Board of Trustees

---

Pascal Lamy holds leadership roles in a wide range of global and regional organizations, including most notably as the Vice-President of the Paris Peace Forum, President of the European branch of the Brunswick Group, and Coordinator of the Jacques Delors Institutes (Paris, Berlin, Brussels). Through his extensive engagements on complex policy matters at the global, regional, and national levels, Lamy maintains his strong focus on the nexus of sustainability, international trade, global governance, and poverty reduction amid growing challenges facing the world.

Lamy served two consecutive terms as Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) (2005–2013) and was Trade Commissioner of the European Commission (1999–2004). He is now chair of the European Starfish mission, the Danone mission committee, and the Aspen Africa-Europe meetings, among others. He co-chairs the Antarctica 2020 coalition and is a member of several boards of directors, including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Pascal is senior advisor to Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA) and the World Trade Board, member of the Advisory Board of Transparency International, the Oxford Martin School, the Back to Blue Initiative (The Economist), Covid Gap (Duke University), and the World Risk Report (WEF). Lamy is also a distinguished professor at the China Europe International Business School, Shanghai, and is a member of the Senior Advisory Council of the Beijing Forum.

Back to the list

---

Ernest Aryeetey is an Emeritus Professor of Development Economics at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana. Until July 2024, he was the Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), a network of 20 of Africa’s flagship universities. He is a former Vice-Chancellor of University of Ghana and was also previously Director of ISSER. Ernest Aryeetey was the first Director of the Africa Growth Initiative of Brookings Institution, Washington D.C.

He has held academic appointments at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), Yale University and Swarthmore College in the U.S. at various points in time. Ernest Aryeetey was a member of the Governing Council of the United Nations University (2016-2019) and was also previously Chair of the Advisory Board of the UNU-World Institute for Development Economics Research (Helsinki). He is currently the Board Chair of the African Economic Research Consortium. He was, until December 2021, the Board Chair of Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited. He holds honorary degrees from University of Sussex (UK), Lund University (Sweden), Stellenbosch University (South Africa), University of Ghana, Legon (Ghana), University of Health and Applied Sciences (Ghana), University of Glasgow (UK), and University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa).

One of Ernest Aryeetey’s strategic priorities as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Ghana was to develop the University into a research-intensive institution that supports structural transformation in Africa. As ARUA Secretary-General his major pre-occupation was to show that collaboration was key in making African universities more competitive globally while staying relevant to their communities.

Back to the list

---

Phyllis Caldwell is an independent financial services professional and corporate director. She served as the non-Executive Chairperson of Ocwen Financial Corporation, a mortgage banking company from 2016-2023 and served on the Ocwen Board of Directors until May 2024. She is currently Vice-Chair of the Chemonics International Board of Directors and serves on the boards of OneMain Holdings, JBG Smith Properties, and Oaktree Specialty Lending Corporation. She also served on the Board of CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research) from 2013-2019 and was Audit Committee Chair from 2014-2019 and Vice Chair from 2017-2019. Ms. Caldwell has spent much of her career in banking and financial services primarily in the areas of housing and economic development.

Ms. Caldwell was Chief of the Homeownership Preservation Office at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from November 2009 to December 2011, responsible for oversight of the U.S. housing market stabilization, economic recovery, and foreclosure prevention initiatives established through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. From December 2007 to November 2009, Ms. Caldwell was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Washington Area Women’s Foundation. Prior to such time, Ms. Caldwell spent twenty years in banking including eleven years at Bank of America where she held various leadership roles including President of Community Development Banking.

Ms. Caldwell received her Master of Business Administration from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, also from the University of Maryland. She served on the Robert H. Smith School’s Dean’s Advisory Board from 2013-2019 and was an Executive-in-Residence at the Smith School until May 2024.

Back to the list

---

José J. Campos is Chief Executive Officer of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), where he leads in advancing regenerative, nature-positive agriculture and financeable supply-chain solutions through multistakeholder radical collaboration. He brings more than 40 years of leadership experience in sustainable agriculture, forestry, and landscape management, including serving as Director General of CATIE, the first graduate school in Agricultural Sciences in Latin America. José has chaired CIFOR Board, served on the Board of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and IUFRO, and sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA). He has advised multilateral development banks and investment initiatives focused on forests and sustainable land use. José holds a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.

Back to the list

---

Susanne Frueh is a recognized leader in system-wide and agency-specific organizational effectiveness, risk management, fiduciary standards and change management of large international institutions. This is due largely to her having spent most of her almost 40-year professional career in 8 different parts of the United Nations System. Her work experience covers the three main oversight functions (evaluation, internal audit, and investigation), project management, sustainable development, humanitarian assistance, food aid and climate change adaptation. While at the World Food Programme she oversaw the evaluations of numerous food aid and food security assistance projects and helped shape the results based management in the organisation. In her last two positions she was directing internal audit, investigation, and evaluation at UNESCO and at the OSCE. A former chair of the UN Representatives for Internal Audit and the UN Evaluation Group, she has also been serving on the Audit Committees of UNRWA, UNICEF and UNHCR, serving as chair of one of them. She is also currently a member of the Accreditation Panel of the Adaptation Fund where she reviews whether applicants meet the fiduciary and environmental, social and gender policy standards of the Fund and serves as the chair of the Advisory Board of the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEVAL). 

Susanne has a Masters of Science in Geography from the University of South Carolina, a certificate in corruption control from Harvard University and is a credentialed evaluator as well as a certified auditor.

