Nicole Balliette
Catholic Relief Services
Director of Commodity and Supply Chain Management

Nicole Balliette oversees the CRS commodity and supply chain management unit, which is responsible for supporting the agency’s systems for proper planning, delivery, tracking and utilization of material resources, as well as accountability mechanisms to ensure strong stewardship.

In her more than 13 years with the agency, Ms. Balliette spent 11 of them abroad in Angola, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and Eastern Congo. She has served in the capacity of program manager, head of office, head of programs and country representative. In Eastern Congo she managed a particularly complex situation in North and South Kivu while overseeing health systems strengthening, HIV/AIDS, agriculture and water and sanitation programs. Ms. Balliette’s most recent position was as Haiti Earthquake Response Coordinator, in which capacity she helped to oversee CRS’ $200 million response to the Haiti Earthquake emergency.

Prior to her start with CRS, she worked for nearly four years in Mozambique as a program manager for a community development project, and she spent three months in Brazil as an intern for the Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE). Ms. Balliette received her B.A. in Communications and Media Studies from Fordham University and a Master of Science in Development Management from the American University School of International Service. She speaks Portuguese and French.

Ms. Balliette was raised in southern New Jersey, where much of her family still resides and where she can easily visit from her current home in Baltimore. After 15 years based abroad, she is happily using her spare time now to re-connect with her family and friends in the US.

Martijn Blansjaar
Oxfam Great Britain
Head of Logistics and Supply, International Division

Martijn Blansjaar started in humanitarian assistance with Medecins Sans Frontieres - Holland as all-round technician/logistician in their Uganda program in 1987. From there on he spent a good five years in the field, predominantly in East Africa working for MSF-Holland and others in logistics, various technical and project co-ordination positions and as Head of Mission. In 1994 he joined MSF-Holland HQ at Logistics Department for special assignments on pharmaceutical distribution programs, major emergencies and a review of food aid programs, which he combined with a study of integrated logistics management, continued in the late 1990s by undertaking an MBA. In 1997 Martijn became Coordinator for Technical Support and from March 2001 Director of Logistics in MSF-Holland. In November 2006, he joined the International Division of Oxfam GB as Head of Logistics and Supply in their headquarters in Oxford. Outside his regular jobs he has been active since 2003 in various aid-sector initiatives on the promotion and development of Humanitarian Logistics. He is a Board member of the HELIOS Foundation for supply chain, on the Executive Committee of the Humanitarian Logistics Association and sits on the Advisory Committee that works with Fritz Institute and the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport to develop and maintain a professional Certification for Humanitarian Logistics. Martijn has collaborated in research, curriculum development and as guest lecturer with various Universities including MIT (Zaragoza), Cranfield, USI Lugano, INSEAD and Hanken.

Robert de Souza, Ph.D.
The Logistics Institute - Asia Pacific
Executive Director and Chief Executive

Dr. Robert de Souza is the Executive Director and Chief Executive of The Logistics Institute – Asia Pacific. Prior to that, Dr. de Souza was Executive Vice President for V3 Systems in the Asia Pacific, Corporate Senior Vice President and Global Chief Knowledge Officer at Viewlocity Inc. and Vice Chairman and CEO of SC21 Pte. Ltd. Dr. de Souza is a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in USA and a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore. He has published extensively and is a member of the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing and the International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications and SMBNet.

He is a Chartered Engineer and serves on multiple industry, government and academic committees, including the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) on Transport, the Advisory Panel of The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Singapore (CILTS), the IDA RFID Alliance (now part of the National RFID Centre), the IBM Global University Partners Leadership Advisory Board. He received his Ph.D., M.Sc. and B.Sc. Honours in the United Kingdom.

Carmen DeSocio
Save The Children USA
Project Manager of Supply Chain Management

Mr. DeSocio is responsible for providing both strategic and tactical leadership to Save the Children regarding the selection, implementation, and support of Supply Chain Management system solutions. He joined Save the Children in June 2009 and has been collaborating closely with field, headquarters, IT, and senior management spanning Alliance members, gathering business requirements, evaluating software solutions, building the business case, and obtaining funding and approval for a supply chain systems pilot. He has been deployed to Haiti twice, working with local staff to develop and implement SCM system solutions and is now managing the strategic implementation and expansion of SCM systems in Ethiopia and other Save The Children countries. The current scope includes procurement, warehousing, and inventory management.

