Gelkha Buitrago Director Programs and Corporate Partnerships/Deputy Director GCP
Gelkha Buitrago steers GCP’s work with the country platforms and programs, Collective Action Initiatives and measurement work. She also acts as Deputy Director. Gelkha brings several years of experience in sustainability, international development and multi-stakeholder set-ups and is a member of the B Lab’s Standards Advisory Council.
Before joining GCP, Gelkha worked for almost 15 years in Fairtrade International, in different roles and areas of work including advocacy, policy and strategy development, new products and M&E. The last two years she was appointed as Director of Standards and Pricing overseeing the development and implementation of a diverse set of standards and price mechanisms in more than 70 countries as well as the assurance program. Previous to joining Fairtrade, Gelkha worked for the National Planning Department in Colombia on poverty issues and monitoring and evaluation of social programs.
Gelkha is an Economist and holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) and postgraduate certificate on Sustainable Business from the University of Cambridge. She speaks Spanish, English and French and is based out of Bonn, Germany.
Patrick Stoop Managing Partner C-Lever.org
Patrick Stoop is the general managing partner and founder of C-lever.org, an impact driven consultancy firm. He has a background in law and economics and brings 40 years of experience in the public, social profit, and private sectors. He worked for over 300 organisations, covering central, regional and local government institutions, SOEs, social profit and non-governmental organisations and private sector organisations, mainly impact driven enterprises. He thus worked in Belgium and through international organizations, bilateral development cooperation and (impact) enterprises in approximately 40 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America / the Caribbean and the Middle East.
Patrick has mostly been working on the crossroads between vision, strategy, policy & budget cycle, program/project design, planning & control, monitoring, evaluation, management, governance, internal control systems, risk management, organizational and institutional development, change processes, human resources management, competence development, financial management, system analysis, business models, business process optimisation, organisational assessments, operational audits, etc.
He has extensive experience in a broad range of governance areas, including corporate social responsibility, impact measurement and management and stakeholder accountability. Patrick works across many sectors including agriculture, health, education, justice, economics, (social) entrepreneurship development, social services, employment, etc.
He has a long interest in fair and sustainable value chains. The past years he has been intensively supporting the European platforms on sustainable cocoa for designing and implementing their monitoring, evaluation and accountability framework and annual reporting. He led the study on cocoa traceability (2021), published by IDH and the European platforms, decent work risk assessments in India and in Africa commissioned by the Better Cotton Initiative, a GIZ-funded review of traceability solutions in agricultural value chains. He contributed as key team member in a study on the national cocoa traceability system in Cameroon and in the design of a programme proposal for enhancing cocoa traceability in Nigeria.
Patrick is an active member of Social Value International and president of Social Value Belgium.
Greg Meenahan Strategic Advisor Equal Origins MODERATOR
Greg Meenahan has focused his career on removing barriers to human development and prosperity. By bringing people and organizations together to achieve social, environmental, and economic impact for disadvantaged people around the world, his experience and skills have been leveraged by a range of nonprofits missions, like literacy development in Guatemala at Child Aid, agronomic and genetic research and development at World Coffee Research, and program development at Equal Origins, where he recently co-developed the Gender Equity Index, a new tool for extension service providers who are integrating gender equity. Greg has authored several articles on sustainability for Roast, Standart, and Bartalks, most notably “Selling Sustainability,” a long form Standart article on the development of sustainability communications in the coffee industry.
Malcolm Hett Global Sustainability Director UCC Coffee
Malcolm has worked within some of the world’s top 10 largest coffee companies since first joining the coffee world as a Brand Marketing Manager in 2007.
He has spent much of the last 15+ years focused on the endlessly fascinating consumption side of the coffee world, covering roles in innovation, marketing and insight – and joined UCC Europe in 2021.
Following a long-held passion to bring sustainable consumption choices to the mainstream, his latest role is Group Sustainability Manager for Europe, working with both B2B customers and B2C brands across the continent.
Melissa Duncan Executive Director Fairtrade International
Melissa Duncan boasts an extensive leadership career in the global ethical trade movement.
She has served on the Fairtrade International Board since 2015 and was elected as Treasurer in 2017 and Vice Chair in 2020. Ms. Duncan was appointed Executive Director of Fairtrade International in 2021.
Prior to joining Fairtrade International, Ms. Duncan also worked for a leading Fair Trade organization and development charity in the United Kingdom and served as a Trustee and Vice Chair of the UK-based Fairtrade Foundation. Most recently, she was appointed to the Board of Shared Interest, an impact investment non-profit with a global focus on empowering workers through fair trade initiatives.
In addition to her leadership work in the ethical trade movement, Ms. Duncan has also built a 20-year career in marketing and communications, spanning both corporate and charity sectors, including WHSmith plc, where she was Head of Communications, and professional experiences in East Asia.
Ms. Duncan holds an MBA from Cranfield University. She is a United States citizen and a resident of the United Kingdom.
Giacomo Celi Sustainability Director Mercon Coffee Group
Giacomo is a tropical agronomist and expert on food supply chains and systems, with focus on coffee. He studied at the University of Florence, Wageningen University and the University of Oxford. He has worked in the food sector for the past 20 years, covering roles in procurement, trade and corporate responsibility both for industrial brands such as illycaffé, as well for the retail sector, Nero Group in the UK, and for the trade, initially at the sugar trade subsidiary of ABF (Associated British Foods) and since 2018 at Mercon Coffee Group, one of the 10th largest coffee suppliers globally. Giacomo is primarily interested in the development of sustainable coffee supply chains by designing platforms and market systems that provide added value and contributions from multiple stakeholders, while focusing on the weaker and more exposed actors in the coffee supply chain, farmers and their farms
Karl Wienhold Consultant and Author Cheap Coffee INSPIRATIONAL TALK
Karl is dedicated to trying to better understand and undo extractive power structures that have oppressed people and degraded ecosystems to enrich others since colonial times. He studies value chains, trade, microeconomics, post-colonial development, and the like, often in the context of coffee. He has worked as a management consultant specializing in international trade, in rural development focusing on tropical cash crop value chains, and from 2013 to 2021, advocated for smallholder coffee farmers in Colombia as director of the Cedro Alto collective. He is the author of the book “Cheap Coffee: Behind the Curtain of The Global Coffee Trade” and a PhD candidate in development studies at the University of Lisbon.
Karl Wienhold is dedicated to trying to better understand and undo extractive power structures that have oppressed people and degraded ecosystems to enrich others since colonial times. He has worked as a management consultant specializing in international trade, in rural development focusing on tropical cash crop value chains, and from 2013 to 2021, advocated for smallholder coffee farmers in Colombia as director of the Cedro Alto collective. He is the author of the book “Cheap Coffee: Behind the Curtain of The Global Coffee Trade” and a PhD candidate in development studies at the University of Lisbon where he is researching power relations along the coffee value chain.
Karl Wienhold is a researcher and consultant on postcolonial agricultural value chains, dedicated to trying to undo oppressive power structures and support community-led development. He has worked as a management consultant, rural development specialist, and founded and advocated for smallholder farmers in Colombia at the Cedro Alto coffee farmers’ collective as a trader for a decade. He is the author of the book “Cheap Coffee: Behind the Curtain of The Global Coffee Trade” and a PhD candidate in development studies at the University of Lisbon where he is researching power relations along the coffee value chain.
