Jury 2011

Professor of Business Administration, Director of the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, South Africa

Walter R. J. Baets is Director of the Graduate School of Business of the University of Cape Town, and Unesco Chair in Education for Social and Sustainable Entrepreneurship at Euromed Management, Marseille.  Before joining Euromed Management, he held academic positions in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.  He graduated in Econometrics and Operations Research at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and did postgraduate studies in Business Administration at Warwick Business School (UK).  He was awarded a PhD from the University of Warwick in Industrial and Business Studies and a Habilitation of Paul Cezanne University, Aix-Marseille III, France.

National Coordinator, GEF Small Grants Programme, Kenya

Ms. Nancy Chege is currently the National Coordinator of the Kenya GEF Small Grants Programme (GEF-SGP) of UNDP; a position she has held since 2006. Prior to joining the team at the GEF SGP, Nancy worked for a range of environmental organizations in the US and in Kenya; these include the Worldwatch Institute - WWI (US), The African Wildlife Foundation (US) the Green Belt Movement - GBM (Kenya) and the National Council of NGOs (Kenya). While at Worlwatch, Nancy published a few articles which were featured in the various WWI publications, and while at the GBM, she was fortunate to have been mentored by Prof. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Laureate. Nancy studied at Moravian college in Pennsylvania where she obtained a Bachelors degree in Biology and later obtained a Masters degree in Environmental Management at Duke University in North Carolina.

Executive Director, Women in Europe for a Common Future, based in the Netherlands

Sascha Gabizon, with an international business masters from ESCP/EAP France, developed the organisation WECF to become the major international network of women and environment organisations working for sustainable development and poverty reduction, feeding results into EU and United Nations policy processes.

Sascha Gabizon is the Executive Director of WECF Women in Europe for a Common Future, an international network on sustainable development, gender and environment. The WECF network counts 100 women’s and environment non-governmental organisations based in 40 countries. WECF operates from 3 offices in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Sascha Gabizon is overall responsible for all WECF sustainable development programmes which reach more than 35.000 local beneficiaries in the area of safe water supply and sanitation, safe renewable energy and chemical safety, and advocating for women’s economic and political empowerment.

Sascha Gabizon lived and worked in Spain, Netherlands, France, Germany, and the US and has long-term project experience in Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

She has published a large number of studies and articles.

Executive Director, Southern Africa Trust, Midrand, South Africa

Neville Gabriel is the founding executive director of the Southern Africa Trust, an independent regional agency that supports deeper and wider policy engagement between governments and non-state actors to overcome poverty in Southern Africa. He is also a trustee of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) based in Johannesburg and the African Forum on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) based in Harare, a member of the board of the Goedgedacht Forum for Social Reflection based in Cape Town, a senior fellow of the Synergos Institute based in New York, a member of the Africa Policy Advisory Board of Bono’s ONE campaign based in London, and a member of the founding steering committee of the African Grantmakers’ Network (AGN).

Before becoming the founding executive director of the Southern Africa Trust, Neville worked at Oxfam as its southern Africa regional media and advocacy coordinator and at the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), where he was part of the founding team of its Parliamentary Liaison Office in Cape Town, its first secretary for economic justice based in Pretoria, and later coordinator of its Justice and Peace Department also based in Pretoria.

He co-founded the Jubilee 2000 South Africa coalition for debt cancellation as part of the global Jubilee movement and served variously as its national secretary, national executive committee member, and spokesperson.

Neville was born in Durban, South Africa. He matriculated with distinction before completing a Bachelor of Social Sciences degree at the University of Cape Town. After a year’s retreat and community service in an impoverished rural village in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, he returned to study philosophy and religion at both the University of Natal and St Joseph’s Theological Institute concurrently, graduating with Honours in Social Sciences (cum laude) from the University of Natal.

Senior Lecturer Rhodes University: Grahamstown, South Africa (responsible for sustainability integration)

Having graduated with two M.Sc. degrees before completing her MBA, her professional experience has been in the corporate environment.  Until 2010, she was based in Johannesburg with South Africa’s ports authority head office, heading up the national department responsible for sustainability strategy development and implementation of these systems and initiatives at all commercial harbours.

She still consults part-time and has done work with UNEP, UNDP and various regional and international institutions especially on coastal/marine management, integration of sustainability in businesses, and managing environmental & sustainability risks and opportunities.

