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Bonaventure Fandohan(MBA, MIDP)

Managing Partner

Bonaventure is a results-oriented and versatile community development professional with over 16 years of experience in researching, designing, and evaluating economic development programs for the public, not-for-profit, and social enterprise sectors. He has a wealth of experience in cross-functional team management, with a record of transformational leadership. He is experienced in high-level economic analysis and has authored multiple reports on global value chains of agricultural products and economic solutions in developing nations. His clients include the Caribbean Development Bank, the World Bank, and the governments of Haiti, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Guinea. Recently, Bonaventure authored a report entitled, The Global Value Chain of Sesame Seeds and Cashew Nuts in Mali, where he provided analysis as well as a roadmap for implementation. A strong leader with excellent negotiation and communication skills, Bonaventure excels at strategic thinking and innovative problem-solving. Bonaventure has two Masters degrees from Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He speaks fluently French and English, as well as multiple African languages.
- Dr. Marcia Báez
 
 Technical Advisor
 
 Marcia Moreno-Báez is a Research Associate and Professor at the University of New England, and she also works as an independent consultant with other researchers and institutions particularly in Latin America. Her primary interests are on the geography of climate change and its implications on ecosystems. This includes understanding how climate change affects the environment and humans, allowing us to understand the effects, challenges and opportunities for sustainable development. Marcia finished her PhD at the University of Arizona in 2010 and became a postdoctoral and research associate, at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She focused on developing and managing projects where multi and transdisciplinary approaches were used to understand the interactions of humans and the environment, and how climate change was affecting those interactions. She brought her expertise on participatory methods and geospatial technology for the co-production of data and knowledge to support decisions and planning to solve complex environmental, economic and social problems. Her experience highlights the importance of understanding the cultural, social and ecological environment with the intention of bringing trust and empowerment to the process and to establish synergies between actors (i.e., scientists, stakeholders and resource users). Her experience working with governmental organizations and within the academic realm has allowed her to be an author and co-author on public outreach efforts and scientific papers on local knowledge, participatory research and geographic information systems, coastal and marine conservation, fishing communities, natural resources management, vulnerability to climate change and, blue carbon.
 - Prof Bongo Adi
 
 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development and Evaluation Partner
 
 Bongo Adi holds a full-time faculty position in Economics, Project Finance, Business Intelligence and Data Analytics at Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria. He is a development economist, data Scientist, actuarial scientist, PPP & Project Finance expert and management consultant working in the infrastructure, economic development and Policy field for the last 20 years. His expertise has seen him lead and manage exciting and complex projects on multi-state randomized control experiments in health; evaluation of CCT in education; Propensity Score Matching; Marketing analytics; Competitive strategy design; Large sample surveys design and implementation; Infrastructure reforms and PPPs, project finance, market sounding for PPP studies, Willingness-To-Pay studies; Multi-sectoral Computable General Equilibrium modelling; Macroeconomics modelling and forecasting; Econometrics modelling and analysis; Economic development strategies including SME development, Port sector reform; Organizational re-engineering, and Finance. He has sound expertise in managing large grants within development aid contexts. As a data scientist, he possesses advanced technical capability in R, S-plus, Python, Excel, Stata, SPSS, Ox, LaTeX, etc. He designs integrated information systems and business process automation via Excel VBA etc. Dr Adi holds a PhD in Regional Science and Development Economics and M.Sc in Economic Development and Policy Management under the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship of the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He did a postdoctoral training in Data Mining at the National Agricultural Research Center, Japan. He is a recipient of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship. His research has been presented in numerous international conferences, workshops and published in top ranked international journals. Dr. Bongo Adi has consulted for the World Bank on project design, preparation and appraisal. He is a regular Economist and Business analyst on Channels TV and CNBC Africa. His column – bongonomics – in Business-day newspaper which has attracted wide readership, is dedicated to using economic theories to explain human behavior in challenging economic contexts.
Lauriane Yehouenou