Mette-Marie Hansen Managing Director Kenyacof at Sucafina
Mette-Marie Hansen has worked for more than 20 years in coffee, and nearly half of that has been spent in Kenya where she the last five years has been managing the Sucafina operations. In that time, Sucafina has built a supply chain of nearly 80 000 smallholder farmers that is receiving a wide range of services and technical assistance incorporating several technological solutions to optimize efficiency and traceability in the supply chain.
She is passionate about combining farmer equity and sustainability in the coffee supply chain with the commercial aspect of coffee trading. She is a holder of a Masters degree in business and marketing from BI Norwegian School of Business, and currently finishing her Msc in Climate Change and Development at University of London SOAS.
Carolina Castaneda Director of Europe FNC BV
Carolina Castaneda is the director for Europe of Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros B.V. since 2016. She started working for the FNC in financial risk management in 2006. Later on, she held different commercial positions for the North American market at Colombian Coffee Federation Inc, FNC’s subsidiary in New York. Indeed on October 26 2021 she is celebrating 15 years working for the FNC.
She has experience in international cooperation with over 20 environmental, productive and social projects in Colombian coffee communities impacting over 30 thousand farmers and their families. In addition, she has done business with customers in over 40 countries. Promoting 100% Colombian coffee brands committed to the wellbeing and prosperity of farmers has been one of the most important strategies of the FNC.
Carolina studied Physics, Economics and a Master in Economics from Los Andes University in Bogotá. She has a Master of Science in Mathematics in Finance from New York University.
Lars Kahnert Digitalization, Supply Chain and Standard Advisor GIZ
Digitalization Advisor in the Program Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains and Standards, INATrace, GIZ Lars Kahnert is a member of the digitalization team in the GIZ Program ‘Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains and Standards’. In this role, he has been instrumental in implementing solutions to foster market integration and supply chain traceability, e.g., the development of INATrace, an open-source traceability solution for agricultural supply chains. Prior to joining the GIZ in 2019, Lars has worked as Program Manager with the Global Coffee Platform / 4C Association for 12 years, overseeing the development of the coffee data standard and initiating the Delta Framework for cross-commodity sustainability metrics. Before that, Lars has implemented a range of development programs for six years, on topics including agriculture, community health, vocational training, and microcredit, mainly in India and Chad. He holds a degree in geography/development studies, South Asian Sciences, and philology from Free University, Berlin, and Central Institute of Hindi, Agra, India.
Darrin Daniel Executive Director ACE (Cup of Excellence) INSPIRATIONAL TALK
Darrin Daniel serves as the Executive Director for both non-profits, the Alliance for Coffee Excellence and Cup of Excellence. Danie’sl began his career in specialty coffee in the ’80s working as a barista and later as a roaster’s assistant for the Eugene, Oregon roaster/retailer Coffee Corner, Ltd. His early work with illycaffè began his interest and growth into coffee education and training. Daniel’s was the Head Green Coffee Buyer for Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Director of Sourcing for Allegro Coffee/Whole Foods Market. He has served on the Sustainability Council for the SCA and the Executive Council for the Roasters Guild of America. He currently serves on the advisory board for Roast Magazine. Brandon Loper’s 2014 Documentary A Film About Coffee features Daniel’s travels to Rwanda as Head Coffee Buyer for Stumptown Coffee Roasters. His writings have appeared in Roast Magazine, SCA’s Magazine 25, Barista Magazine and Standart Magazine. Daniel’s previously served as a judge on 9 Cup of Excellence juries, beginning with his first in Honduras in 2005. In 2015 he was awarded Imbibe Magazine’s Coffee Person of the Year.
Matthew Himmel Director Strategic Intelligence Systems COSA
Matthew Himmel, Director of Strategic Intelligence Systems, has a decade and half experience working in agriculture and development. He manages projects with key corporate clients and co-leads the development of COSA’s suite of technologies that form COSA’s Sustainability Intelligence Systems.
Matthew also helps guide COSA’s strategies around data and knowledge with client to design their systems to collect, store, analyze and visualize sustainability data. Matthew has helped design a number of knowledge platforms that monitor project performance, map traceability and supplier compliance across complex global supply chains, and integrate third party spatial data with local data.
Prior to joining COSA Matthew had broad public and private experience in Africa and Latin America. He worked with a large produce and Outgrower scheme in Peru, with the accounting team at Root Capital, and was a TechnoServe Fellow in Northern Uganda while earning his MBA at Harvard Business School, where he developed and taught a business course for small agribusinesses.
Pauline Elise Taupin Partnership and Project Manager Elucid.social
Pauline Taupin, Partnership and Project manager for Elucid. As such, I am responsible for managing the relationships with our business partners and implementing the projects on the ground in the sourcing countries. I have a master’s degree in International Project Development and a background in Strategy & Management Consulting in Europe and Asia.
Allen Gunn Executive Director Aspiration
Allen Gunn is Executive Director of Aspiration (www.aspirationtech.org) in San Francisco, USA, and works to help NGOs, activists, foundations and technologists make more effective and sustainable digital strategies in support of social change.
Gunner has worked in numerous technology environments from NGO to Silicon Valley start-up to college faculty to large corporation, serving in senior management, engineering, teaching and volunteer roles. He is an experienced strategist, mentor and facilitator with a passion for designing collaborative open learning processes, and he believes in melding hard work with serious fun.
In his role at Aspiration, he connects nonprofit organizations, free and open source projects, philanthropic funders and activists with strategic frameworks, technology solutions, digital practices and data skills that help them more fully realize their missions.
David Davies CEO and Founder AgUnity
David has spent over 30-years in technology in senior management roles at global investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Nomura & Standard Chartered Bank. David has also been the Founder and CEO of several successful FinTech, SaaS, and mobile start-ups.
David was named by Future Agro Challenge (FAC) as Global Agripreneur of the Year 2018 for his work as CEO of AgUnity helping lift low-income farmers out of poverty. AgUnity provides a smartphone and blockchain solution that improves trust and cooperation for smallholder farmers and is also used as a platform for a range of problems, including mobile banking for the financially excluded and data collection for developed world farmers.
In 2021, David co-created the AgriUT Foundation, which aims to address the impacts of digital and financial exclusion on Last Mile communities by creating a global, peer-to-peer, non-cash payment ecosystem that connects benefactors, communities, markets, investments and sustainable development opportunities with Last Mile farmers.
Tomoko Yokoi Researcher & Advisor IMD
Tomoko Yokoi (@tokoyokoi) is a Researcher and Advisor at the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, IMD Business School in Switzerland. She is a Forbes Contributor on topics related to digital transformation and innovation, and her insights have been published in numerous outlets such as Quartz and MIT Sloan Management Review. Tomoko brings unique practitioner insights to her research and advisory services, drawing from her 20 years of experience leading digital transformations and marketing excellence as a senior executive in B2B and B2C industries. Having worked in Fortune 500 companies and fast growing software ventures, she understands the unique digital challenges faced by both large organizations and digital upstarts needing to scale. She is the co-author of the upcoming book, Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate Your Business Transformation.
Cees Homburg CEO FarmersDirectCoffee
Cees is an entrepreneur pur sang, with extensive experience in a wide range of market segments. From production to licensing and from start-up to the mature phase of companies. As CEO, Cees is responsible for sales and acquisition, account management, marketing, strategic partnerships and new business development.
