Archives

Ms. Mary Kenny

Mary Kenny is the Food Safety and Consumer Protection Officer at FAO’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, based in Budapest, Hungary. Having worked at FAO for 25 years, Mary manages the regional programme of work on food safety, responding to countries’ needs to develop policies and national food control systems; to strengthen value chain operators capacity to ensure food safety from farm to fork; and to support use and contribution to FAO/WHO scientific advice and the Codex Alimentarius food standards. Mary is also the Delivery Manager for FAO’s regional programme of work on Transforming food systems and facilitating market access and integration.

Focussing on the UN Food Systems Summit, and beyond, Mary is supporting FAO’s work in Europe and Central Asia, including direct support and advice to countries undertaking Member State Dialogues, the organization of independent dialogues, and supporting the regional UN Issue-based Coalition on Sustainable Food Systems.

Mary has worked extensively on projects and capacity development activities in most regions of the world. Assuring food safety requires a multi-disciplinary approach and working in partnerships, through her work, Mary engages with multiple national authorities, private sector and consumer groups and a range of UN agencies and international Organizations. Mary’s work includes a focus on policy coherence between the food safety arena and other national priorities and increasing an understanding of the role of food safety in achieving food and nutrition security.

Prior to joining FAO in 1995, Mary worked in the UK and Ireland where her responsibilities included food regulation and inspection, food law compliance, environmental pollution control and the assessment of standards in the private – rented housing sector. Mary’s educational background includes a Degree in Environmental Health Officer and a Masters in Food Science and Technology.

 

Dr. Meine Pieter van Dijk

Dr. Meine Pieter van Dijk is economist, em. professor of Water Services Management at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, visiting professor at the Beijing University for Civil Engineering and architecture, and em. professor of Urban management at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) and the Institute of Housing and Urban development Studies (IHS) of Erasmus University and currently works at the Maastricht School of Management (MSM).

He published 50 books and 300 professional articles. He worked on and in developing countries since 1973 as a consultant for NGOs, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, different bilateral donors and UN agencies. Recent books: with Nijhoff and De Boer (eds., 2021) Climate smart agriculture and water in the Global South Maastricht: MSM, with Fransen and Edelenbos (eds., 2021 Urban planning, management and governance in emerging economies, Paradigm shift; Cheltenham Edward Elgar, China friend or foe (in Dutch, Almere: Parthenon, 2020), with Yong Jiang (eds., 2019) Sustainable Water Management: Economics and Governance” (ISSN 2071-1050). special issue of Sustainability (MDPI), with J. Edelenbos (eds, 2017): Urban governance in the realm of complexity. London: Practical action.

Ms. Tülin Akın

Akın, the founder of TABIT Agricultural information and Communication Technologies Inc., was brought into action Turkey’s first communication, e-learning and e-trade media in agriculture field, established in 2004. By modeling the credit cards of farmers together with banks, she ensured the farmers to be able to access finance sources without having any loss. She visited around 12.000 villages in order to express these.

She founded Vodafone Farmers’ Club with Vodafone and started early warning informing in agriculture to give information and services for 1,4 million farmers and their families with special farmer applications. As of 2015, Vodafone Farmers’ Club business model was started to be implemented in India, Ghana, Kenya, New Zealand and Tanzania.

With the support of Intel, she ensured Farmer Computer software to be produced which allows each literate person to use and ask questions to experts regarding information, communication, marketing etc.

Currently, Akın is working in a village of Aydin in order to bring rural life to the future, by establishing an implementation area of intelligent agriculture Technologies which is Vodafone Smart Village where the farmers can see either farming or technology at the same place.

She studied at Akdeniz University (2003 – 2005) Department of Agricultural Marketing, Anadolu University (2006 – 2008) Faculty of Business Administration,  Bogaziçi University (2012 – 2013) also Micro MBA.

Akın still continues to develop different projects in order to increase the quality of life in rural areas, for the purposes of ensuring sustainable economic empowerment, accelerating the social development of farmers and their families. With such projects, it is aimed to bring together 742.000 farmers with Agriculture 4.0 technologies within 5 years and increase productivity in agriculture at an amount of 1,5 Billion USD.

