Speakers

Scaling UP

Global Policy

Lauren Baker

A systems thinker, skilled facilitator, and practical problem-solver, Lauren has worked for over 20 years in non-profit, government, academic, business, and philanthropic contexts.

Lauren is Deputy Director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. With Global Alliance members and partners, Lauren leads the program strategy and supports diverse organizations and initiatives including the True Cost Accounting Accelerator, Transformational Investing in Food Systems, and the Agroecology Coalition, to address global challenges related to climate, biodiversity, food security, and equity.

Paula Daniels

Paula is Co-founder, Chief of What’s Next, and Founding Chair of the Center for Good Food Purchasing, a social enterprise non-profit founded in July of 2015 as a national spin-off from the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, which Paula founded in 2011.

After decades as a successful private sector attorney, Paula transitioned to a full time role in the public and social sectors. Her areas of leadership are in environmental food and water policy.

Private Sector

Martine van Weelden

Martine is a Director at the Coalition, responsible for the successful application of capitals thinking in the business sector within the scope of the TEEBAgriFood project. She has over 10 years of experience in the field of sustainability, ecosystem services and natural capital.

Prior to her appointment at the Capitals Coalition, Martine worked for the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP). She chairs the ESP Sectoral Working Group ES in Business.

Her background is in cultural anthropology and she mastered in organisational anthropology in 2006, linking sustainable practices with culture.

Priya Motupalli

Dr. Priya Motupalli is a programme manager at the IKEA Foundation where she develops and manages partnerships that enable inclusive, regenerative, and circular food systems. Her prior experience has been varied—but always focused on delivering positive outcomes for people, planet, and animals.

She developed and supported the implementation of the first holistic sustainable agriculture strategy for the IKEA business, lived in steel-toed boots while conducting on-farm assessments during her time in the non-profit sector, and attempted to further our understanding of farmed animal behaviour while in academia. You can generally find her misidentifying woodland birds or baking snickerdoodles.

Scaling OUT

Research and Methods

Adele Jones

Adele has been working with the Sustainable Farming Trust since 2013, now overseeing the organisation’s strategic activities. In recent years, one of her major focuses has been the development of a project called the Global Farm Metric – an internationally common framework for measuring on-farm sustainability. She is also currently an advisor to the Scottish Government.

In 2020, she undertook a part time secondment with the Welsh Government, and in 2019 she completed a part-time secondment with DEFRA, both times working to develop metrics for monitoring the new post-Brexit farm support schemes. Previous to these roles, she has a background in geography and soil science.

Salman Hussein

Dr. Salman Hussain is Coordinator for The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) and Head of the Economics of Nature Unit, at the Biodiversity and Land Branch of UNEP. He was a contributing author to the TEEB reports launched in 2010.

He joined UN Environment in 2014. Since then, TEEB has developed the highly innovative and influential Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgriFood) work stream, in collaboration with inter alia the FAO, the CGIAR network the Natural Capital Coalition. TEEB is also co-implementing - with the UN Statistical Division - the application of macro accounting, i.e. the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EEA).

Claire van den Broek

Claire is the Managing Director of True Price, a Ditch Social enterprise, as of February 2024. As Managing Director Claire and the team are focussing their efforts on delivering the vision of the organisation, a world where all products are sold for their true price to enable a sustainable global economy.

Claire has a diverse track record in several commercial and non-profit roles in different businesses and organisations such as Ahold Delhaize, KPN and Save the Children.

Finance and Investment

Rex Raimond

Tim Crosby

Tim Crosby is Principal of the Thread Fund, which focuses on investing multiple forms of capital to generate social and environmental returns alongside financial returns.

Additionally Tim is a Steering Committee Member of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, Member Agroecology Fund, Chair Transformational Investing in Food Systems (TIFS) Initiative, Member Seattle Impact Investing Group, and Board Member of Center for Inclusive Entrepreneurship.

Tim's previous work includes Co-Chair for the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders, Director of Slow Money Northwest, and fifteen years as a professional photographer and graphic designer. Tim holds an MBA in Sustainable Business from Presidio University and a BA in Anthropology from Kenyon College.

Scaling DEEP

Aligning Forces

Amanda Jekums

Amanda coordinates multiple program areas at the Global Alliance, with a focus on identifying and enhancing systemic opportunities and outcomes across program and project work. Her diverse education and expertise – which spans across nutrition, food systems, policy, economics, and visualization – allows her to naturally find creative solutions to complex issues.

In her early days at the Global Alliance she led our work on to develop a True Cost Accounting implementation guidance framework, and the framework continues to inform and inspire her approach which focuses on the intersections of agriculture, health, climate, and livelihoods.

Amanda is a resourceful strategist, with over 15 years of experience accelerating the work of public and non-profit institutions.

Oliver Oliveros

Oliver Oliveros is the Coordinator of the Agroecology Coalition and Head of the Coalition Secretariat. Prior to this, he was the Deputy Director, Partnerships and International Relations at Agropolis Fondation based in Montpellier, France.

He has previously worked at DURAS, the Secretariat of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) in FAO in Rome, promoting dialogue and partnerships between scientific and civil society communities.

Before coming to Europe in 1999, Oliver worked for five years at the Ministry of Socio-economic Planning in Manila. He studied Human Ecology at the University of the Philippines and Management for Non-Profit at John Cabot University in Rome. He also attended the Geography program at Université Paul (Montpellier 3).

Swati Renduchintala

Swati Renduchintala has been one of the key people working in Andhra Pradesh’s Community-Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) movement since its early days.

Swati is currently an Associate Scientist with World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) deployed at APCNF. As you will hear in our conversation, her work includes looking at complex issues through systemic lenses, in particular changes in food systems. She is also pursuing her PhD from Bangor University, in Systems Thinking for Food Systems through Agroecology.

Communications and Advocacy

Urvashi Rangan

Urvashi is the Chief Scientific Advisor for the GRACE Communications Foundation. As an environmental health scientist and toxicologist, Urvashi specializes in scientific investigation, policy analysis, and risk/benefit communication around food safety and sustainability.

She is the former Director of consumer safety and sustainability for Consumers Union, the policy and action arm of Consumers Reports.

In addition to frequently appearing on major news outlets, she also testifies to government bodies, given lectures at various universities and conferences, and directly challenged critics of a sustainable food system.

Tom Philpott

Tom Philpott is a senior research associate at the Center for a Livable Future (Johns Hopkins University). He is the former food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones (2011-2022) and food editor and columnist at Grist (2006-2011).

His 2020 book Perilous Bounty was named an “editor’s pick” by by The New York Times Book Review and shortlisted for a New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. It came out in paperback in June 2022. Perilous Bounty has received in-depth reviews in The New York Times Book Review and The New York Review of Books.