Ward de Groote COO and Co-Founder FarmersDirectCoffee
My name is Ward de Groote, COO and Co-Founder of FarmersDirect Coffee. Coffee runs like a thread through my life. My working career started at Ahold as purchasing director at the Coffee Company. From that period, we developed UTZ and the label became what it is today. Over the years I have worked for various organizations, restructuring green bean purchasing and building sustainable relationships with coffee farmers in various countries of origin. In doing so, I have also always had a guiding principle of making the farmers better in value, knowledge, and skill. This was also the whole idea behind the creation of FarmersDirect Coffee. To purchase the flow of green beans as sustainably as possible while maintaining a good relationship and training the coffee farmers in innovative agricultural techniques. This ensures sufficient volume, a good cost price, fair income distribution and the possibility for the farmer to tell the world who he is. Today FarmersDirect Coffee exists around 2 years and I have been able to realize our initiative with the co-founders Ronald de Koning and Cees Homburg, and of course our Coffee Coalition.
Vanúsia Nogueira Executive Director International Coffee Organization (ICO) KEYNOTE
Vanúsia Nogueira comes from a family of coffee producers, and started her career at PwC Consulting, where she was a partner and worked for 15 years. She started working directly with coffee in 2002, always focusing on niche markets. She served as executive director at BSCA from 2007 through April 2022 and took over as Executive Director at the International Coffee Organization in May 2022.
Vanúsia holds a PhD in Administration/Marketing from Rosario National University in Argentina, a BS in Systems Engineering and Administration from PUC-RJ and MBAs and post-MBA focusing on Management, Marketing and Advanced Project Management from FGV-RJ.
Peter Kettler Senior Advisor International Trade Centre MODERATOR
Peter Kettler has been active in the specialty coffee industry for over 25 years, with experience in the roasting, retail, trading and development sectors.
In 2004 he founded Coffee Lifeline, a farmer-focused initiative that created a network of community radio stations to provide farmers with vital information and in 2010 he launched the Black Earth Project, the first large-scale research into the use of biochar by smallholder coffee farmers.
In 2019 Peter joined Fairtrade International as the Global Coffee Manager and most recently he has served as Senior Coffee Advisor to the International Trade Centre.
Priya Guliani UK President Government Blockchain Association (GBA)
Priya Guliani is the UK President for Government Blockchain Association (GBA), a global non-profit organization focused at promoting blockchain technology. Priya is an impact entrepreneur and advisor to an impact fund and start-ups. She is a computer science engineer by education and is a MIT certified leadership professional and Oxford certified Blockchain expert. She has over 10+ years of technology consulting experience working with multiple industries and multi-cultural team across US, Europe, and Asia. She is passionate about inclusion, sustainability, and climate impact. She is an author and international speaker in innovative technology and sustainability space.
Jade Saunders Senior Policy Analyst and Board Member World Forest ID
Jade Saunders is currently a senior policy analyst at Forest Trends in Washington D.C. and an advisor to The Satellite Catapult on the ForestMind project. At Forest Trends she oversees the Timber Regulation Enforcement Exchange (TREE) program with particular focus on regulatory approaches in the Asia Pacific Region. Jade is also on the Board of WorldForestID.org.
Between 2002 and 2021 Jade was an associate fellow of the Energy, Environment and Resources programme at Chatham House, working extensively on forest governance and trade; particularly the principles and practicalities of tackling deforestation through supply chain regulation.
Dr. Aaron Davis Senior Research Leader Crops and Global Change Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Dr Aaron Davis is Senior Research Leader of Crops and Global Change at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the United Kingdom. His research is focused on coffee, as documented in a broad range of scientific publications, including those on the naming and classification of coffee species, molecular (DNA) studies, conservation, climate change, agroecology and sustainable development. He is a leading authority on coffee species and has travelled widely in Africa and Madagascar to study coffee plants in the wild and in cultivation. His ongoing work includes the use and development of wild and underutilized coffee species, particularly within the context of climate change adaptation and sensory diversification.
Dr Aaron Davis is Senior Research Leader of Crops and Global Change at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the United Kingdom. His research is focused on coffee, as documented in a broad range of scientific publications, including those on the naming and classification of coffee species, molecular (DNA) studies, conservation, climate change, agroecology and sustainable development. He is a leading authority on coffee species and has travelled widely in Africa and Madagascar to study coffee plants in the wild and in cultivation. His ongoing work includes the use and development of wild and underutilized coffee species, particularly within the context of climate change adaptation and sensory diversification.
Hellen Bellfield Policy Director (Trase Lead) Global Canopy
Helen joined Trase in 2018 and leads the Trase impact team, coordinating content management, engagement with target users and communications. She leads the Trase team at Global Canopy and is a member of the Trase Management Team. Before joining Trase, Helen was Global Canopy’s Programme Director and managed a programme on water, energy and food security in Latin America and Indonesia. Helen holds a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge (BA, 2010) and is currently studying part-time towards a MSc in finance at the Open University.
Dr. Memoona J. Anwar Chief Compliance and Innovation Officer Data Zoo
Memoona is Chief Compliance and Innovations Officer at Data Zoo, with a career spanning more than 15 years in the software industry. She has been in the software industry since 2006 and has significant experience and expertise in application, integration, and enterprise architecture. Currently she is part of the compliance and Innovation team that is working towards developing an end-to-end KYC/AML solution through digital identity verification for customer onboarding.
From her previous roles she has a professional experience in agile software development, solution architecture, information architecture, information security, and program management. Memoona has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and master’s in software engineering. She holds a doctoral degree in Information Systems from the University of Technology, Sydney. Her current research interests include Digital Identity, Open Banking, Data Management, Digital Ecosystem, Digital Wallets, Software Architecture & Design, Privacy, Blockchain, Information Security and Compliance. Her work is published in many international journals and conferences. She is a member of several academic journals’ editorial boards.
Paul Rooke Executive Director British Coffee Association
Paul Rooke is Executive Director of the British Coffee Association. He joined the Association in March 2020 and is responsible for managing and leading the Association, developing key relationships and representing the Association on policy, media technical and sustainability issues.
An agricultural graduate, and with a post-graduate qualification in law, he has 30 years’ experience in trade associations covering policy, technical and contractual issues.
From 2013-2019 has was the President of the EU trade body CELCAA, the European Liaison Committee for the Agricultural and Agri-food Trade, He is a former Chairman of DG Agri’s Civil Dialogue Group for International Aspects of Agriculture and served on both the EU’s High Level Forum for a Better Functioning Supply Chain and DG Trade’s Expert Group on EU Trade Agreements.
James McKay Principal and Founder McKay Research MODERATOR
James McKay is an independent research consultant in the fields of technology and investment with expertise in the design and end-to-end implementation of custom research projects and global trend analyses.
As founder and principal of McKayResearch, he has 14 years’ experience providing strategic research services both to the world’s leading market intelligence firms and a growing portfolio of private clients that include legal consultancies and investment firms. His research instruments and analyses have been widely published by a variety of technology and business publications, including the Financial Times.
On a personal level, James’s experience in varied sectors makes him at home with the multi-faceted application of digital assets and he is passionate about advancing the critical understanding of the disruptive potential of this rapidly evolving space.
Judy Ganes Founder and President J Ganes Consulting, LLC
Judy Ganes is a world-renowned commodities and futures analyst with deep experience providing unique, expert analysis to the food and agricultural industries. Her hard-won reputation for excellence and client service is built on leveraging a unique ability to gather and make sense of complex data in historical and current contexts—and in clearly and concisely articulating her findings and insightful opinions into cogent, actionable reports.