Mr. DeSocio has over 30 years of experience spanning both Information Systems Management and Supply Chain Management in the for-profit sector. He has over 17 years of systems implementation experience spanning custom, packaged, and ERP solutions (SAP) in the manufacturing sector. He has acquired an APICS Certification in Production & Inventory Management (CPIM) and has held several business management positions managing Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP), forecasting, demand management, supply management, customer service, and inventory management.

Mr. DeSocio holds a B.S. degree in Information Technology from Quinnipiac University and a Masters degree in Business Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He lives in Brookfield Connecticut with his two sons Brandon & Ryan. In his spare time he enjoys fishing, golfing, music, and cooking.

Peter French

Logistics Consultant in the Humanitarian and Private Sector

Peter French is a Consultant based in Kuala Lumpur, with many years of professional experience both in the Humanitarian World and in the Private Sector.

Beginning his career as a Commercial Trainee with CSR Co Ltd, Peter completed a B. Commerce at the University of Western Australia, then worked for CSR’s Economic Services Department in Sydney. A move to Elders Co Ltd in London, there becoming an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, brought extensive involvement in the world of international trade. Transferring from these large organisations to the Directorship of Nectar Pacific and the establishment of South West Chartering in Western Australia provided management experience in Austral-Asian shipping and logistics from the perspective of small and medium sized companies.

His Fifteen-Year Career with the United Nations/World Food Programme included roles as Chief of Transport in the Logistics Division based in Rome; Head of a large Public Private Partnership (Project Laser Beam); Deputy Regional Director for Asia based in Bangkok; Acting Country Director in Pakistan and East Timor; and senior positions in major humanitarian operations in Iraq, Indonesia, Myanmar, Mozambique, Sudan, Kenya and the SAHEL, with experience in many other Asian and African Countries.

Ian Heigh
Senior Logistics Advisor, IFRC Global Logistics Services
Director, Everywhere Humanitarian Response and Logistics Services

Ian has been involved in delivering international humanitarian assistance for over 20 major disasters since the mid 1990’s, working as a logistician and response manager, largely with the International Red Cross (IFRC) and the United Nations. This has been interspersed with a career in commercial logistics.

Outside of disaster operations, some notable achievements include managing a team to re-engineer the IFRC’s global supply chain, leading to the organisation winning the European Supply Chain Award for Excellence, and the award of best thesis when gaining his MSc in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Cranfield University.

For the last 4 years Ian has been working with Everywhere, a firm that that supports organizations involved in disaster preparedness and response, providing expertise to improve the impact of delivery of humanitarian assistance. The three main service pillars of Everywhere are operations and supply chain design, measurement and training. Services are delivered by specialist personnel, using dynamic project management tools and research methodologies that support results-oriented and relevant solutions.

Jonathan M. Jenkins
NYC Office of Emergency Management
Director of Logistics

Jonathan M. Jenkins is Director of Logistics at the NYC Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and Chair of the New York City – Citywide Logistics Committee and the New York City Urban Area Working Group Logistics Committee. He has served with the New York City government for nearly seven years. As Director of Logistics, Jonathan works to ensure that interagency and citywide logistics and planning needs are met via current planning and operational initiatives, including stockpiling, commodity distribution/mass feeding, staging, asset tracking/supply chain visibility, and emergency resource ordering. Additionally, Jonathan is an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Manager, leading OEM staff and other City, State, and Federal agencies and partners during emergencies to develop better situational reporting, streamlined resource requests processing, and efficient planning during such disasters or emergent situations in New York City. He has served as EOC Manager during Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irene, the Brooklyn tornadoes of 2010, and various other weather or planned events. Also, Jonathan led to completion a project to plan for and develop physical space for the New York City Logistics Center (LC), designed to handle resource management and movement control processes during large events or emergencies. Jonathan also represents New York City on the Port of New York/New Jersey Area Maritime Security Planning and Preparedness Subcommittee, of which he formerly chaired. Jonathan was detailed to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) during the 2007 Wildfires as a Special Planning Liaison to the Undersecretary of CalOES. Previous to NYC OEM, Jonathan worked as an Emergency Planning Consultant at the U.S. Congress – Senate Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness, and as an Emergency Management Consultant for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Headquarters and the U.S. Department of Defense. Jonathan holds dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Biotechnology and Biology from the University of Kentucky, and a Master of Arts degree in Forensic Psychology from Marymount University.