Impact Evaluation & Applied Economics Research Partner

Lauriane Yehouenou is an applied economist with interest in natural resources economics, development economics, agricultural policy & program evaluation. Her current work bridges natural resources and development economics using bio economic modeling and lab-in-the-field experiments. She also manages the bid process and US business development.
- Amandine Paulin
 
 Project Manager
 
 Amandine is a development practitioner, specialized in nutrition and food security, with significant experience in business development and project management. She has undertaken various consultancy projects for organizations such as Action Against Hunger, World Vision, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations(FAO), the EU and Essilor. Amandine holds a European MSc in Management from ESCP Europe, a BA in Business, Economics and Social Studies from Trinity College Dublin and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She speaks French, English and Spanish fluently, and Japanese and German at intermediary level.
 - Aida Mbene Niang
 
 Social Media Specialist
 
 Aida Mbene Niang is a multimedia technician since 2018. she has experience in creation of digital support & print and web creation. With more than 2 years of experience, she have a solid knowledge in graphic and editing video software of Adobe suite like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Audition, Adobe After Effects. Passionate about digital communication, she masters the digital tools and is very active on social networks.
Katherine Sopranos

Chief Marketing Officer

Katherine is an executive communications and business development professional who is experienced in developing and executing communications and marketing strategies for CEOs and senior management at global corporations. She has more than 20 years of proven expertise in brand management; crisis and reputation management; media relations; employee communications; human resources; community relations; change management; and cultural transformation. She specializes in strategic solutions that advance business goals and positively position businesses and brands in global markets. Katherine has held leadership roles at Boeing, Archer Daniels Midland and Northern Trust, and serves as an adviser to nonprofits and technology startups. She also teaches leadership and business skills to youth and adults. She holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a master’s degree in writing from DePaul University. She speaks English and French.
- Mathieu Faujas
 
 Senior agribusiness development service advisor
 
 A versatile private sector development project manager, with a specialization in agribusiness, committed to leveraging 20 years of work experience mainly in Africa to improve inclusive value chain performance and foster sustainable trade growth, with a view to realizing value for poor communities. Combined a unique set of experiences in business development, agriculture-related program management and consulting. MBA from HEC Paris business school.
 - Ted Koffi Tépé Eklou
 
 Graphic and Web Designer
 
 Ted Koffi Tépé Eklou is a versatile graphic designer with more than 8 years of experience in communication visuals creation and the web design. He has used extensively software such as Adobe illustrator, Adobe Indesign, Adode XD. His recent clients are Institut Français du Togo Antovi Cantine, Smoothieland’z, and more. Ted has a Bachelor Degree in International Economics from University of Lomé Togo. He speaks French and English.
Walter Ochieng

Team Leader Economics + Health

Walter Ochieng is a Physician Health Economist and has clinical, research and leadership experience in the government, humanitarian and NGO fields, including coordinating complex multidisciplinary projects. He holds a Ph.D. in Health Policy Administration specializing in Health Economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago; a Master’s degree in Health Economics and Pharmaeconomics from the Barcelona School of Management; and a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Nairobi. Walter’s technical proficiencies include study design, clinical knowledge, health economics, econometrics, microeconomics, decision-analytic modeling, hierarchical and linear modeling, epidemiological research methods, and program design and evaluation.
- Nicaise Sheila Sagbo
 
 Agribusiness and Agrifinance advisor
 
 Nicaise Sheila Sagbo is a Fulbright scholar, PhD Candidate, and Research Assistant in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on Microfinance, Development Economics, and Agricultural Policy. Sheila worked on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to assess the impact of agricultural policies in Haiti. She designed, conducted field research, and perform in-depth econometric analysis using statistical software such as STATA. Sheila has tremendous experience in Sub Sahara African agricultural countries, Haiti and the US. She is fluent in English, French and can speak some Haitian Creole.

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