Instructor of International Studies and Economics, Marymount College, New York City, USA

Ellen Houston is an adjunct professor in the International Studies Department at Manhattanville College.  She has previously taught in the departments of Economics and International Studies at Marymount College/Manhattan, New York University and Rutgers State University. Her research interests include gender and development including work on impact of the financial crisis, and the effects of climate change on women’s well-being.  She has published work on international trade competitiveness and social policy, international migration and technological change and labour demand.  She has worked as a consultant for the United Nation in various capacities dealing with women’s issues, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), more recently on climate change and sustainable development lending her expertise as an employment expert to the SG High-level Panel on Global Sustainability and as a member of the working group on social dimensions of climate change.  Prior to her experience at the United Nations she worked as an economist in Washington DC for the International Centre for Research on Women and for the Economic Policy Institute.

National Coordinator, GEF Small Grants Programme, Rwanda

Laure Bitetera Kananura is the National Coordinator of the GEF Small Grants Programme at UNDP Rwanda since 2008. The programme supports local communities in their efforts to achieve more sustainable livelihoods and contribute to local and global environmental benefits.  She previously worked as lecturer at the National University of Rwanda where her research interests were related to natural resource management. Laure studied at the University of Burundi where she obtained a Bachelors degree in Biology. She later on obtained an MSc in Oceanography from the University of Quebec at Rimouski (Canada). She is an active member of several social organizations in her country, most of them aiming at women empowerment.

Corporate Partnerships Manager, Earthwatch, Oxford, UK

Paul Laird joined Earthwatch Institute (Europe) in November 2005 and works with Earthwatch’s corporate partners in the agriculture and forestry sectors, managing programmes with British American Tobacco and Syngenta in particular. As part of Earthwatch’s increasing focus on supporting organisational change in partner companies, these programmes raise awareness of the impacts and dependence of agricultural industries on biodiversity ecosystems, and build capacity to address those issues. Previously he worked with Sheffield Wildlife Trust, Living Earth Foundation, SOS Sahel International, the Kenyan Forest Department and the Forestry Commission.

Paul is a forester with an MSc in Environmental Management (London University, Distinction, 1995).  He has more than twenty years’ experience of managing forestry, agricultural and rural development projects in Africa, mainly with communities in challenging arid environments.  Projects and local organisations that he established in Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya continue to thrive and strengthen local capacity and resilience. The main focus of his career has been on sustainable natural resource management as a key strategy for rural livelihoods.

Partner, Hogan Lovells International LLP, London, UK

Richard is a partner in the London office of the law firm Hogan Lovells and is a member of their corporate finance group. Richard has practised law for almost 20 years and has extensive experience in corporate finance, domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, demergers, joint ventures and general corporate advisory work. He has worked on a very broad range of transactions in a wide variety of jurisdictions, particularly in the financial institutions, life sciences and industrials sectors and clients have included major international banks, insurers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, automotive and consumer goods manufacturers. Richard also regularly advises on corporate governance issues and often speaks at conferences and seminars on the topic.

Head, Environment Unit, Roberto Marinho Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Andrea Margit is the Environment Unit Head at Roberto Marinho Foundation (www.frm.org.br) where she leads a portfolio of educational projects, including: water and forest management, natural heritage, and sustainable cities. She has worked in conservation since 2002 in the fields of learning and communication. She was the Institutional Learning Director at Conservation International (www.conservation.org) in Virginia, U.S., from 2005 to 2008. She has also led CI's communication strategy in Brazil for over 3 years. Much of her field work is related to participatory planning, media relations, conservation awareness campaigns and training. Prior to joining CI, she worked in marketing and strategy at the credit card industry and consulting firms. She has a bachelor in Journalism, a specialization in Information Sciences at University of Paris II, and a master in Business Administration at Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo. Her current field of research is in cross-sector partnerships and social network analysis.

Programme Manager, Exxaro Chair in Business and Climate Change, Institute for Corporate Citizenship, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