Prior to launching J Ganes Consulting in 2001, Judy was Director of News and Research at InterCommercial Markets, having initially built her career at Merrill Lynch and Shearson Lehman, as Senior Softs Analysts for their institutional and retail clients.
A Valued Advisor to Companies and Corporations
In addition to her Exclusive Market Reports and providing Advisory services to numerous corporations, organizations, and investment groups, Judy contributes articles to industry publications as well as commissioned studies.
Judy regularly addresses standing room-only crowds at global industry conferences, conducts educational seminars on futures and options, and has been interviewed and quotes countless times in major print, online, and broadcast media outlets.
Serving Industry Boards and Associations
Judy is serving a 3-year term as Senior Advisor to the Asian Coffee Association and is a Director on the Board of The Palau Coffee Company. She has been called as expert witness on multiple legal cases due to her impartial deep knowledge on commodity markets and trading.
Judy is Series 3 licensed and registered with the NFA as a CTA.
Gabrielle Rosenau Country Manager Chez Ibero Uganda (NKG)
Gabrielle Rosenau holds a master degree from the “International Agric-development Engineering school ISTOM” (http://www.istom.fr). After she graduated in 2007, she spent 5 years in working in several agricultural development projects in various African countries.
In 2012, she joined the German consulting company IPC GmbH (https://www.ipcgmbh.com/). As their Agric-Finance Expert she was responsible for projects related to financing the agricultural value chains with micro-finance institutions and banks.
In January 2017, Gabrielle joined Ibero Uganda Ltd. (https://www.ibero.co.ug/aboutus) as their BLOOM manager (https://nkgbloom.coffee/). Ibero Uganda belongs to the Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG). Within the NKG BLOOM programme, Ibero Uganda created a fully-fledged Farmer Services Unit (FSU). Today, this unit provides high-quality fertilizer advances to coffee smallholders, mobile money credit line, mobile money payments for coffee, short and long terms advances, financial literacy & agronomical trainings and access to market. This is possible through the integration of 4 IT service providers: a field application specifically developed for Ibero Uganda, a loan module adapted to microfinance, a mobile money aggregator and the factory software.
In January 2021, Gabrielle became the country manager of Ibero Uganda and is now overseeing the overall operations and growth of the company.
David Browning CEO Enveritas KEYNOTE
David Browning is CEO of Enveritas, a non-profit organization, that provides sustainability assurance for the coffee industry. David previously led TechnoServe’s global coffee practice for 13 years. During this time he led The Coffee Initiative in partnership with the Gates Foundation working with hundreds of thousands of smallholder coffee farmers in East Africa. He has served as a trusted counselor for many of the world’s leading coffee companies on sustainability strategy, and also formerly worked for McKinsey & Company. He holds an M.B.A. from Yale University, as well as a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master’s degree in Advanced Finance from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Daniele Giovannucci President and Co-Founder Committee on Sustainable Assessment (COSA) KEYNOTE
Daniele Giovannucci is a systems thinker, author, and lecturer on sustainable development themes. He is the co-founder and current President of the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) — a consortium of more than 60 global institutions advancing innovative ways to measure and manage sustainability.
His innovative approach – blending science, business, and technology – has opened many new opportunities for delivering and scaling sustainability in challenging parts of the world. He has led business and development initiatives in more than 40 countries and has served as a program and policy advisor for a number of governments, international agencies, and corporations that include Coca-Cola, Nestle, Starbucks, and McDonalds.
Downloads of his 70 books and professional papers rank in the top 1% among the more than 600,000 professional authors tracked by the Social Science Research Network (Elsevier).
Diego Robles Commercial Coordinator National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers (FNC)
Genevieve Leveille CEO and founder AgriLedger GUEST SPEAKER
Genevieve Leveille is the CEO and principal founder of Agriledger, an AgriTech/FinTech startup building sustainable value chains within the global agricultural supply chain through digitization and use of blockchain-based solutions that improve transparency and information flow.
Originally from Haiti, Genevieve is a blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology expert with a background in corporate and institutional banking, and a wealth of experience spanning over 25 years in financial supply chain optimization. She is a speaker on FinTech, financial supply chains and disruptive technologies, speaking at numerous conferences globally on emerging technologies, and has been recognized for her impact in the digital identity and financial transformation space.
Her work in Agriledger is a culmination of many formative years in corporate organization, where she worked as an individual contributor, leading several projects. Her blockchain-based solutions have empowered farmers, providing them with access to financial services and better technology, improving their crop yield and long-term sustainability.
In 2020, Genevieve led a collaboration between the Haiti Ministry of Commerce & Industry and Agriledger to deliver a Distributed Ledger Technology pilot sponsored by the World Bank. The project went live in May 2020 and has imparted on Haitian fruit farmers, customers and families with the benefits of fairer prices and improved food security.
She currently sits as the Vice Chair for the techUK DLT working group, an organization providing strategic direction for all UK activities related to blockchain and DLT and was named in the Financial Times’ Top 100 BAME in UK technology in 2019. She emerged as Winner of Computer Weekly’s 2020 Women in Software and was also listed in The 2020 Wirex and The Fintech Times’ ‘Rising Women in Crypto.
Mark O’Hara Digital Identity Expert ID-Pal
Mark has over 25 years’ experience within FMCG, Telecommunications and Fintech solutions. In recent years, he has focused on identity verification and Digital Identity solutions by addressing the use of digital identity whilst incorporating blockchain and DLT, having consulted for business within this specialist field by delivering global solutions.
He was also a founder member of a fintech solution addressing the issue of financial inclusion within the unbanked and underserved societies around the world by leveraging digital consumer transactional data for credit assessment, driving working capital for SME’s and individuals alike. His knowledge of digital identity solutions is used within multiple verticals providing accountability and traceability throughout the end-to-end process.
Dr. Chris Allgrove Biometrics Advisor, Government Digital Services UK Cabinet Office and Director and Co-Founder Ingenium
Dr Chris Allgrove is a highly experienced consultant, with extensive experience in digital identity technology and biometrics in the public sector, industry and academia and is recognised internationally as an expert in biometric technology. Chris is Co-founder of Ingenium Biometrics Laboratories Ltd, a biometrics services company specialising in biometrics testing, consultancy, R&D and training, and also works as biometrics advisor to Government Digital Services, within the Cabinet Office, and with the World Bank’s ID4D programme as a biometrics consultant.
Dinis Guarda Founder Techabc.org
Dinis is regularly featured as “top 1, 5, 10, 20 “most influential global personality” in technology, blockchain, fintech, AI, smart cities, social media lists. Dinis is an author and academician and some of his achievements include: create a bank between Asia and Africa, work with the likes of UN, Mastercard, Philips, Barclays, IBM among other global organisations and corporations. He is the founder of ztudium, and the new public company freedom metaversive inc listed in Canadian Securities Exchange. He created also the platforms citiesabc.com, intelligenthq.com, openbusinesscouncil and fashioabc.org Dinis advises governments, regulators, and global leading organisations including Hyperloop Transportations.
A guest lecturer in leading business schools such as Copenhagen Business School, Groupe INSEEC, University of Monaco and in conferences in Cambridge, King’s College Dinis is the author of books such as “4IR AI, Blockchain, Fintech”,
“How Businesses and Governments can Prosper
with Fintech, Blockchain and AI?” and NFTs Metaverse Uprising. His personal social media and group websites outreach have monthly direct access to over 1 million users. He contributes and has been featured in CNBC, Forbes, Cointelegraph and Fortune to name a few.