Abhas Jha
World Bank
Sector Manager for Transport, Urban and Disaster Risk Management - East Asia and the Pacific

Abhas Jha is Sector Manager, Transport, Urban and Disaster Risk Management, East Asia and the Pacific for the World Bank. In this capacity, he leads the transport, urban development and disaster risk management unit for East Asia and the Pacific for the World Bank. He is responsible for overall technical quality control of World Bank operations, strategic staffing and providing high quality knowledge and services in these sectors to Bank clients. Abhas’ core interests are smart cities, urban resilience and using open data for better service delivery. He has been with the World Bank since 2001, leading the Bank’s urban, housing and disaster risk management work in Turkey, Mexico, Jamaica and Peru as well as serving as the Regional Coordinator, Disaster Risk Management for Europe and Central Asia. Abhas has also served as Advisor to the World Bank Executive Director for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan on issues related to urban development, infrastructure and climate finance. He earlier served for 12 years in the Indian Administrative Service (the national senior civil service of India) in the Government of India ( in the Federal Ministry of Finance and earlier in the state of Bihar).

Abhas is the lead author of the World Bank publications “Safer Homes, Stronger Communities: A Handbook for Reconstructing after Disasters” (2010) and “Cities and Flooding: A Guide to Integrated Urban Flood Risk Management” (2012) and co- editor of “Building Urban Resilience: Principles, Tools and Practice” (2013) and “Safe, Strong and Resilient: A Strategic Policy Guide for Disaster Risk Management in East Asia and the Pacific” (2013).

Jonathan Lascher
Partners In Health
Haiti Program Manager

Jonathan Lascher is the Haiti Program Manager at Partners In Health (PIH). Since joining PIH in 2009, Jonathan has been responsible for managing programs and operations in Haiti. He helped manage the Haiti-based response efforts to the 2010 earthquake, coordinating emergency relief supplies, donated materials, and product distribution throughout PIH’s network of hospitals. Jonathan also managed PIH’s campaign to introduce the cholera vaccine in Haiti and oversaw the vaccination of nearly 50,000 people in the rural Lower Artibonite region. He also managed a partnership with the Abbott Fund to construct a production facility for peanut-based ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF). In addition to his work at PIH, Jonathan serves as Outreach Director for Hope Through Health (HTH), www.hthglobal.org, a health and social justice organization based in Togo, West Africa dedicated to ensuring access to health care. Before joining PIH, Jonathan served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Togo working with the community, local government, and HTH to open the region’s first community-based HIV/AIDS treatment center. Jonathan graduated from The George Washington University in 2005 with a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs and African Studies and a minor in Peace Studies.

William Matovu
Heifer International
Country Project Manager & East African Dairy Development Project (EADD)

William Matovu manages a dairy development value chain project (East African Dairy Development project -EADD) in Uganda. The project is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The first phase of the project works with 179,000 smallholder farmers in the 3 countries of East Africa – Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Across the project, William has innovated a number of approaches key of which is the Cluster approach in the dairy Value chain development, the processor led hub development approach and pioneered the raw milk market hub development approach. His work focuses on ensuring that smallholder farmers profitably participate in the dairy value chain.
With 14 years of experience working in the development sector, more so on food security and market access interventions for smallholders farmers, William previously worked with GOAL (an Irish based NGO) as a project manager for a Crisis Recovery Project in Northern Uganda, Irish Aid as district Liaison officer, Plan International as a Community Development Coordinator, Lutheran World Federation as a Research and Training Officer and UNDP as a Research Assistant. He also works as an Associate Consultant at the Uganda Management Institute.