Back to the list

---

A globally recognized thought leader and serial entrepreneur, Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin is currently on faculty at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.  Prior to that, she served as Chief Innovation Officer at UNDP in New York where she founded and launched timbuktoo Africa,a US$ 1 billion venture fund for African innovation, and earlier founded blueMoon, Ethiopia’s top agritech incubator for youth startups.  Dr. Eleni is best known for her role as founding CEO of the widely acclaimed Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) which achieved annual trading of US$ 1.4 billion, transforming the livelihoods of over 15 million small farmers.  In recognition of this, she addressed G8 leaders at the Camp David summit in 2012 at the invitation of President Obama. Earlier, she served as Program Leader and Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and as Senior Sector Economist at the World Bank.  Her distinguished career uniquely spans policy research, corporate business, entrepreneurship, and development practice.

Dr. Eleni holds a PhD in Applied Economics from Stanford University, an MSc in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University, and a BA in Economics from Cornell University.  Her doctoral research on improving Ethiopian grain markets received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Agricultural Economics Association.

She has been recognized globally with numerous awards and recognitions, including the Kiel Institute Global Economy Prize (2023), Top 50 Disruptors by The Africa Report (2020), Yara Prize for Agricultural Transformation (2012), 125 Global Women of Impact by Newsweek (2013), Top 5 Global Power Women with Purpose by Devex (2016), 100 Most Influential Africans by New African (2012), 50 Women Shaping Africa by The Africa Report (2011), among many others. Her work has been extensively in global media, including the PBS documentary The Market Maker, and featured on TED, viewed by over 5 million.

Back to the list

---

Simi Kamal is a geographer with expertise across several sectors: water, climate change, environment, agriculture and food security. She is also a women’s rights campaigner and has worked extensively in poverty alleviation areas. She has founded several private sector and social sector organizations, networks and platforms, both nationally and globally, and led ground-breaking programs and grant funds in several sectors. She is well-known for envisaging and building institutions and developing platforms for action. She has served on numerous international and national boards, committees, task forces and think tanks. She is the Founder of Hisaar Foundation, a Co-founder of Panjwani-Hisaar Water Institute at NED University in Karachi, Pakistan, currently serving on its Executive Board and as Advisor. She is also an Independent Director of Khushhali Microfinance Bank Limited (Pakistan), a Trustee of WaterAid UK, a Non-executive Director of Center for Agriculture and Biosciences (CABI), UK and a member of the Zayed Sustainability Prize Selection Committee. She has served on the board of International Water Management Institute (Sri Lanka), as head of the Program Committee, Vice Chair and Chair 2018 – 2025. She was a member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Food Security (2019 – 2022) in Pakistan. For three years she was a member of the National Commission on the Status of Women (Pakistan) and was instrumental in the preparation and passage of the Women’s Protection Bill 2006 (which led to a major amendment in the Criminal Laws Act). She also served on the Technical Committees of the Global Water Partnership (Stockholm) for nine years 2000 – 2009. She has led over 200 research studies and projects, is the author of several book chapters and is the recipient of many awards.

Back to the list

---

Jill J. McCluskey is Regents Professor and Director of the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University.

She is the President Elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) and former President and Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) as well as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She chairs the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. She is a past Editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. An award-winning researcher, Dr. McCluskey is widely published and cited on topics including product quality and reputation, retail food markets and food access, nutrition, economics of new technology, and the representation and success of women in academia.

She has served as major professor to 49 PhD graduates, many of whom are professors at major universities. She received bachelor’s degrees in Business Economics and Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, her M.S. in Economics from Georgetown University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was named alumna of the year in 2022.

Back to the list

---

Purvi Mehta is an internationally recognized leader in agriculture, food systems and climate resilience with nearly three decades of senior leadership experience across Africa, Asia and North America. Her career has been defined by building transformational partnerships across governments, international organizations, R&D institutes and the private sector to advance inclusive agricultural growth.

She brings a uniquely cross-regional perspective shaped by extensive work across South Asia and Africa. Her expertise spans crops, livestock systems, climate adaptation, nutrition, market systems and public policy. She has consistently operated at the intersection of science, policy, finance and markets, helping shape integrated food systems approaches.

Dr. Mehta has held senior leadership roles with institutions including the Gates Foundation, where she served, until May 2025, for close to eleven years as part of the agriculture leadership team. She has worked with CGIAR centres such as the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

She currently serves on a number of public, private and academic boards and advisory councils. Some of her current affiliations include:

• Independent Director on Board of Advanta, World’s third largest seeds company operating in over 76 countries
• Director, Board of Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd.
• Director on Board of Mahindra and Mahindra, EPC ltd.
• Global Advisory Council Member, World Food Prize Foundation
• Board Member, M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation
• Senior Advisor, International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya
• Advisory Board Member, MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Systems Lab
• Advisory and Partnership Council of GAIN, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition

She also serves as Adjunct Professor at Cornell University. She has academic qualifications up to PhD from North Carolina State University, USA, Tokyo University, Japan and MSU, Bhavnagar University, India..

Back to the list

---

Tavneet Suri is the Louis E. Seley Professor of Applied Economics and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her expertise is in the role of technology in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tavneet is an editor at the Review of Economics and Statistics; Co-Chair of the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative at J-PAL; Co-Chair of the Digital Identification and Finance Initiative at J-PAL Africa; a member of the Executive Committee at J-PAL; and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

She holds a BA in economics from Cambridge University, UK, and an MA in International and Development Economics (IDE) and a PhD in economics, both from Yale University.

Back to the list