Karri Byrne brings over 25 years of programme management experience from both emergency and development contexts. She has worked extensively on market systems and livelihoods programming, helps teams apply adaptive management practices to their work. Karri supported the SEEP Network with the update of the Minimum Economic Recovery Standards and serves as a Facilitator of the MERS Focal Point Program, and she is keen to see more collaboration between the private sector and the humanitarian community.
Jennifer Denomy is responsible for building capacity, developing strategic approaches, documenting best practices, mentoring staff and overseeing how vulnerable populations are included throughout MEDA’s programming. She collaborates to ensure that technical expertise in this area is shared across the organization. Jennifer has worked in international development and education for over twenty years. She has managed projects in Egypt, Morocco, Afghanistan, Uganda, Sri Lanka, El Salvador and Mongolia, focusing on financial inclusion, skills training and workplace improvement for young people. She has supported financial institutions on product development, client analysis and risk management. From 2009 to 2012, she was facilitator of the SEEP Network’s Youth Financial Services Practitioner Learning Program, a three year action research project that brought together four microfinance organizations to explore appropriate and accessible financial services for young people. Prior to joining MEDA, she worked as the pedagogical manager of a teacher training centre in Germany and a curriculum designer for BRAC's Non-formal Primary Education Program in Bangladesh. Jennifer holds an M.Ed. in International Development and Education from the University of Toronto and an M.A. from McGill University in Montreal.
Eileen Hoffman is an international economic development specialist with more than 15 years of experience designing and implementing programs focused on private sector competitiveness, entrepreneurship, workforce development, local economic development, and household economic strengthening. She is currently working at Chemonics as Director of Economic Growth and Trade Practice and is based in Washington.
Ladd currently serves as senior technical director for nutrition at ACDI/VOCA and has more than 28 years of international nutrition experience in developing countries, including in-depth field experience in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Darfur, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Iraq, Liberia, the Philippines, and Somalia. Ladd also has over 10 years of active participation in the Ag2nut global form, Global Nutrition Network, with knowledge of systems, partnerships, and connections with key donors including USAID, OFDA, Food for Peace, DFID, UNICEF, WFP, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hilton Foundation. Ladd holds a master’s in public health and nutrition from James Madison University and a bachelor’s in human nutrition from Oklahoma State University. She is also a registered dietitian/nutritionist.
Scott Merrill has over 10 years’ experience leading design, implementation, monitoring and results measurement of market systems programs worldwide. For most of this time, he focused on economic development and recovery as well as food security programs but more recently has begun exploring how to adopt market systems tools, methods, and approaches to “non- traditional” market systems including housing, shelter, and labor market systems.
Ms. Meyers is a Managing Associate at Nathan Associates, where she leads gender and women’s economic empowerment programming across Nathan’s portfolio of international projects. She recently undertook research for USAID on legal and regulatory barriers that affect women’s wage employment. The report includes analysis to understand how policies and regulations limit or enable women to enter, remain, and advance in the workforce, including restricting employment of women, requiring occupational licenses, addressing employment discrimination, prohibiting and addressing sexual harassment, and enabling parents to work. With over a decade of expertise in gender integration work across sectors, Ms. Meyers has led research on women’s role in cross border trade, addressing social norms in women’s financial inclusion, child, early, and forced marriage and the potential of impact sourcing to generate employment opportunities for vulnerable populations. Ms. Meyers facilitates the SEEP Women’s Economic Empowerment Working Group and chaired the Technical Advisory Committee for the 2017 Women’s Economic Empowerment Global Learning Forum in Bangkok, Thailand. She is also an experienced trainer and has facilitated gender integration trainings in the U.K. and across Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Persuasive Communication workshops for women entrepreneurs and workers. She has a BA from Brown University and an MSc with Distinction from The London School of Economics.
Ashleigh Mullinax has extensive experience designing and implementing knowledge management and organizational learning activities to further the reach of international development efforts. Throughout the last decade, she has successfully managed a diverse portfolio of projects and teams, emphasizing the timely delivery of high quality and creative deliverables. Through her work at the QED Group, the SEEP Network, and ACDI/VOCA, she has experience working with a variety of government and private international aid donors including USAID, USDA, and the MasterCard Foundation. She received her undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina and her Master’s Degree from the George Washington University in Anthropology with a concentration in International Development.
