National Programme Remediation Officer and later National Programme Manager of Ghana’s National Programme for the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa (NPECLC) at the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, where he set up Ghana’s national remediation interventions towards eliminating worst forms of child labour, and coordinated the development of Ghana’s Hazardous Child Labour Activity Framework (HAF) as the main guidance document for remediation. He started his development practice at Centre for the Development of People (CEDEP) where he was a Programme Coordinator and coordinated child labour interventions, youth development initiatives and development research and community development projects. Vincent conducted the feasibility study and co-founded MGI Microfinance in Ghana.

Manuel Kiewasch

WCF M&E Information Systems Manager

Developing and maintaining World Cocoa Foundation’s monitoring and evaluation data system is Manuel’s main role as the organization’s Information System Manager. He strengthens WCF through his experience of monitoring and evaluation systems and technical proficiency in information management technologies. He has a background of international development work in East and West Africa and natural resource management in Europe. He enjoys data-crunching and visualization with R and Python and built WCF’s CocoaAction Hub and Online Farmer Economic Model together with a team of programmers from BitBamboo (https://hub.cocoaaction.org/econmodel/public/). Besides data science and web applications, he is an avid supporter of open-technology and GIS-mapping. Manuel holds a B.Sc. in International Environmental Management from the University of Cottbus (Germany), an M.Sc. in International Development and Management from the Lund University (Sweden) and a second M.Sc. in Management and Information Systems for Change and Development from Manchester University (UK).

Jessica Custer

Fair Trade USA, Sr. Supply Chain Manager

Jessica Custer, Sr. Supply Chain Manager at Fair Trade USA, works with stakeholders across agricultural supply chains to achieve and maximize the impact of certification. Focusing on small-scale farming predominantly in coconut and tea commodities, Jessica has trained and collaborated with Fair Trade implementers and representative committees of Fair Trade farmers across Asia, West Africa, and Latin America. Prior to Fair Trade, Jessica’s Fulbright research explored turning waste into money in Peru and her MBA Without Borders experience advising female entrepreneurs on go-to-market business strategies in India developed her unique ability to connect and redesign the dots to optimize for sustainable human and environmental impact.

Gesina Beckert

Fair Trade USA, Business Development Manager

Gesina Beckert, Business Development Manager at Fair Trade USA, supports CPG companies to meet their consumers demand for responsibly sourced ingredients. Gesina has extensive experience in both qualitative and quantitative primary research, as well as secondary research in consumer and behavioral change space. With a background in business development for consumer tech in Silicon Valley and new to working in the food industry, she brings a fresh eye to tech in sourcing and provides great insights into consumer demands.

Jonathan Cooney

Global Lead on Green Competitiveness, World Bank Group

Jonathan Coony is the Global Lead for Green Competitiveness at the World Bank. He co-leads the organization’s work to support private sector in developing countries to successfully compete in growing climate-related sectors with a focus on innovation. Previously he was the Program Coordinator of the World Bank’s Climate Technology Program (CTP) at the World Bank. During his tenure, the program scaled considerably to establish a network of seven Climate Innovation Centers to support firms to innovate commercial climate solutions for local markets and grow their businesses. Over this time, the CTP brought in five donor partners with over $70 m committed. Jonathan has also worked in the World Bank energy sector. Prior to the World Bank, Jonathan worked at the International Energy Agency (IEA) where he led teams to review country energy policies, negotiated with governments on policy recommendations and published books on energy policy. Jonathan was also a financial consultant to the private power sector for over seven years, structuring project finance for greenfield IPPs and acquisitions in the US, Latin America and Asia. In addition, he developed and marketed a renewable energy cooling technology for the Caribbean market. Jonathan holds an MBA from INSEAD (France), and MS and BS degrees in engineering from Brown University (USA). He has written ten books on international energy policy and holds two US patents in clean energy technology.

Prasanna Lal Das

World Bank

Alexandra Endara

International Development Consultant World Bank Group

Alexandra advises the World Bank InfoDev’s Clean Technology Program (CTP) on best practices to design projects for knowledge and skill development for the program’s global Climate Innovation Centers. She focuses on online knowledge exchange and dissemination of lessons learned from the field. Previously, Alexandra led the delivery of the World Bank’s online course for social entrepreneurs “Innovative Business Models for Better Impact.” She also implemented a service-tracking and monitoring program to enhance local progress monitoring systems in Nepal, Zambia, and Bolivia under the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice. As part of her work with the World Bank’s Rural Alliance Program, Alexandra trained social entrepreneurs and government officials in mechanisms to enhance communication channels between agriculture cooperatives, suppliers, and the Ministry of Agriculture in Bolivia. Additionally, she managed the development and implementation of an ICT-based feedback mechanism to improve communication between citizens and the Municipality of La Paz. Her fieldwork experience includes conducting primary research with stakeholders, identifying and assessing needs and requirements for project development, and designing implementation processes. She holds a Master’s in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service and a Bachelor’s in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Originally from Ecuador, Alexandra is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Anupa A Pant

Private Sector Specialist, The World Bank

Post qualification experience of 15 years of which 11 years in private sector development covering the wider aspects of climate smart agribusiness, climate change adaptation, early stage financing, value chain promotion, gender and social inclusion. Currently I have been working in the field of entrepreneurship and SME development as part of the global agribusiness team with a focus on building the capacity of agribusiness SMEs on technicalities of business, industry expertise, governance and environmental & social standards to help them become investible. Prior to joining World Bank Group, worked as an Sub Sector Advisor in GIZ and as a Relationship Manager at Nepal Investment Bank. Also a business educator, taught Fundamentals of Marketing at Undergraduate level. I hold a Master of Science in Information Systems from Central Michigan University, USA and a Masters in Business Administration from Kathmandu University, Nepal.

Wayan Vota

publisher at ICTworks

Wayan Vota is a digital development entrepreneur. He has over 20 years experience utilizing new and emerging technologies to magnify the intent of communities to accelerate their social and economic development. He is the Digital Health Director at IntraHealth International, and previously was the Senior Mobile Advisor at FHI 360. He is also the publisher of ICTworks, the premier community for over 20,000 technology and international development professionals and co-founder of ICTforAg, the largest international conference on the use of technology to improve the lives of smallholder farmers