William has published the following articles;

• Article in the East Africa Agribusiness magazine issue 02- September 2012 “ The start, collapse and revival of Uganda’s Dairy Industry”
• Article in the Agricultural Finance Yearbook, 2009, Bank of Uganda and Plan for modernization of agriculture, “Dairy Investments by smallholder farmers”
• Author, 2007, Gender mainstreaming strategy for the National Organic Agriculture Movement of Uganda

Banasopit Mekvichai, Ph.D.
University of Bangkok Metropolis
Vice President

Dr. Banasopit Mekvichai is Vice President of the University of Bangkok Metropolis, the first university in Thailand established by a local administrative authority. She is also Vice Chairperson of the Mekong Environment and Resource Institute Foundation as well as President of the Mekong Environment and Resource Institute,an independent research institute specializing in development of the Greater Mekong Region. She has worked and taught for over 20 years on urban and regional planning matters, including preparation of city and regional plans, urban redevelopment, urban environmental issues and city administration, and was recently Chair Professor of Housing and Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University. She served twice as Deputy Governor of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration: first from 1998 to 2000, overseeing Civil Works, City Planning, Community Development, and Administration, and again from 2006 to 2008, supervising Civil Works, City Planning, Drainage and Flood Control, and Environmental Matters, including waste management. She chaired the Committee for City Planning of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration while the city’s master plan was revised and approved. She also served as Member of the Subcommittee on Education and Housing of the Human Rights Commission. Dr. Banasopit was recently honored as Outstanding Government Scholarship Alumni. She regularly consults on urban and regional planning, urban renewal, indicators for livable cities, urban environmental planning and management, and other urban development matters.

Dato' Ahmad Faizal Mohd Perdaus, Ph.D.
MERCY Malaysia
President

Dato’ Dr Ahmad Faizal Mohd Perdaus currently works as a Consultant Physician (Internal Medicine, Respiratory & Sleep Medicine) at KPJ Johor Specialist Hospital. He was previously a Consultant Physician (Internal Medicine & Respiratory Medicine) at Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) where he concurrently served as a Senior Lecturer in Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, UKM.

He first joined MERCY Malaysia as a volunteer in 2003, and was elected to the current role as President in 2010 and re-elected in 2011 after acting in interim since August 2009. Prior to that he had served on MERCY Malaysia’s Executive Council (EXCO) since July 2003. He was the Head of Drug Rehabilitation and Assistance Programme in Malaysia from 2003 to 2006, and was involved in various local missions with the latest being in Johor in2011. His international missions include Sri Lanka (2003), Iran (2004), Sudan (2004, 2008), Indonesia (2005, 2006), Pakistan (2005) and Myanmar (2008). He currently sits on the boards of ICVA, HIF and ATHA and was recently elected as Vice Chair of ICVA in 2012.

He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, Australia from 2006 till 2009. He was awarded the Darjah Dato’ Paduka Mahkota (DPMP) by HRH Sultan of Perak in 2010. Dato’ Dr. Ahmad Faizal earned a Master’s degree in Internal Medicine (2000), Doctor of Medicine (1992) and Bachelor of Medical Science (1989) from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Igor Novykov
VirtuStores
Project Development Team Leader

Igor is a healthcare specialist with about 30 years of experience in curative medicine, healthcare, nutrition, and health supply chain projects; including projects in developing countries. He has ensured the implementation of multi-million-dollar humanitarian assistance projects onthe delivery of medical supplies and has expertise in the development and introduction of health and logistics management information systems for supply chain management. He has worked in different countries: Ukraine, Mauritania, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Currently, Igor is a Project Development Team Leader at VirtuStores, where he is leading a team of information technology experts on the development of an innovative logistics management information system for health supply chains. Before his work at VirtuStores, he was a Free Health Coordinator for UNICEFin Sierra Leonefor 2 years and worked on health supply chain operations to ensure countrywide distribution of pharmaceuticals for the Presidential Free Healthcare Initiative, by providing informational and policy support to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, and introducing an electronic logistics management information system (eLMIS). He was also a member of the country emergency response team during the epidemic of cholera in 2012.