She was awarded as Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year and nominated for the Nobel Prize in the field “Work for Peace”. Furthermore, she was chosen as an Ashoka Fellow in 2012.

Ms. Nardane Kuscu

Nardane Kuşçu was born in Turkey in 1954, among female farmers who were connected to nature intimately and became important woman role models to her. After continued working as primary school teacher for 42 years (retired in 1996), she continued her working life by giving trainings, individual or corporate consulting.

In 2002, she established Nar NLP with the aim to provide training and consultancy especially to children, families and institutions. She then established Nar Education and Consulting company, then in 2007 Narköy, an Organic Agriculture Farm, Ecological Hotel and Training Center, with the participation of all family members.

In accordance with the principles of Narköy ecosystem, minimum carbon and water footprint was established based on women’s farming as a facility compatible with nature. Since 2007, Nardane has been actively working with the public, local government, private sector, schools, universities and individuals, continuing to provide consultancy and sharing her knowledge on organic farming techniques etc.

As a woman entrepreneur, she participated in many conferences and received awards. She continues to work and cooperate on the protection and understanding of ancestral seeds and weeds, which are the original children of nature and on the establishment of intergenerational bridges and the transmission of knowledge in sustainable way. She has devoted her life to making women’s labor visible and to the continuation of the circular and social economy.

Ms. Meral Guzel

Meral Guzel is the Partnership Manager of Women’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator, a multi-partner initiative designed to improve women entrepreneurship around the world in collaboration with five United Nations agencies.

She has previously worked as the Women’s Empowerment Principle Specialist to establish WEPs Secretariat within UN Women. She founded and launched the Women’s Banking department of BNP Paribas TEB and also designed and managed several multi-country entrepreneurship programmes at the World Bank.

Meral has a wealth of experience in global development with 15 years of experience in programme and policy work on gender equality in collaboration with the private sector, financial institutions, governments, CSOs and institutional partners. Meral’s expertise includes women empowerment at the workplace, banking on women, financial inclusion (MSME development, remittances, access to finance) and women’s entrepreneurship.

Meral is an economist and holds Master’s degrees in High European Studies, International Finance and International Franchise and SME Development. She speaks Turkish, English, French and Spanish. She is the proud mother of three sons.

Mr. Ilia Tamarashvili

Mr.Ilia Tamarashvili currently serves as a Director of Rural Development Agency (RDA), under Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture.

The mission of the RDA is to develop rural areas of Georgia including the development of both agricultural and non-agricultural economic activities. The Agency has been implementing dozens of subsidy programs for over 8 years that are a critical attractive mechanism for investing in rural areas. Those programmes are represented as grants and subsidies covering annual interest rates of banking loans and therefore  decreasing interest rate financial pressure on farmers. This funding mechanism is the most economical in  the country. The Agency also creates a culture of agri-Insurance by covering part of the annual premium for farmers. As a whole, Agency has implemented programmes that attracted minimum 4 billion Georgian Lari investment in agriculture and rural activities and created a strong background for development of the whole value chain of thea. As a result, over 100 000 local population was employed due to the programmes implemented by RDA.

Ms Tamarashili hold different managerial positions for 18 years. He previously served as a Department Director of Sales, Lending and Learning in diverse leading Commercial Georgian Banks for 12 years.

He speaks Georgian, English and Russian fluently. He is married and is a father of one daughter and two boys.

Ms. Fatma Dirkes

Mrs. Dirkes is Vice President and Director International Advisory Services of Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Established in 1957 as German Bank Training Institute, the School has today one of the largest faculties for both business administration and financial research in Germany.

As Member of the Management Committee, Mrs. Dirkes is involved in the School’s executive decision-making process and is charged with developing the School, defining strategic objectives, risk management and ensuring the institution is moving towards fulfilling its goals and mission. Since the early 1990s, the Schools unit, International Advisory Services has been committed to providing consultancy, training and policy services globally. On behalf of various government agencies and development finance institutions (e.g. EU, EIB, EBRD, KFW, IFC/World Bank), International Advisory Services carries out financial sector development projects across the world.  By being responsible for the School International Executive Education Portfolio, Mrs. Dirkes has played a leading role in developing Frankfurt School’s blended and online learning portfolio.