Dr Godwell Nhamo is a Programme Manager for the Exxaro Chair in Business and Climate Change. The Chair is hosted by the Institute for Corporate Citizenship that falls within the College of Economic and Management Sciences (CEMS) at the University of South Africa (Unisa). Dr Nhamo holds a PhD from Rhodes University and did his postdoctoral work with the University of Witwatersrand (both in South Africa). Dr Nhamo has great interests in Low Carbon and Green Economy, Business and Climate Change; Global Change, Climate Policy Negotiation Regimes; as well as General Environmental Management and Policy. Some of Dr Nhamo’s current responsibilities are in teaching, research and training in the impact areas highlighted. Dr Nhamo has published widely across his areas of research interests. Dr Nhamo’s 2011 work includes a co-authored book entitled “Framework and Tools for Environmental Management in Africa”; an edited book to be launched before COP17 entitled ‘Green Economy and Climate Mitigation: Topics of Relevance to Africa’; another edited book under preparation involving more than 20 authors entitled “Breakthrough: Corporate South Africa in a Low Carbon and Green Economy”; one journal article and four book chapters all of which have addressed various components in the low carbon and green economy. The book ‘Breakthrough’ profiles ‘breakthrough’ low carbon and green economy initiatives from selected companies in South Africa. The book is due for publication in the second half of 2012.  Dr Nhamo has emerged as an international speaker in his impact areas. Currently Dr Nhamo is supervising five doctoral students working on various topics aligned to the green economy, global change, climate policy, climate change and the environment. His Chair also runs a multi-disciplinary Research Associate Programme that involves mentoring young academics within Unisa that are willing to mainstream green economy and climate change in their teaching and research.

Renewable Energy Advisor for East and Southern Africa, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, Kigali, Rwanda

Bert has worked in finance and enterprise development for more than 25 years in both advisory and management positions in East and Southern Africa, the Balkans, and the Netherlands. He has been involved in a wide range of capacity development programmes working with public and private sector actors on economic development, entrepreneurship training and coaching, market linkages, strategies for innovation, value chain development and market based solutions to poverty. Enterprise development and innovation are his passion which he is actively pursuing in his current position as Renewable Energy Advisor for East and Southern Africa, supporting the development and implementation of sustainable market based renewable energy programmes. Bert strongly believes that vibrant entrepreneurial societies are needed to reduce poverty sustainably.

Chief Executive Officer, Nexii, Cape Town, South Africa

Tamzin is widely regarded as creating the first social investment exchange in the world and has been a visionary leader for GreaterGood South Africa – an African online social development networking platform – and its related impact investment advisory business Greater Capital over the past 12 years. Qualified in Applied Psychology and Commerce, she has worked as a financially analyst as well as in private equity and venture capital investment banking in South Africa and internationally for more than twenty years.

She established GreaterCapital in 1997 as a social and impact investment advisory consultancy serving the development sector in South Africa. In 1999, she started The Funding Site, a web-enabled resource site for the development community and in 2004 founded the internationally acclaimed award winning social networking platform, GreaterGood South Africa Trust, a social profit organisation dedicated to utilizing 21st Century technology to facilitate indigenous philanthropy and performance based giving in South Africa.

Through GreaterGood Tamzin conceptualized and developed the South African Social Investment Exchange (SASIX) which was launched in June 2006, SASIX Financial – an impact investment fund in partnership with Cadiz Asset Management in 2007 and the South African Network for Impact Investing (SAII) in 2008 before handing over the reins of the GreaterGood Group to pursue the development of NeXii to leverage larger-scale private sector investment in social, environmental and development finance offerings. Tamzin has focused on promoting coherence and organization for maximum efficiencies in the impact investing sector and has continually sought to use the markets for greater social good and was awarded the GIBS Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2007 and appointed an Ashoka fellow in 2008.

Coordinator, Area of Gender Policies and Budgets, Equidad de Género, Mexico

Master and Bachelor’s Degree in Studies on International Relations, at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University of Mexico; UNAM, according to its initials in Spanish). She is also a Bachelor of Arts in Modern English Language and Literature, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature (FFyL), UNAM. She has studies in Lacanian Psychoanalysis, which she has practiced both in teaching as well as in the clinical field. She has specialized in public policies and development issues, with the use of the tool of gender budgets and the gender mainstreaming strategy, as well as the integral disaster risk management approach. In two occasions she has been a consultant for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and for a joint program between UNAM-World Bank. Currently she is the Coordinator of the Area of Gender Policies and Budgets in Equidad de Genero: Ciudadanía, Trabajo y Familia A.C. (Gender Equity: Citizenship, Work and Family A.C) a non-governmental organization, to mainstream gender perspective in public policies and budgets in different government levels (state and local), as well as in institutions. She is also the Coordinator of the Gender Budgets Training for the SUMA project in Mexico, a three year project for the political and economic empowerment of women, sponsored by the Fund for Gender Equality, UN Women.