Dr. Puvan Selvanathan CEO and Founder Bluenumber.org INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER
An acknowledged international expert in Human Rights, Sustainability, ESG, the SDGs and Digital Identity. Puvan has over 25 years of global working experience. He has served the United Nations, advised Governments and managed at the C-suite level of a diversified multinational conglomerate. He handles Environmental, Social and Governance issues at the nexus of politics and business operations for global supply chains. Puvan was formerly a UN Special Mandate Holder on Business and Human Rights appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (Geneva), was Head of Food & Agriculture at the UN Global Compact Office (New York), and then Head (New York Office) of the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the UN and WTO.
Before joining the UN, Puvan was Group Chief Sustainability Officer for Sime Darby, a Malaysian diversified conglomerate. He developed sustainability strategy and operational policies for all business divisions across 22 countries – Plantations, Property, Motors, Energy and Healthcare. Puvan was appointed by the Minister of Energy and Green Technology to advise the Malaysian Government on low-carbon growth, national energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. In 2015 Puvan established the Bluenumber Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit incorporated in New York, on a mission for Digital Equality and Data Equity. He works on issues including Livelihoods in Agriculture Value Chains, and Migrant and Forced Labour in Manufacturing. Puvan is an expert in innovative digital solutions to identify and mitigate ESG risks. Puvan is an Architect by profession. He holds an MBA and also a Doctorate in Corporate Strategy and Sustainability. He lives in Munich with his wife and two daughters.
Kellem Emanuele is the Chief Impact Officer for Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers, a US-based B Corp, whose mission is to improve the livelihoods of coffee-farming families around the globe through its unique Relationship Coffee model. In her role as chief impact officer, Kellem leads Sustainable Harvest’s commitment to accelerate economic opportunity, climate resilience, and equity & inclusion. Prior to joining Sustainable Harvest, Kellem served as the Executive Director of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA).
Koen Sneyers Consultant Impact Lines
Koen Sneyers worked over the last 11 years on various agricultural smallholder initiatives in Uganda. In the position as agribusiness manager with the Great Lakes Coffee Company he focused on the conversion of a bulk sourcing operation into a fully traceable and verified supply chain covering more than 30,000 Arabica farmers. Koen led the development of the `MAXTrace` traceability software and co-created a new sustainability standard contextualized to the East African coffee setting. Currently he is contributing to a large sector study with C-lever.org for GIZ comparing the different traceability solutions for commodity tracking. Koen created a sound understanding of the sustainability interests by the international coffee market and how to provide practical traceability solutions despite the challenging working environment in origin countries. He represents traceability consultancy firm Impact Lines.
Stephen Vick Procurement and Quality Manager African Coffee Roasters
Stephen Vick was born in Portland, OR and attended the University of Washington where he graduated with a degree in Human Centered Design and Engineering. He began his coffee career in 2000 as a barista at Zoka Coffee where he competed in the United States Barista Championship and became a World Barista Championship Judge. After working for a few years as a barista trainer and moving back to Portland in 2005 to work for Stumptown Coffee, he had the opportunity to participate as an International Jury member for the Cup of Excellence (COE) in 2006, and also works today as a Head Judge for COE. He left Portland in 2008, and moved to East Africa to work on a project in Western Tanzania with Sustainable Harvest coffee importers. After this project, he continued his work in East Africa as a field agent for Intelligentsia Coffee, as well as working for a year in their Chicago Roasting World. In 2012, he ventured back out west, becoming the Green Coffee Buyer for Blue Bottle Coffee. His love for East African pulled him back to that side of the world in 2016, where he helped open African Coffee Roasters, which roasts and packages 1500 tons of coffee for export to the European market.
Darrin Daniel Executive Director ACE (Cup of Excellence)
Darrin Daniel serves as the Executive Director for both non-profits, the Alliance for Coffee Excellence and Cup of Excellence. Danie’s began his career in specialty coffee in the ’80s working as a barista and later as a roaster’s assistant for the Eugene, Oregon roaster/retailer Coffee Corner, Ltd. His early work with illycaffè began his interest and growth into coffee education and training. Daniel’s was the Head Green Coffee Buyer for Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Director of Sourcing for Allegro Coffee/Whole Foods Market. He has served on the Sustainability Council for the SCA and the Executive Council for the Roasters Guild of America. He currently serves on the advisory board for Roast Magazine. Brandon Loper’s 2014 Documentary A Film About Coffee features Daniel’s travels to Rwanda as Head Coffee Buyer for Stumptown Coffee Roasters. His writings have appeared in Roast Magazine, SCA’s Magazine 25, Barista Magazine and Standart Magazine. Daniel’s previously served as a judge on 9 Cup of Excellence juries, beginning with his first in Honduras in 2005. In 2015 he was awarded Imbibe Magazine’s Coffee Person of the Year.
Dr. Sarah Tischer Responsible Business Program Manager & Head of Group Compliance NKG MODERATOR
Sarah Tischer has been with Neumann Kaffee Gruppe since 2016. She has built up the group-wide compliance management system with an emphasis on knowledge sharing through training, risk analyses, due diligence & complaints mechanisms. She is also leading the Responsible Business Program of NKG since the beginning of 2021. The new program sets out four objectives (Promoting responsible conduct within NKG, Growing impact in our supply chains, Improving farmer livelihoods and Improving our environmental footprint) with nine strategic goals that define responsible and sustainable business at NKG. Sarah holds an Ph.D. (corporate management/ business ethics) as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Governance and Public Policy and a Diploma in International Business & Regional Studies from University Passau/ Universidade Federal da Bahia.
Luis Roy CEO & President Optel Group INSPIRATIONAL TALK
Louis Roy is the president and founder of OPTEL GROUP, the world’s largest supplier of traceability solutions. The B Corp certified company was founded in Quebec in 1989 and now has offices in the United States, Ireland, India and Brazil. In 2017, Louis Roy was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year for Canada, highlighting the key role that OPTEL plays in creating a sustainable world by deploying intelligent supply chains through traceability. An ambassador of corporate social and environmental responsibility, Louis is very often invited to share his vision at international conferences, including meetings as part of the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Summit.
Matthew Daks Director of Trade & Business Development ACF
Matthew Daks is the Director of Trade and Business Development for Volcafe Specialty, one of the oldest and largest coffee trade houses in the world. He is also President of the Pacific Coast Coffee Association and sits on the Board of Directors for the Coffee Coalition for Racial Equity. Matt’s two decade plus coffee journey has taken him around the world, including a tenure in East Africa as the Regional Quality Manager for TechnoServe’s East African Coffee Initiative and back Stateside as the Director of Strategic Sourcing, Coffee & Tea for National DCP, Dunkin’s franchisee sourcing cooperative.
Arthur Karuletwa Chief Coffee Officer ACF
Arthur Karuletwa is a social entrepreneur passionate about poverty reduction initiatives through coffee and other agricultural commodities.
He is a Partner and CEO of Arise Coffee Farmers, a Family Tree Farms subsidiary, leading a bold vision of using innovative platforms to build a vertically integrated value chain that brings the farmer and consumer to the forefront of humanized digital transactions. He is also Founder and CEO of Stori Coffee Company; a consumer facing omni-channel roasting company.