Igors is a medical doctor, with studies of curative medicine and public health from the Donetsk State Medical University ‘M. Gorky’. He worked in Ukraine governmental healthcare institutions for about 12 years, until he joined Counterpart International as Project Director in 1999. Heoperated eLMIS for the distribution of pharmaceuticals for Counterpart International in Ukraine for 2 years. He later became the Country Representative forInternational Reliefand Developmentduring 2 years, where he introduced anoriginal epidemiological surveillance system and a network eLMIS. He continued working as a consultant and advisor in health projects in different organizations in countries like Ukraine, Somalia and Afghanistan. In 2006, he becameProject Coordinator of Comitato Collaborazione Medica in Ethiopia. There, he also helped with the coordination of emergency response on post-flood cholera outbreaks. In 2007, he became the Country Health Director/Chief of Party(setting up the country’s office) and laterCountry Representative/Program Manager forCounterpart International in South Sudan. He worked in Sudan for about 3 years until working with UNICEF in Sierra Leona.

He is 50 years old. His wife is a dental therapist, and they have one son, who has just completed his education in Canada, where he studied logistics and marketing. He and his family live permanently in Ukraine.

Kenji Ono, Ph.D.
Kyoto University
Professor, Disaster Prevention Research Institute

Kenji Ono. Male. Married. Born in Shiga Pref., Japan in 1954. Graduated from the post graduate course of Kyoto University in 1980 and Imperial Collage, London in 1989. Served for Ministry of Transport in 1980-1997; for Asian Development Bank in 1997-2000; for Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) in 2001-2011. Appointed to the director for the national and regional planning (infrastructure and disaster management) and the director, coastal disaster management division; and deputy director-general, Kinki Regional District Development Bureau of MLIT. Transferred to DPRI, Kyoto University in June 2012. B. Eng.(Transport), MSc (Soil Mechanics), Ph.D.

Heather Papowitz, MD,MPH
UNICEF's headquarters New York
Senior Advisor for Health-Emergencies and the Cholera Focal point in the Health Section

Dr. Heather Papowitz is the Senior Advisor for Health-Emergencies and the Cholera Focal point in the Health Section in UNICEF’s headquarters in New York.

Dr. Papowitz received her medical degree from The Chicago Medical School in North Chicago, Illinois and trained in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. She has a Masters of Public Health (MPH) focusing on International Health and Humanitarian Assistance and a Certificate in Tropical Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She has also completed Health Cluster Coordinator and United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) training. Before joining the UNICEF team in Headquarters, Dr. Papowitz was a Medical Officer in the WHO Health Action in Crises’ department of Risk Reduction and Emergency Preparedness. She worked on policy and technical guidance focused primarily on community-based interventions. Dr. Papowitz worked with the USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) in Washington DC as their Public Health Advisor providing emergency support to country operations globally and strategic guidance to OFDA supported health initiatives. Over the course of her career, she has lived and worked in locations such as Burundi, Guinea-Conakry and the South Caucasus and has provided technical assistance on health in emergencies in a variety of other countries globally with organizations such as WHO, American Red Cross, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and NGOs.

John Park, Ph.D.
Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation
Faculty

Dr. Park earned his master’s degree in Economics and his PhD in Supply Chain Management at Syracuse University. He is an Assistant Professor at Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (MISI) and a Research Affiliate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Dr. John Park’s research offers solutions for managing global supply chains that operate under volatile international financial markets, such as exchange-rate fluctuations. His aim is to provide the business community with new perspectives on how to manage risk and uncertainty. His interest also includes humanitarian supply chain related issues and teaches humanitarian logistics to the masters students at MISI while collaborating with UNHRD – Subang.