Chris Nicoletti leads iDE’s global measurement efforts, including rigorous impact evaluations, designing and implementing effective management information systems, and effectively communicating data and results. Chris has extensive experience carrying out both randomized and quasi-experimental impact evaluations, as well as model-based impact estimation, working on USAID, DFAT, World Bank, GAC, Sida, SDC, NZAid, Stone Family Foundation, World Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and MCC-funded programs in Central America, Africa, and Asia – among others. He honed his expertise on the socioeconomic impacts of water on household welfare and crop production while working on impact evaluations for NORC at the University of Chicago. In addition to his M.S. degree, Chris has a B.S. degree from Linfield College in Economics and Psychology. He enjoys skiing, climbing, cycling and traveling while residing in Boulder, Colorado.
Maryam Piracha has over seven years of technical and managerial experience in international development and the private sector. She is the Deputy Country Director for Market Development Facility Pakistan, a multi-country private sector development programme funded by the Australian Government which operates in Fiji, Timor-Leste, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea. Her core expertise includes strategy design, evidence-based program management, leveraging private sector under the umbrella of agriculture and non-agriculture sectors, integrating gender in challenging contexts and applying principles of market systems development to a diverse portfolio in a large developing economy. She is managing of over 50 business partnerships with overall program and team management responsibilities. Maryam has co-authored two papers on how to apply a Women’s Economic Framework in different contexts and on agency measurement in economic programming. Prior to the development sector, Maryam worked as a Commercial Finance Specialist for a leading multi-national company. Her academic background is in business and finance.
Raksha Vasudevan is a Managing Consultant with MarketShare Associates, supporting innovative economic development programming and results measurement. She brings a strong background in market system assessments, results measurement and adaptive management to MSA's Results Measurement & Evaluation and Economic Empowerment practice areas. Prior to joining MSA, Raksha worked at Pollen Group, a consulting firm based in East Africa that worked with Making Markets Work for the Poor (M4P)/market systems development programs in agriculture and financial inclusion, supporting them with market system research, program design, M&E and performance management. Before Pollen Group, Raksha worked in the humanitarian sector in West Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, as well as in management consulting in Canada. Raksha has a Master's in Development Studies, a Bachelor's degree in Commerce and is fluent in French and Tamil.
Harald Bekkers is the Director of Opportunities Unlimited B.V. He graduated from Wageningen University and Research in 1997. After completing a Ph.D. at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research on the role of business services in emerging Asian economies in 2005, he joined the Katalyst Market Systems Development (MSD) program in Bangladesh. There he led the Rural and Urban Services Division, active in 14 rural and urban sectors, and supported the development of a monitoring system that became one of the building blocks of the DCED Standard for Results Measurement. In 2008 Harald started his own consultancy business with a focus on strategy and design, management and HRD, and results measurement. Together with Hans Posthumus Consulting he launched two one-week training programs, on MSD and (advanced) results measurement. In 2011 Harald started the Market Development Facility (MDF) and led its expansion into a unique multi-country Facility, active in five countries in Asia and the Pacific. Here he championed a realistic interpretation of the MSD approach in thin markets (together with Marshall Bear in the Messiness Series). He also developed a new way of integrating Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) into strategy and partnership design, resulting in a portfolio with 85% of partnership relevant for WEE. MDF also broke new ground in using results for communications and influencing and in defining and monitoring systemic change. In 2018 Harald returned to consulting. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Benson is a Technical Coordinator with the Economic Recovery & Development Programme at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), South Sudan Country Programme, where he covers projects countrywide. Benson also doubles as the IRC South Sudan’s country Emergency Team Leader, supporting emergency responses countrywide. In South Sudan, Benson also Co-chairs the Agriculture Technical Working Group (ATWG), led by FAO and OCHA. He has over 10 years of experience in designing and implementing cash and voucher assistance (CVA), Agricultural Livelihoods and Value Chain and Markets Development, Enterprise Development and Employment (especially for women and youths’), and has worked with conflict, marginalized and disaster-affected communities in East Africa. Benson holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Project Planning and Management (PgdPPM), and a Bachelor of Science Honors Degree in Agricultural Engineering (BscAGE).
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