Arthur discovered his love for coffee over 19 years ago while pursuing his degree in Business Marketing, and International Business minor. His journey in coffee began at a green coffee classification, distribution and sample roasting facility in Seattle Washington as an intern. He then moved to Proctor and Gamble’s Millstone Coffee, where he managed Pacific NW wholesale distribution channels.
Deepak Kaul SVP, Head of Coffee EMENA Olam Food Ingredients (ofi)
Deepak Kaul is the Senior Vice President of the coffee division at Olam Food Ingredients (OFI). He is the Head of the EMENA region and responsible for all sourcing and marketing operations in Europe, Africa and India. A veteran of the coffee industry he has spent 21 years in the business in various roles from origination, marketing, trading and book running, having lived in Africa, Asia and currently based in Geneva, Switzerland. As part of his functional responsibilities, he also leads the digital innovation initiatives for OFI’s coffee business.
Juan Camilo Ramos Chief Commercial Officer Colombian National Federation of Coffee Growers (FNC)
Juan Camilo Ramos is the Chief Commercial Officer of the FNC (Colombian National Federation of Coffee Growers). He is an Industrial Engineer from Universidad de los Andes, and he has been in the coffee industry for almost 20 years.
Passionate about coffee, agribusiness and rural development, and an entrepreneur himself, he has also been a member and chairman of boards of directors in the industries of cacao, meat, palm oil and construction, as well as member of the technical committee of the Global Coffee Platform.
Lorenzo Giorda Global Digital Marketing Director Lavazza Group
Lorenzo started his career at Accenture, where he worked for 5 years in Supply Chain Management. He joined Google in Paris in 2013, where he became Finance Lead for the Italian market, then moved to Milan and was part of the startup of the local tech division. He led the agency team for Google Marketing platform until 2018. Since January 2019 he was hired by Lavazza to lead the digital transformation of one of the top Italian brands. He holds an MBA from INSEAD, which he is very proud of.
Manfred Borer CEO Koltiva AG KEYNOTE
Manfred Borer was born in Switzerland, vocational training as carpenter and started his career in 1994 as owner-manager of a construction company in his home region. He graduated later as a Business Process Manager with an Engineering Degree from the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, majoring Plant Management. Since 2007, Manfred worked as software developer, project manager and country director for a Swiss based organization in Indonesia. In 2017, Manfred joined PT Koltiva and established Koltiva AG, an integrated agriculture technology company that provides tailor-made software solutions and services for end-to-end business processes, in Switzerland. As CEO, Manfred is leading the board of directors and is in charge of the Business and Product Development in Koltiva Jakarta.
Prof. Joseph Kieyah JD Chairman, CSIC Executive Office of the President, Republic of Kenya
Prof Joseph Kieyah has over 20 years of experience in diverse international and Kenya leadership posts. He distinguished himself with credentials in interdisciplinary knowledge in law, economics and leadership. He obtained an MA and PhD in Economics from University of Missouri and University of Connecticut respectively and Juris Doctorate (JD) from University of Iowa College. Having studied and taught in top-notch universities in the United States of America (US), he acquired unique interdisciplinary skills as well as multicultural capabilities.
He is an excellent communicator with strong verbal and writing skills. The Pennsylvania State University recruited him competitively to join its faculty after graduation, until 2008. Thereafter a convergence of change of research interests to merge academics, public policy on development and patriotic impulses enabled him to join Kenya government’s premier Think Tank, the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). KIPPRA is frequently ranked top in Africa. At KIPPRA, he provided intellectual leadership on collating KIPPRA’s influential annual publication, namely; Kenya Economic Report. Prof Kieyah honed his negotiation and advocacy skills on public policy formulation but above all, the political skills to guide the implementation of policy.
Robert Skidmore Chief, Sector and Enterprise Competitiveness International Trade Centre (ITC)
Robert Skidmore leads the Value Added to Trade Programme at the International Trade Centre (ITC) where he leads the Value added to Trade Programme. Under VA2T, ITC teams help SMEs to build value through improving customer relationships, creating supportive eco-systems and building firm capabilities.VA2T covers more than 25,000 enterprises in over 60 countries in agribusiness, textiles and clothing, outsourcing, tourism and other sectors. In coffee, ITC has worked extensively on helping producers and exporters retain more value at origin including publishing the Coffee Exporter’s Guide (with a 4th Edition to be published in Q2 2021) and More from the Cup: Improving Returns for East African coffee producers. Previously, Rob managed private sector development initiatives for US-based consulting firms including PwC, DAI and Abt Associates, and worked as a butcher. He holds an MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a BA from the University of Wisconsin.
Daniele Tricario Director of Insights AgriTech GSMA
Daniele leads the insights and research work stream for the AgriTech programme at the GSMA, the global association of the mobile industry uniting more than 750 operators with over 350 companies in the mobile ecosystem.
Daniele and his group of work produce industry analysis and intelligence to support service providers with their digital agriculture initiatives, focusing on emerging use cases, business models and social impact opportunities.
Prior to joining the GSMA, Daniele was a telecoms analyst at Pyramid Research and Informa Telecoms & Media. Daniele holds an MSc in new media and information systems from the London School of Economics and an MA from the University of Bologna.
Yves R. Brehm Head of Section Value Creation and Innovation in Agriculture GIZ
2021 – to date: Head of Section │ GIZ, Germany Section “Value Creation and Innovation in Agriculture“
2019 – 2021: Deputy Program Manager, Senior Project Manager │ GIZ, Germany Global Program “Green Innovation Centers in the Agriculture and Food Sectors“
2017 – 2019: Senior Project Manager, Adviser │ GIZ, Ethiopia Program “Sustainable Land Management“
2014 – 2017: Senior Project Manager, Adviser │ GIZ, Mali Program “Sustainable Small-scale Irrigated Agriculture“
2010 – 2013: Senior Project Manager, Consultant │ AFC, Germany / Worldwide Department “Rural Development and Agriculture“
2010 – 2010: Senior Project Manager, Consultant │ SOFRECO, France / Worldwide Department “Education and Social Development“
2007 – 2009: Project Manager, Consultant │ GOPA, Germany / Worldwide Departments “Infrastructure”, “Rural Development and Environment”
Anne Jorun Aas CEO Farmforce AS
Anne Jorun Aas is CEO of Farmforce AS, a Norwegian based SaaS AgriTech company, the trusted source of first mile data for both multinationals and small holder farmers of the global food system.
Building her career on a PhD in nuclear chemistry from the University of Oslo and CERN followed by seven years at McKinsey, she brings 20 years of executive and board experience from sustainability, technology and innovation. Previous roles include CEO of a sustainability consulting firm, CEO of a business incubator and SVP with an integrated solar power producer. She also has extensive board experience from listed and private companies as well as governmental organizations.
Dr. Leonard Mizzi Deputy Director & Head of Unit DG, INTPA European Commission
Dr. Leonard Mizzi is Head of Unit at the European Commission, Directorate-General (DG) for International Cooperation and Development – Rural development, food security and nutrition, since 1st of 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 (2007-2014) and from 2015-2016 leading the inter institutional unit hence relations with the European Parliament, Council and consultative bodies and well as steering the Civil Dialogue Groups.
He is a graduate in Public Administration from the University of Malta (BA Hons First Class); and has degrees from CIHEAM-Montpellier (Master of Science) and a Ph.D 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.
Dr. Mizzi has a broad working experience in the Maltese public administration and the Maltese private sector. He first worked in the Economic Planning Division of the Office of the Prime Minister (Malta) and from 1996-2006 was the first Director of the Malta Business Bureau in Brussels- the office of the Malta Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise and the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association.
