Board of Trustees

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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.

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Ernest Aryeetey is the Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), a network of 16 of Africa’s flagship universities. He is also a Professor of Economics and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana (2010–2016). He served previously as Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) (2003–2010) at the University of Ghana and was the first Director of the Africa Growth Initiative of the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.

Prof. Aryeetey has held academic appointments at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and at Yale University and Swarthmore College in the United States. He was a member of the Governing Council of the United Nations University (2016–2019) and was also Chairman of the Advisory Board of UNU-WIDER (Helsinki). He is currently the Board Chair of the African Economic Research Consortium. He was, until recently, the Board Chairman of Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Sussex (UK), Lund University (Sweden), Stellenbosch University (South Africa), the University of Ghana, Legon (Ghana), and the University of Health and Applied Sciences (Ghana).

Among Prof. Aryeetey’s strategic priorities as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Ghana was developing the University into a research-intensive institution that supports structural transformation in Africa.

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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.

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Patrick Caron has a deep understanding of the interface between science and policy, and leadership experience in steering, negotiating and forging alliances across groups with diverging views and perspectives. He is currently Vice President for International Affairs at the University of Montpellier, where he guides scientific and technical personnel across departments and faculties to consolidate the international ambitions of a university with 50,000 students and 5,000 staff. He is also International Director of the Montpellier University of Excellence, an alliance of 16 regional research and higher education organizations, Director of MAK’IT, the Montpellier Institute for Advanced Knowledge, and President of Agropolis International, a community with 42 member institutions. He was recently appointed as a member of the Scientific Group for the 2021 UN Food System Summit.

He spent much of his earlier career with CIRAD, a French public institution active in agricultural research in over 100 countries, including six years as Director General for Research and Strategy. He served two terms as Chair of the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, the science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security. He holds a PhD in Geography, a master’s in Food and Nutrition, a master’s in Public Health and a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. He is also a certified mediator.

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Shenggen Fan has extensive experience in developing strong connections at the highest levels with a wide range of influential stakeholders, and has engaged widely on issues related to agriculture, food, health, climate change, natural resource management and information technologies. He is currently Chair Professor at the College of Economics and Management at China Agricultural University in Beijing. He is a member of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition; the Advisory Council of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford; the Board of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture; and the Council of Advisers of the World Food Prize. He also serves as a member of the Lead Group for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement appointed by the UN Secretary General.

He previously spent over 20 years with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), including as Director General for the ten-year period until his departure in December 2019. His previous roles within IFPRI included several years as Division Director of Development Strategy and Governance, and prior to that, as a Research Fellow. His earlier professional experience also includes time as a Research Economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at the University of Arkansas and as a Post-doctoral Fellow and Associate Research Officer at the International Service for National Agricultural Research in the Netherlands. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics and an MSc in Agricultural Economics.

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Neil Gutterson’s life’s work is to create value for farmers. He does this through a combination of scientific and technological expertise, broad-based management and board experience and the ability to convert innovative ideas and thinking into results.

Neal joined DuPont Pioneer in 2014. After DuPont merged with Dow, he was named Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the combined entity’s agriculture division, which was subsequently spun off and renamed Corteva Agriscience. There, he led the integration of three research and development organizations into one, developed the new company’s first integrated R&D strategy and oversaw the growth and expansion of its award-winning pipeline. While at Corteva, he championed and brought strategic clarity to the company’s efforts to use its expertise, intellectual property and technologies to address challenges facing small holder farmers globally.

Prior to joining Corteva, he held a number of senior roles with Mendel Biotechnology, rising from Vice President, R&D, to President, Chief Executive Officer and Board member. Earlier, he held a number of research roles with DNA Plant Technology Corporation. Throughout his career, he has used his knowledge of organizational design principles to forge collaborations with organizations of all sizes and stages of maturity. He also spent six years on the Board of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), along with a number of other associations. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry.

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Alyssa Jade McDonald-Baertl has a dynamic and energetic entrepreneurial perspective and approach to international development, a passion for the role of research and evidence-based change, and strong knowledge of sustainable business in the midcap/SME sector. She currently advises policy and programs in the European Commission regarding sustainable finance, eco-innovation and deployment for commercial or public-private partnerships to adapt to new market conditions brought on by the green and social economy. She is also a board member of UnternehmensGruen (German Federation of Green Economy), a politically oriented entrepreneurs’ association that campaigns for the environment and a sustainable economy.

