Magatte Wade-Marchand:

Magatte is a motivated professional whose business development and marketing experience encompasses over eight years. From 2002 until 2004 she served as the Director of Business Development for Greenough Consulting Group, a leading consulting firm specializing in interim financial management services to VC firms and their portfolio companies. From 2003-2004 Magatte acted as the Sponsorship Chair for the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab. where she built strong relationships with leading tech corporations, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals searching for outstanding startup opportunities to support. Magatte’s passion are Fair Trade & sustainability practices: she helped Adina’s hibiscus growers co-ops obtain their Organic certification and is facilitating their Fair Trade certification process through partnerships with groups like ASNAPP (Agribusiness In Sustainable Natural African Plant Products) and the First Lady of Senegal’s health and education NGO, AES (Association Education Sante). Magatte is currently a board member of ASNAPP USA. She is also a current board member for Afropop Worldwide. Magatte is a founding director of WOW Investments, a social entrepreneurship fund investing in mostly women-owned and high potential businesses in Western Africa with a focus in Senegal and Mali. WOW Investments was selected by OXFAM as their first ever investment partner for their recently launched private sector initiative. In 2004 Magatte co-founded Adina For Life, Inc. Since the company’s inception she has served as the company’s President. Magatte holds a BS in International Business from Ecole Superieure de Gestion et de Commerce, France.

Anim Steel:

Anim manages BLAST (Building Local Agricultural Systems Today), The Food Project’s initiative to build a youth movement for sustainable agriculture and food justice. The BLAST initiative includes youth summits at major conferences, a fellowship for emerging leaders (the BLAST Cadre), and electronic resources such as the e-BLAST. During his time at The Food Project, Anim also supervised the launch of a catering business and co-founded the Real Food Challenge. Anim’s work at The Food Project is informed by his previous experiences in community development and higher education. Prior to joining The Food Project in October of 2002, Anim was a consultant with Economic Development Assistance Consortium (EDAC), where he helped community groups around the country plan and fund economic empowerment projects. At the Bowery Residents’ Committee in New York City, he created a job-training program for homeless adults. As an Assistant Director of Admissions at Williams College, he was in charge of expanding student of color recruitment. Anim holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. in Astrophysics and History from Williams College. In 1997, he completed a Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs. Born in Ghana, Anim grew up in both West Africa and Washington, DC.

Steve Gleissman:

After earning his doctorate in plant ecology at UC Santa Barbara, Steve spent 9 years in Latin America. He farmed coffee and vegetables in Costa Rica, ran a nursery in Guadalajara, Mexico, and taught and did research at a small college of tropical agriculture in Tabasco, Mexico. He was founding director of the UCSC Agroecology Program and teaches natural history, ethnobotany, and agroecology in the Department of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz. He occupies the Heller Endowed Chair of Agroecology at UCSC and has been a Kellogg Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. He is co-founder of the non-profit Community Agroecology Network, and current director of a residential sustainable living program on the UCSC campus known as the Program in Community and Agroecology. He has published extensively on traditional agriculture in Mexico, agroecology, and sustainable agriculture. His textbook Agroecology: Ecology of Sustainable Food System, is now in its second edition and appears in 4 languages. He leads short courses and training seminars in agroecology in many parts of the world. He has been doing research on the transition to organic and sustainable strawberry production systems for over 20 years. He also dry farms organic wine grapes and olives with his wife and son at their family ranch in Central California.