Marco Ferroni is the Chair of the CGIAR System Board and currently advises public, private, and social sector partners on agriculture, food systems and sustainable productivity growth. He also serves on the board of the Global Institute for Food Security at the University of Saskatchewan and recently completed terms as an Adjunct Professor at McGill University. 

Hugo Campos serves as Research Director at the International Potato Center (CIP) and principal investigator for SweetGAINS, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation investment for modernizing sweetpotato breeding operations in Africa. He has +25 years of international experience focused primarily on molecular breeding to deliver market-driven, superior varieties. 

Hale Ann Tufan is associate director for the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement, co-director of the Gender Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) project. She is a research professor in the Department of Global Development and an adjunct faculty member of Plant Breeding and Genetics section at Cornell University. 

Bram Govaerts is Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Director General for Research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. He also services as director of CIMMYT’s Integrated Development Program, a regional representative for the Americas, and country representative for Mexico. 

Graham Thiele is Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB). He has worked for this CIP in evolving roles for over 25 years and helped develop, implement, and assess several novel participatory methodologies designed to link farmers with markets, inform research agendas, and promote innovation in policies, products, and technology uptake.  

Lauren Landis is Representative and Country Director for Kenya at the World Food Programme. She has spent most of her career working in the field of relief and development including posts with OCHA, Save the Children, the US State Department. In 2011, she became the Director of the World Food Programme Geneva Office. 

Vivienne Anthony is the Senior Scientific Advisor for the Syngenta Foundation’s Demand-Led Breeding program. She was Head of Crop Enhancement Research at Zeneca, and Global Head of Crop Protection Product Development & Regulatory Affairs for Seeds and Biotechnology at Syngenta. She spent her early research years in fungicide invention and is a named inventor on over 25 patents.  

Mary Ann Sayoc is the Public Affairs Lead for the East-West Seed Group. She was a member of the Executive Board of the Global Crop Diversity Trust from 2013-2019 and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the International Seed Federation. 

Jonas Nwankwo is Chief Agricultural Economist for the African Development Bank and coordinator of the multinational “Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation” program currently operating in ten African countries. Through his career, Nwankwo has numerous collaborations with CGIAR-led projects to improve resilience and agricultural productivity in Africa. 

Barbara Wells is the Director General of the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru.  She has over 30 years of experience in developing commercial, technical and regulatory strategies for the launch of conventional seed and seedling products and products of renewable energy, crop protection and plant technology in agricultural and forestry markets throughout the world.