A decade ago, she founded a social enterprise to grow and harvest cacao in Ecuador, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea for processing and sale in Europe, producing high-grade chocolate while increasing farmer livelihoods and agroforestry. Responding to the need for better farmer resilience, the enterprise pivoted to focus on cacao farmer education. This transdisciplinary education, drawn from planetary health and living income methodologies, contributed to improved farmer health, wealth and crop yields from Latin America to the Pacific. In the deep past, she spent a decade in corporate business as Head of International Communications at Deutsche Telekom, developing communication strategy for more than 50 countries, and as International Brand Manager for T-Systems (DEU), focused on M&A and market development. She is a former board member of the European Sustainable Business Federation and is currently conducting post-graduate research in Environmental Science regarding farmer training.

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Alice Ruhweza has extensive experience working at the intersection of conservation and development in Africa and globally, fostering successful partnerships with a wide range of international institutions. She is currently the Africa Region Director for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), where she leads and oversees a regional program comprising 10 countries and 400 staff. There she is leading design of a new conservation framework that brings together work at national, transboundary and global levels, as well as development of a new system of program quality assurance. She sits on the Board of The Global Ever-Greening Alliance and on the steering committee of the Future Earth Water-Food-Energy Nexus working group.

Before joining WWF, she was Vice President of Programs and Partnerships with Conservation International, where she oversaw the Vital Signs Program, which provides data and diagnostic tools to help inform agricultural decisions and monitor outcomes around the world. She was also the Team Leader and Technical Adviser for the United Nations Development Programme Global Environmental Finance Unit in Africa. In this role, she led a team supporting 44 sub-Saharan African countries to attract and drive public and private finance towards their sustainable development priorities. The program successfully mobilized over USD 600 million over six and a half years, which with co-financing made it the largest environment program in the UN. She is a former Sustainable Agriculture Intensification Commissioner. She holds an MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics.

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Lindiwe Majele Sibanda is an animal scientist and a practicing farmer with extensive experience, serving as a policy advisor to numerous African governments and global institutions. She is Professor, Director, and Chair of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centre of Excellence in Food Systems at the University of Pretoria, in South Africa. She is a Nestlé SA Board Member and serves on WorldVeg Board. She is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and member of Champions 12.3, accelerating progress on UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 12.3, halving global per capita food waste.

She previously served as Board Chair for the International Livestock Research Institution (ILRI); Board Member of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); and program advisor to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). She also served on the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems and as a member of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) Policy Advisory Council. She has served in senior leadership positions in various organizations, including co-Chair of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA), Vice-President, Country Support, Policy and Partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and CEO and Head of Mission of the pan-African Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN). She holds a Ph.D. and MSc in Agriculture from the University of Reading, and BSc in Animal Production from the University of Alexandria, Egypt.

She was appointed to the CGIAR System Board in April 2021.

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Hilary Wild has extensive international experience in the fields of finance, organizational management, governance, and risk management. She has been involved with the CGIAR for several years, initially as a member of the Board of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and later the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in both cases chairing their Finance and Audit Committees. She is now a member of the CGIAR System Board as well as all the constituent Centers of One CGIAR, as well as a member of the CGIAR Audit, Finance and Risk Committee and is a member of the HarvestPlus ​Programme Advisory Committee and Audit Committee. She is Trustee and Audit Committee Chair of WaterAid UK, Chair of the Church Commissioners Audit and Risk Committee, a member of the Oversight Advisory Committee of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a member of the Advanced Agriculture and Food Advisory Panel of CSIR, South Africa, and Treasurer, Medical Aid for Palestinians.

She was previously Chief Financial Officer of the World Health Organization (WHO), with overall responsibility for financial management of a USD 2 billion organization operating in 140 countries, and Director Business Change. Before joining the WHO, she held various positions in the international financial sector, including as a director ​in investment banking a​s well as asset management in the Kleinwort Benson Group. She also worked for UNICEF in New York as Chief of Finance, and for a major USA commercial bank ​in London and as its representative in Greece. She has chaired oversight committees for the United Nations Development Programme, International Labour Organization, and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

She was appointed to the CGIAR System Board in September 2019.

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