Consultant, ENERGIA/ETC Foundation, Leusden, The Netherlands

Ms. Ana V Rogas has more than twelve years of experience working on environment and development issues, with a strong climate change background -with emphasis on international negotiations, national policies, their impacts on small-scale projects and community based mitigation and adaptation strategies. She graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor and Licenciatura degree in Law from the University of Costa Rica; her graduation thesis was “Legal and Institutional Framework of the Clean Development Mechanism.” While studying, she joined CEDARENA –a Costa Rican Environmental Law Center- in 1999, where she acquired an extensive experience working with community based projects, networking, and policy analysis. During this time Ms. Rojas engaged in a series of trainings on climate change policies and LULUCF opportunities in Latin America; she was also a Regional Consultant for FAO for the evaluation and analysis of the regional institutional and legal framework for forests and climate change in Central America. In 2003 she moved to the Netherlands to pursue her M.Sc. on Environmental Management, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University Amsterdam) and graduated with honors in 2004. Afterwards she joined Both ENDS’ Strategic Cooperation Unit; where she participated in the analysis on synergies between international environmental policies and the inception of adaptation strategies in South East Asia. Ms. Rojas is currently a consultant at ETC Foundation and for the past five years has provided support to ENERGIA –the International Network on Gender an Sustainable Energy- network members on the topic of climate change adaptation and mitigation activities and coordinates the network’s advocacy activities at the UNFCCC negotiation process. Furthermore, Ms Rojas provides technical support to the network’s activities on international policy advocacy, gender audits of energy policies, technical advice to energy projects, training of trainers and practitioners, research and case study development, network building and knowledge management in Asia.

Senior Adviser on Community-based Initiatives, UNDP, New York City, USA

Sarah Timpson currently serves as Senior Adviser to UNDP on Community-based Initiatives, working with several UNDP programmes, which support community action, including the Community Water Initiative and the Equator Initiative, where she chairs the Technical Advisory Committee. Prior to this, she managed the UNDP/Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme (SGP). She has also served as a consultant in the evaluation of Conservation International’s Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Global Conservation Fund (GCF).

In the course of a long career with UNDP, Ms Timpson has been a leader and manager of UNDP efforts to reorient its policies and programmes to focus on people-centred development, environmental sustainability, participation and equity. She has managed UNDP offices in developing countries and served in senior policy-making positions at UNDP headquarters, including as head of the Social Development Division and Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Development Policy, and established the NGO Division, spearheading UNDP’s outreach to civil society, as well as the interregional programme for the Promotion of the Role of Women in Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation (PROWWESS). Ms Timpson is a member of the Board of the South North Development Initiative and of the Global Rainwater Harvesting Collective, and has served as Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of RARE Conservation.

President, Development Alternatives Group, Delhi, India

As a President of the Development Alternatives Group, an India-based NGO, Mr Varughese has co-ordinated or actively participated in nearly all the assignments undertaken by the group. He has conceptualised and spearheaded several of the organisation’s major initiatives, including the Community Led Environment Action Network (CLEAN-India), Corporate Environment and Social Responsibility, Development Alternatives Information Network (DAINET), and the Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) Programmes. Outside Development Alternatives, he has worked in the construction industry and academia.

George Varughese is a member of several international and national governing bodies, advisory panels and working groups on environment and development issues, including the World Bank Community Development Carbon Fund (CDCF), the Global Water Partnership (GWP), UNEP Global Environment Outlook (GEO), IUCN, the Planning Commission and various ministries of the Government of India. He has spearheaded several NGO initiatives, such as the Credibility Alliance nationally, and the Regional and International Networking Group (RING).

Regional Manager East Africa Office, GVEP International, Nairobi, Kenya

James Wakaba is an engineer by profession with 20 years industry and management experience.  He spent 10 years working with organizations such as Unilever and Magadi Soda as an engineering and projects manager years before joining the energy sector ten years ago. He spent the first five of those working in energy efficiency as a consultant doing energy audits, energy policy consultancy, training and project management for a GEF/UNDP funded project at the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM). He helped set up a centre of energy efficiency and conservation at the KAM and develop a curriculum for energy manager training at Masters degree level at the University of Nairobi. He was part of the team that attempted to set up an ESCO in Kenya, which still operates as an energy efficiency consultancy to date. He then worked as a consultant on renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate change. Before his current posting, James headed a programme to introduce standards for energy efficiency in appliances in Uganda. He is currently working to increase energy access to rural and peri-urban poor in various African countries. James’ areas of interest are energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate change, and project finance. He has worked on energy projects ranging from community biomass substitution, industrial energy efficiency to power generation throughout Africa.