Sierra Bayles Sustainability Manager Deloitte Consulting MODERATOR
Sierra is a leader in Deloitte Consulting’s Sustainability practice focusing on sustainable food and agriculture. She supports clients across the retail, food, and consumer products industries to meet their food- and ag–related sustainability objectives and grow their triple bottom line. Areas of focus include the adoption of climate smart and regenerative agriculture practices, decarbonization of agricultural supply chains, and the development of strategies to create shared value up and down the food value chain.
Sierra holds a BA from Columbia University and an MA in Energy, Resources, and Environment, and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Lucy Jingya Fu Vice-Chairman and Secretary-General China Coffee Association
Ms. Fu currently holds the titles of Standing Deputy Chairperson and Secretary General of the China Coffee Association, and Executive Director of Coffee Committee of the China Brand Strategic Planning Institute. She is one of ten experts of Occupational Skill Testing in coffee industry issued by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, P.R.C (ID 00418140) because of her contribution to setting up the national Barista Testing System.
Ms. Fu has been appointed to represent China’s coffee industry at the meetings of the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and the International Coffee Organization (ICO) by CCA. She is the first and still a key agent for the official introduction of the Chinese coffee industry into the ICO. At the 116th International Coffee Council meeting, Ms. Fu, by gaining the support of an EU nomination, has successfully led China’s application for membership of the Private Sector Coffee Board (PSCB).
Dr. Steffen Schwarz Managing Director Coffee Consulate Moderator
During his time at university, Dr. med. Steffen Schwarz founded his first company “Dionysos Consulting” in 1995. He advises on an international level many well-known companies in the food industry in terms of product development and marketing strategy. His particular attention is paid to coffee.
In 1999, he founded “The Coffee Store GmbH”, including the opening of own coffee shops, which are also offered as a franchise since 2002. The baristas of the group have won numerous national and international titles since that.
To meet the increasing demand for training, he added in 2005 the training and research center “Coffee Consulate”. It is meanwhile considered as prestigious address within the international coffee area. In addition to extensive workshop programs, the company manufactures barista tools, teaching material and analytical materials. Other fields of activity are research and product-development.
Isabel van Bemmelen Managing Director Progreso Foundation & Beyco INSPIRATIONAL TALK
While finishing her master’s degree in International Development Economics, Isabel worked in Peru and Mexico on subjects related to land titling and access to credit for smallholder farmers. In the following 1,5 years while she was working for the Rabobank in the Netherlands, she set up a foundation for a Dutch banking consultancy office. In collaboration with the Rabobank Foundation, she then worked in Brazil for 2 years, building an education platform and developing courses for the employees of a savings- and credit cooperative. After her time in Brazil, she worked for 6 years at the Netherlands office of the Rabobank Foundation, responsible for the Latin America credit portfolio. During that time she specialized herself in financing smallholder producer organisations with a high focus on coffee and cocoa organisations. She also started cupping coffee as she noticed credit lines were better used by coffee producer organisations when she could make a market connection for them. During her time at Rabobank Foundation, she worked closely together with the Amsterdam based Progreso Foundation.
Dr. Frederick KAWUMA Secretary General Inter-African Coffee Organization (IACO)
Frederick S.M. KAWUMA, 60, is a Uganda national, an honours graduate of Bachelor of Commerce (Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda), Master of Arts in Communication & Marketing (Wheaton College Graduate School, IL, USA) and a PhD in Entrepreneurial Leadership (Regent University, VA, USA). He is the outgoing Secretary General of the Inter African Coffee Organisation (IACO), an inter governmental organisation based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast (West Africa). He has moved African coffees to a new pedestal and helped to build a brighter future for African coffees. His term at IACO will end in the first part of 2021 but will continue to serve as a goodwill Ambassador for African coffee. He has over 30 years of experience in the coffee industry, of which over 25 years as a CEO of various organisations. He is a visionary who has been involved in many initiative s in the coffee industry that have had national, regional and international impact. He has played key roles in the establishment of projects to support the African coffee industry, with the vision to benefit coffee producers and improvement of quality and quantity of African coffees. He has also had a distinguished career as a leadership and management consultant and trainer and worked on several projects.
Anthony Day Blockchain Partner Global Business Services IBM UK and Ireland
Anthony is a Partner in IBM’s UK & Ireland Blockchain team. He leads Blockchain transformations and creation of new business networks for IBM clients across a range of industry sectors. Anthony is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of helping clients achieve growth, define impactful digital strategies and launch new businesses powered by exponential technologies (Blockchain, AI, Robotics, Open Platforms, Cloud). He also hosts the Blockchain Won’t Save the World podcast.
Catalina Eikenberg Head of Sustainable Business Unit Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG)
Catalina Eikenberg is currently leading the Sustainable Business Unit at Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG), the largest coffee trading group in the world. This new department at NKG aims to positively impact coffee farmers´ livelihoods through the provision of services like finance, access to inputs and training, as part of the group´s global sustainable sourcing strategy, NKG BLOOM. She began her career 15 years ago in microfinance, building BlueOrchard Finance´s portfolio of investments in Latin America. She then worked for TechnoServe, a global NGO working on business solutions to poverty, as the Colombia Country Manager. Catalina holds a Msc in Development Management from the London School of Economics and a BA in Economics from McGill University in Canada.
Dr. Panos Varangis Principal Agriculture Finance Specialist International Finance Corporation (IFC)
Dr Panos Varangis joined the FIG team in July 2020, as a principal specialist in agricultural finance. Prior to that Panos was the Head for agricultural finance in the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation, Global Practice at the World Bank. Since 2014, Panos has been involved in projects around the globe that facilitate financing for farmers and Agribusiness SMEs by working on public policy issues and financial products that involve the private sector. Prior to that Panos led IFC’s advisory work to facilitate access to finance for SMEs, agribusiness and farmers and improve risk management. Before joining IFC, Panos served as the Deputy CEO of the Agricultural Bank of Greece (2004-2009) and was a member of the board of directors of Agrotiki Insurance and Mindbank, an SME bank in Romania (subsidiary of ABG). From 1987 to 2004, he worked at the World Bank in various positions at the International Commodities Division, the International Trade Division, the Bank’s Research Department and at the Agricultural and Rural Development Department where he oversaw a global program on commodity risk management and index insurance. Panos holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University in New York.
Blanca Maria Castro Chapter Relations Manager International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA)
With more than 14 years within the coffee sector in marketing and trade, started as Marketing Coordinator for the National Coffee Association of Guatemala – Anacafe-. As volunteer, supported IWCA Global projects in Central America and as Coffee Consultant to the International Trade Center in East Africa supporting “She Trades” projects and creating awareness of the coffee sector around the world. Fluent in English, French, German and Spanish, advance student in Italian, with strong network and experience on public relationship and communications, that enabled her to identify needs and solutions to approach the coffee market. Currently working as Chapter Relations Manager for the International Women’s Coffee Alliance supporting and coordinating groups in 27 Chapters in Latin America, East Africa, Asia, Australia, Yemen in the Middle East and last USA in North America.
Marketing strategies, commercial net working with traders, roasters, coffee shops, exporters, coffee growers in farms, cooperative and coffee organizations.
