Suresh Babu is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, where as head of capacity strengthening, he has guided capacity development activities of regional and country programs. An agricultural economist with a Ph.D. from Iowa State University, he has engaged in policy research, capacity development and policy advocacy for more than 30 years in the Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Central Asia and other developing regions. His recent research has been on agricultural extension, nutritional policies and agricultural competitiveness. He is familiar with a range of context shaving coordinated IFPRI’s Southern Africa Food Security Program, Central Asia Program, the South Asia Initiative and its Policy Analysis and Advisory Network. Before joining IFPRI, as are search economist at Cornell University, he worked on nutrition. Dr. Babu has served or currently serves on the editorial boards of leading academic journals including, Food and Nutrition Bulletin, Food Security, Agricultural Economics Research Review and African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Vandana Chandra is a development policy analyst. At the World Bank, she worked on regional, country- and sector-specific policy solutions to challenges of economic growth, technological catch-up and job-creation. Her work on Africa and the Middle East seeded her interest in economic diversification, structural transformation and industrial policy in resource-rich countries. An economist with a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University, she began her career teaching at the University of Georgia. Her work focuses on how light manufacturing in selected African countries can compete with value chains from China and Vietnam. Recently, she worked on Morocco which is struggling to upgrade and hook-up with new global value chains to become an upper middle-income country. Her research on competitiveness was a pathway into the “how to” of technological catch up to leapfrog into new industries. She has taught in capacity building programs for government officials, private sector and consulting firms in Washington DC, and at training institutes in Kenya, Austria, United Arab Emirates (Arab Monetary Fund) and Kuwait (IMF Institute).

Mathew Tsamenyi is Professor of Management Practice in Accounting at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and also the Executive Director, CEIBS Africa. Before joining CEIBS, Mathew was Professor of Accounting at the Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, UK. He was the former President of the African Accounting and Finance Association and former chair of the British Accounting and Finance Association, special interest group on emerging economies. He is the co-founding editor of the Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies. Mathew has extensive research and consulting experience having worked on Ghana, Rwanda, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, Mauritius, Kenya and United Kingdom. He has consulted widely for various organizations including the African Development Bank looking at governance in Africa, Ashanti Goldfields Corporation in Ghana, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (Nuffic) and the Central Bank of Rwanda. He has delivered training courses in several countries including the UK, Hong Kong, Brazil, Singapore, UAE, Malaysia, Uganda and Ghana.

Vishnuprasad Nagadevara is an operational researcher. With a Ph.D. from Iowa State University in economics and operations research, he has researched on business analytics, specifically, data mining techniques and their applications, and on project management, supply chain management and information technology applications. He was a professor of quantitative methods and information systems at the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru and of operations management at the Woxsen School of Business in Hyderabad, India for two years. He has done research and consultancy on behalf of public and private enterprises. He has co-edited volumes of readings in public private partnership, business clusters, urban infrastructure and governance. The Project Management Institute of India has recognized his contributions to research, education, training and consultancy on project management. He currently teaches at several management schools in India: Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and Indian Institutes of Management at Bengaluru, Visakhapatnam, Udaipur and Shillong.

Fenton B. Sands is an advisor. An agricultural economist with a Ph.D. from Michigan State University, he began his career as an agricultural economist at the USDA. He then worked for the USAID for nearly three decades, heading its units on food policy, trade, private sector, and economic growth in the Washington office and serving in different capacities at various country missions including as mission director in Guyana. Since retiring in 2007, he has advised USAID missions in Guyana, Ghana and Malawi on policy and strategic planning. Following his father, an international agricultural expert, he grew up in Liberia, Nigeria and Sudan with schooling in Egypt and Switzerland. As a professional, his work has taken him to Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana and Guyana. Dr. Sands brings into training rich experience and understanding of a wide range of contexts and expertise in economic analysis, operational management, design of development programs and diplomacy.

Gopal Naik, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, was previously at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. An agricultural economist with a Ph.D. from the University of lllinois, he teaches graduate courses on public policy, research methodology and managerial economics. His research interests are rural and agriculture development focusing on public service delivery. He has participated in policy development and dialogue by serving on committees, such as, the high-level committee on employment guarantee, advisory committee of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and risk management committee of the Planning Commission. He has helped Karnataka Government in developing agri-business policy and on its agricultural market reforms. He is currently a member of the Advisory Committee on Commodity Derivatives of Securities and Exchange Board of India. He teaches in executive development programs and has organized programs for members of the Karnataka State Legislative Assembly, and for the parliamentary sub-committee on food and cocoa affairs of Ghana.

Ramesh is an expert in finance. With a Doctorate from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, specializing in finance, he began his career as a member of the Indian Economic Service. Professor Ramesh retired from the Indian Institute of Management Bengaluru, where he was associated its Center for Public Policy and he chaired the graduate program on public policy management. His research interests are in infrastructure, smart cities, industrial policy and banking. He teaches courses on public policy, regulation and public management. He has organized training for civil servants of Government of India and for senior managers of banks. He has engaged in policy development serving in committees of central and state governments. He has conducted studies for the Planning Commission and the Indian ministries of Industry, Urban Development and Finance. He served on the board of a public sector bank until recently, and is currently on the Board of New Delhi Municipal Council Smart City Corp. He likes mentoring technology startups and entrepreneurs.

Shashidhara Kolavalli is a development strategist. As a Senior Research Fellow, he managed International Food Policy Research Institute’s strategy support program in Ghana for more than a decade. He was previously a professor at the centre for management in agriculture of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India, and a principal scientist at the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Hyderabad, India. As an independent consultant, he worked in eastern and southern African countries. An agriculturaleconomist with a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, his research has encompassed user participation in the management of irrigation and forestry, dynamics of private firms in input supply systems and downstream activities, structural transformation and effectiveness of value chain interventions and market reforms, including extensive work on Ghana’s management of its cocoa sector. Having managed policy research and capacity development programs, he brings rich experience into organizing policy dialogues, training and orchestrating dialogue among stakeholders including government, private sector and development practitioners outside governments.