Curt Reintsma is currently focusing his work on the intersection of international development and private sector investment in developing countries. He now serves as a Senior Partnerships Specialist with USAID’s Bureau for Food Security. One key area of specific focus is the coffee sector—Reintsma led the development of multiple public private alliances to address sustainability issues in the coffee sector, including coordinating USAID’s response to the Coffee Leaf Rust Crisis in Central America.

Reintsma previously served as a Senior Foreign Service Officer with USAID (he retired from Foreign Service in 2012). He was USAID’s Director for Donor Engagement from 2011-2012, and served as Mission Director in Malawi from 2006-2011, where he oversaw a $150 million portfolio of development activities in health, agriculture, education, democracy, and humanitarian assistance.

Reintsma has lived and worked a total of 18 years in Africa. Before Malawi, he was Director for Sudan Programs in Washington, and before that, held a variety of senior positions in Washington, including in the Africa Bureau and in Legislative and Public Affairs. Among many individual and team accomplishments, Reintsma served as one of the co- founders of the Global Development Alliance (GDA) initiative, and he led a team that started the Africa Food Security Initiative in the 1990s. Reintsma was awarded the Administrator’s Distinguished Career Service award in 2012, one of the Agency’s highest honors. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Reintsma directed agricultural projects in Africa and served for 4 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Indian Ocean islands.

Reintsma is a graduate of the Universities of Texas and Wisconsin, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Economics.

Elizabeth Teague serves as Environmental Performance Manager for Root Capital. Elizabeth leads Root Capital’s environmental and climate strategy, overseeing environmental due diligence, impact assessment, and program innovation. She holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Stephanie Daniels is Senior Program Director, Agriculture & Development at the Sustainable Food Lab, a global network of corporate, NGO and research leaders dedicated to scaling sustainability in mainstream food and agriculture. Stephanie leads partnerships in agricultural value chains and the Lab’s current work on living income and climate resilience in smallholder value chains. Her background is in ethical sourcing standards, supply chain management and inclusive business, with a focus on smallholder and tropical crops. She holds a B.S. Environmental Science and a M.A. International Development from Clark University and Organizational Management from Boston College.

Mark Lundy is a Senior Scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, CIAT, in Cali, Colombia. His work focuses on the role of market systems in reducing rural poverty including learning networks to increase capacities for enterprise development, the role of public agencies to promote market access and how to establish and sustain effective trading relationships between buyers and smallholder farmers. Emerging areas of work include understanding how market system interventions can contribute to climate resilient value chains, low-emissions development and sustainable food systems.

Mark is lead author of guides on rural enterprise development, the LINK method on inclusive business models and an active participant in multi-stakeholder forums focused on sustainability and smallholder inclusion. He holds a BA in International Affairs from American University as well as a MSc in Community and Regional Planning and a MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Laurence Jassogne is a systems agronomist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA – CGIAR) based in Kampala, Uganda. She coordinates research on coffee throughout the institute and is also strongly involved in the research on cocoa. Laurence is also the IITA contact point for the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security program of the CGIAR. Laurence holds a PhD in Natural and Agricultural Sciences from the University of Western Australia and an Msc. in Soil Conservation and Tropical and Sub-Tropical agriculture from the University of Leuven in Belgium.