Jonas Stumpf
NUS Humanitarian Logistics Centre Asia Pacific
Program Director for the Kühne Foundation

Jonas Stumpf is Program Director for the Kühne Foundation – NUS Humanitarian Logistics Centre Asia Pacific. Prior to that, he was Project Manager at the Swiss based Kühne Foundation “Humanitarian and Emergency Logistics Program” (HELP) where he worked closely with various actors from the humanitarian sector such as UN, NGOs and local Governments in the Middle East and Africa to enhance their logistics capacity. He has obtained his M.Sc. in Logistics and International Management from the University of Mannheim and wrote his Master thesis on “Emergency Logistics – Fields of Improvements”. Before he joined the Kühne Foundation, he worked at the Logistics Development Unit of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). During that time, he was member of the Supply Chain Optimization and Training team conducting field studies and providing training courses at various WFP country offices in Italy, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. During the Haiti and Chile Earthquake relief operations in 2010 he was temporally deployed to WFP’s Augmented Logistics Intervention Team for Emergencies (ALITE) to coordinate support from private sector. In his current position, he is building up an education and research network in Asia Pacific with platform offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines

Tracy Tumlin Allardice
CARE
Commodity Tracking System Senior Project Lead

Tracy Allardice has been working with CARE periodically since 2009 on a variety of Supply Chain Management projects in both a volunteer and consultant capacity. In February of 2011, she joined the team to help manage the Commodity Tracking System development and implementation and in July of 2012 she joined CARE as an employee, leading the Commodity Tracking System Project. She is responsible for the strategic direction, development, implementation and support for this project. Prior to her work with CARE, Tracy worked with Project Resource Group, a niche consulting firm focused strategic resource development for NGOs, as a Development Analyst. This role provided the opportunity to bridge her experience in client relationship management, program management, technology and marketing in the private sector to mobilizing support for mission-driven organizations.

Tracy launched her career at UPS where she spent 11 years in consultative sales and marketing of supply chain related technology solutions. Through her professional experience she developed a deep understanding of complex business process challenges in and outside of the supply chain landscape. Upon leaving UPS, Tracy traveled through Asia and volunteered at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, she also worked at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

Tracy is an active member of her sailing club, having recently served at the Fundraising Chair, editor for the newsletter and on the Board of Governors. Tracy has an MBA from Georgia State University in the United States and a BS in Business from Berry College and is a Licensed United States Customs Broker.

Adrian van der Knaap
World Food Programme (WFP)
Chief of Transport and Deputy Director of the Logistics Division

Adrian van der Knaap is currently Chief of Transport and Deputy Director of the Logistics Division for World Food Programme (WFP). Previous positions in WFP include Head of Logistics in Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Angola and Sudan as well as Head of the Sub-Office in Gulu/Uganda and Juba/Sudan. From 2002 to 2006, he led the United Nations Joint Logistics Centre in Rome (the predecessor of the Logistics Cluster) with stints in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition to WFP, Adrian has worked as a Logistics Officer for MSF-Holland (Khartoum) and for Norwegian People’s Aid (South Sudan) as well as a Civil-Military Liaison Officer for UNHCR (Zaire) and for FAO’s Emergency Division (seconded by WFP). Prior to joining the humanitarian sector, he worked in banking and headhunting after studying law at the University of Amsterdam.

Ben Watkins
Kimetrica
Founder, Director Technical Services

Ben Watkins has been working on complex emergency and development issues for 20 years, mainly in Africa. A Kimetrica founder, Ben directs Kimetrica’s technical services (software development, research, and training). Taking advantage of expanding internet services across Africa and the developing world, Ben has coordinated the development of a suite of web-based software tools for the non-profit sector. The software includes tools for monitoring and evaluation, surveys, managing beneficiaries, controlling relief and development inputs through supply chain management tools, and software for disaster management. Ben has established a global team of survey experts and ensured that Kimetrica applies the best practices in survey design and implementation. Under Ben’s direction, Kimetrica has developed the capacity to deploy survey teams across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Before joining Kimetrica, Ben ran WFP’s Country Programme and Emergency Operation in Kenya. He has worked extensively in developing tools for famine early warning, rapid assessment and monitoring for various UN agencies and the World Bank. He has an MSc in Agricultural Economics from Oxford University. He speaks English, French, Italian and some Amharic.