Also, President to the Board of Conservation and Eco Development Foundation – Guatemala – FUNDAECO – since April 2016 and member of the Specialty Coffee Association Advisory Council Committee – Event Committee & Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force since December 2017
Peter Onguka Head of Lending, Africa Root Capital
Peter Onguka is the Head of Lending for the Africa portfolio at Root Capital, a leader in social impact investment in rural communities around the world. In this role, he focuses on providing innovative financial products to coffee enterprises in East Africa and to other small and growing agricultural businesses across the continent. Since starting his career in microfinance, Peter has spent 18 years expanding access to credit for traditionally overlooked populations in his home country of Kenya and beyond. Over more than a decade at Root Capital Peter has developed his expertise in loan structuring, risk assessment and mitigation, portfolio management, pipeline development, and business analytics for agricultural finance. If you ask him what he enjoys most about his job, Peter will tell you that it is that no day is ever the same; working in smallholder finance is action-packed and full of adventure!
Juan Esteban Orduz President Colombian Coffee Federation Inc. FEDECAFE (North America)
Juan Esteban Orduz is the President of Colombian Coffee Federation, Inc., the subsidiary in North America of the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia (FNC). In 2003, Mr. Orduz joined the FNC, a non-profit association that represents more than 540,000 Colombian coffee growing families both domestically and internationally, after ending a year as fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University (2002-2003).
Besides leading all FNC’s commercial, cooperation, marketing and advocacy areas in the region, Mr. Orduz’s is responsible for many global initiatives, such as Colombia’s participation in the International Coffee Organization, Colombia’s 100 – 100 Sustainability Program and the World Coffee Producers Forum.
Among Mr. Orduz’ international experience in the public and private sectors, he was Minister Plenipotentiary and Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Colombia to the United States in Washington, D.C. (1998-2002), where he was one of the leaders in the design and implementation of Plan Colombia -the largest U.S.-Colombia bilateral program for security and social and economic development- and the extension of trade preferences through the Andean Trade Preferences and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), and legal VP of Cemex Colombia, associate at Consultores Jurídicos y Económicos and advisor to the minister of economic development.
Mr. Orduz serves in many boards of directors in different countries, including the Global Coffee Platform-GCP (Germany, NL), Rainforest Alliance (USA and NL), the Coffee Quality Institute CQI (USA), American Friends of Fundación Cardio-Infantil 501(c) 3 (USA), co-vicechairman of the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars – Latin American Program (USA, Washington D.C.) and leads the Colombian delegation to the International Coffee Organization (ICO).
Mr. Orduz earned a law degree (J.D.) from El Rosario University in Bogotá, where he received the highest distinction “Colegial de Número” for his academic excellence; he also earned a postgraduate degree in Finance at Los Andes University in Bogotá and is fluent in Spanish (native), English and German.
Gerardo Patacconi Head of Operations International Coffee Organization (ICO)
Gerardo Patacconi is the Head of Operations of the International Coffee Organization (ICO). An economiststatistician and agribusiness development expert, after a significant experience with the private sector in manufacturing and banking in Italy, he joined the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in 1987 as associate Expert in Papua New Guinea. His latest position with UNIDO was Director of the Department of Agribusiness Development with a portfolio of US$40 million. In 2013 was one of the two shortlisted candidates and run for the election for the post of Executive- Director of the International Sugar Organization (ISO).
At the core of his experience is policy and strategic advice, development, fund raising and management of large-scale operations and development projects to address poverty and sustainability, with emphasis on Public-Private Partnerships covering the coffee sector and other agribusiness value chains.
An excellent communicator, Gerardo Patacconi is often invited as a public speaker and a moderator in ministerial meetings, international conferences and events in English, French, Spanish and Italian and has also published on topics relating to development and industry, agribusiness and sustainability.
Christopher Brett Lead Agribusiness Specialist World Bank
Christopher Brett was appointed as the Lead Agribusiness Specialist with the World Bank in November 2016 and joined the Agriculture and Food Global Agricultural Practice, based in Washington DC. He has a Master’s Degree in Management for Agricultural Development from Cranfield University in the United Kingdom. He has more than thirty years’ experience of working within the public private and voluntary sectors in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Prior to working with the World Bank, he worked for 9 years as the Global Head of Sustainability for a large multi-national agricultural supply chain management company, as part of the senior management team, Chris supported the company’s transition from a trading-based company to a global agri-business supply chain management company.
From 2001 to 2007, he undertook a range of consultancies for leading development organisations and the private sector, such as; the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, African Development Bank, European Union, United Nations Development Programme, commercial banks and infrastructural development companies. He also worked for 6 years in Central America as a Private Sector Development Advisor (1995-2001) for the UK Department for International Development.
Dr. Rocco Macchiavello Associate Professor London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Rocco Macchiavello holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Rocco was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University, Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor at Warwick University before returning to the London School of Economics in the Department of Management. Rocco’s research interests are in private sector development and he has done extensive work on the coffee value chain. In partnership with private and public sectors stakeholders, Rocco has conducted quantitative analysis of the coffee chain to better understand constraints to access to finance, the functioning and impact of buyer-driven sustainability programs, the role of competition and vertical integration and is currently working on traceability initiatives. His work on coffee has been published in leading peer reviewed journals and has featured in policy publications, including the 2020 World Bank Development Report and the 2021 Coffee Development Report by ICO.
Laura Mackenzie SVP Financial Inclusion Global Consumer Product Mastercard
As senior vice president, Financial Inclusion for Mastercard, Laura is responsible for developing, executing, leading and adapting the global product strategy to deliver Mastercard’s Financial Inclusion commitment to the World Bank to include 1 billion people into the digital economy by 2025 through the development and deployment of innovative products and delivery channels.
Prior to this role, she spent 12 years leading Mastercard’s US Merchant acceptance for core merchant verticals. Laura began her career in fashion with luxury global brands Ralph Lauren, Anne Klein and Nicole Farhi before making a move into the financial sector with South African start-up joint-venture e-commerce companies. She has spent many years living and working overseas in London, Barcelona and Johannesburg.
Luis Macias CEO and Founder GrainChain
Luis is an innovator and entrepreneur that has nearly 20 years of experience designing, inventing, and implementing technological solutions in the government, agriculture and insurance sectors. Since 2013, when he founded and implemented SiloSys and developed GrainChain’s transaction platform using smart contracts, he has been focused on viable agricultural solutions. He brings an experienced, relentless commitment to enhancing the performance of business processes and mission-critical deployments to the team, and his pioneering leadership in the technology and agriculture sectors ensures that GrainChain will remain the leader in its market space.
Jose Sette Executive Director International Coffee Organization (ICO)
José Dauster Sette became Executive Director of the International Coffee Organization (ICO) in May 2017. Before rejoining the ICO, he was Executive Director of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) from January 2014 to April 2017. He served previously in the ICO as Executive Director ad interim from November 2010 to November 2011, and Head of Operations from November 2007 to December 2012.
Mr Sette has extensive experience as a consultant to trade associations specializing in international trade matters, and was Superintendent for Development of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Fecomércio-RJ) and Secretary General of the Brazilian Association of Coffee Exporters (Abecafé). In the private sector, he worked for ten years at Inter-Continental de Café S.A., a leading Brazilian coffee trading house, where he was a trader and head of the Technical Department. He also worked in the Inter-American Development Bank, in Washington, DC, USA, and began his career with the Brazilian Coffee Institute, the government agency responsible for the regulation of the coffee sector in Brazil.
Mr Sette has a MBA with a major in finance from American University in Washington, DC, and a BA in Administrative Science from Yale University.