Ms. Dirkes has also played a leading role in developing a number of large advisory projects and Rural and Agricultural Finance lending programs established by Frankfurt School. Among other projects, she worked as the Responsible Project Director of numerous successfully implemented Financial Sector projects for example the “EBRD – Turkey Agribusiness SME Financing Facility” and the “EBRD – Tajik Agricultural Finance Framework”. With her long-term experience she has excellent knowledge in designing and implementing innovative agricultural finance projects with a professional track-record of over 10 years.

Mrs. Dirkes is since January 2020 President and since 2017, Member of the Executive Committee of the Brussels based European Banking & Financial Services Training Association (EBTN). EBTN is the united voice of providers of vocational education and training in the financial industry and an international network of banking institutes. EBTN is open to organizations of various nationalities and has currently 43 Members.

Before joining Frankfurt School in 2003, Mrs. Dirkes has worked as Consultant and Auditor for Financial Institutions for Price Waterhouse Coopers and KPMG. Mrs. Dirkes holds a university degree in Business Administration and is fluent in German, Turkish and English.

Dr. Kalliopi Chalkou

Studied Biology at the University of Athens, Greece, holds a PhD in Applied and Environmental microbiology and has completed a Post Doc study in Microbial Biotechnology.

During her PhD studied, has been head of the accredited laboratory of University of Athens for GMO detection in foodstuff and completed several projects funded by European Community in cooperation with food and pharmaceutical industries.

She worked in Cretafarms SA (food industry) as Quality Control mgr, and joined Coca Cola Hellenic in 2009 as Quality Assurance & Quality Control mgr in different production plants. She is member of the Water Treatment and Microbiology networks of experts of CCHellenic, member of Global TCCC Microbiology Community and member of the technical committee of the International Fruit and vegetable juice Association (IFU). 

Dr. Nikolaos Thomaidis

Nikolaos S. Thomaidis is Professor of Analytical Chemistry in the Chemistry Department of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He leads a dedicated scientific group (TrAMS group), with constant research activity over the last 25 years. Prof. Thomaidis’ research interests focus on the development of cutting-edge HRMS methodologies for the thorough characterization of foods, but also of environmental and clinical samples, by applying both targeted and untargeted screening workflows.

Sophisticated chemometric tools have been developed, supporting data process and reliable evaluation of the results. Prof. Thomaidis lab has also established an accredited service laboratory according to ISO 17025, performing food analysis in line with European and International standards. His overall research activity is summed up to >250 articles, >8000 citations and a 50-h-index (Scopus ID: 6701846377). As principal investigator he has participated in several research projects, highly contributing to developing new methods and protocols in challenging authenticity and safety issues.

Dr. Phoebe Koundouri

She is a world-renowned environmental economics professor and global leader in sustainable development. She is widely recognized as a pioneer in innovative, human-centric, interdisciplinary systems for the sustainable interaction between nature, society, and the economy.

She is listed in the most-cited women economists in the world, with 15 published books and more than 450 published peer reviewed scientific papers, book chapters and reports. She is elected member of the World Academy of Art & Science, President-elect of the European Association of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists and she has received numerous international awards for academic excellence, including the prestigious European Research Council Synergy Grant (2020). With 100 European/Global research projects/initiatives and a team of 150 researchers, her work defines global policies and supports human well-being across the globe.

She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has taught at Cambridge, UCL, LSE, Reading University. Since 2006 she is professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), founder/director of the ReSEES Research Laboratory (AUEB), the Sustainable Development Unit (ATHENA Informatics Research and Innovation Center) and the Climate-KIC HUB Greece of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology .

She chairs the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network – Europe, the International Center for Research ICRE8 and the SAB of European Forest Institute. She is a commissioner of the global COVID-19 Lancet Commission, member of the Pissaridis Commission (10 year Greek Development Plan) and of the National Climate Change Committee of Greece, and an advisor to the EU, the World Bank, the UN, NATO, the WHO and other international organizations and governments worldwide.