Our Team
Angela R. Hansen
Angela founded Food Systems Foresight in 2019 to help food system decision-makers to illuminate systems dynamics, spur social innovation, and ensure sustainable development. In her 20+ year advisory career, Angela has advised Heads of State, UN Executive Directors, Civil Society leaders and two World Food Prize Laureates.
Angela previously served as the CEO of GKI, a social enterprise advancing systems thinking, and as Partner and Director of Agriculture & Food Security at Dalberg, a global strategy firm.
Angela is completing her Ph.D. and lecturing at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town and is a contributing author to two books; Corporate Citizenship in Africa and Financial Inclusion in Africa.
Maria Paula Gomez
Maria brings over a decade of expertise in human-centered design and strategy consulting at the convergence of technology and international development, with a keen passion for climate change and food systems.
Specializing in agtech, financial inclusion and digital accessibility, she has spearheaded projects across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Notably, Maria led the development and operationalization of USAID's regional digital development portfolio in Southeast Asia where she fostered partnerships between UN Agencies, Tech Companies, and small businesses championing inclusiveness and safety within the evolving digital economy. Prior to her tenure at USAID, Maria served as a Senior Project Manager at Dalberg, a Global Strategy Firm.
Sarah Grinberg
Sarah is a food justice advocate and farm worker focused on building sustainable systems to support the challenges of food and economic insecurity. Her approach emphasizes the necessity of community engagement with a focus on local solutions.
Sarah’s career in technology, finance, and small business ownership provide a comprehensive perspective for her current work with Food Systems Foresight, along with developing projects linking agricultural cooperatives and mutual aid organizations in New York State.
Hazel Okech
Hazel Okech is a registered public health nutritionist with a sharp interest in food systems and the role they play in transforming the lives of local communities particularly in developing nations. She is passionate about the welfare of smallholder farming households and keen to support innovative research and development projects aimed at improving their livelihoods and nutritional status. Hazel previously worked with CIAT and brings experience working with communities across East Africa.
Eugenia Chung
Eugenia is a passionate food system thinker working in international health and nutrition with organizations like KOICA, Helen Keller Intl, and Vitamin Angels. She founded Global Food Bridge, a platform to connect multi-sectoral experts to foster healthier and more resilient food systems and leads BD: Bridging Through Devex, a study group for discourse and collaboration with international development experts. In her community of Baltimore, she coordinates a local food pantry and is most energized when tackling the complexity of food and health systems with realistic idealists.
Hlubikazi Jordan
Hlubi has worked in the HR space for over a decade with local and International experience with both agency and inhouse exposure. She has been privileged to work for global consulting firms specializing in talent acquisition, immigration consulting, and operations.
Hlubi is passionate about training and development, especially advising young people on career paths. Her areas of focus are diversity and inclusion, which has allowed her to work with people from multiple cultures and embrace different ways of working.
Dr. Keneilwe Munyai
Keneilwe is a human-centred design consultant working at the intersection of innovation, problem solving, organisational strategy. She helps clients meet human needs using insights from qualitative and qualitative research grounded in the realities of the African continent. She has experience in academia and the private, public, and social sectors and in multi-stakeholder participatory processes, collective efficiency, and complexity.
Keneilwe facilitates co-creation and participatory design approaches to wicked problems from her home-base in Cape Town, South Africa. There she also teaches transdisciplinary design at the Sustainability Institute at Stellenbosch University and human-centred design at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business and in the Health Sciences faculty.
Flavius Mihaies
Flavius is a sustainable development professional and cross-cultural facilitator who specializes in climate finance, innovation and entrepreneurship. He has advised the Global Environment Facility, the World Bank, and the West African Development Bank on co-financing strategies, stakeholder engagement, evaluation and innovation.
Flavius is passionate about connecting and facilitating dialogue across cultures, countries, and communities to help find solutions to urgent sustainable development challenges, such as infrastructure financing and community resilience through entrepreneurship and innovation.
Sarah Salem
Salem is a dynamic network leader driving regional food security and equitable food systems development. Specializing in systems thinking, Salem collaborates with individuals, organizations, and coalitions to fortify regional food landscapes. With a robust background encompassing policy, development, farming, start-ups, finance, and community organizing, Salem's transdisciplinary approach demonstrates a commitment to cultivating thriving communities.
Leveraging extensive leadership and facilitation experience, Salem has played pivotal roles in various stakeholder groups, contributing to the development and advocacy of effective food system policies. As the founder of the Hudson Valley Food Systems Coalition, Salem convenes and guides over 100 stakeholders to accomplish impactful cross-sector work.
Mae Bippart-Butler
Mae is an interdisciplinary researcher and systems thinker committed to improving food outcomes for people and the planet through place-based decision making. Mae comes to Food Systems Foresight with a passion for food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture. Prior to joining Food Systems Foresight, Mae worked in food-related public health outreach throughout the Americas, including Nicaragua and New York City.
Jeff Kangacha
Jeff is a Kenyan agriculturalist, social entrepreneurship enthusiast, technology optimist and fourth generation smallholder farmer. He is passionate about how emerging technologies can revolutionize the agri-food systems of developing economies.
Previously, Jeff worked in social entrepreneurship, impact investing, and development consulting focused on development of climate smart agricultural technologies in low and middle-income countries. Jeff co-founded an agritech startup and has served as a product development consultant where he conceptualized a digital platform to facilitate how farmers and agro-dealers access regenerative farm inputs.
Meredith Lobel
Meredith draws on 15 years of experience in human-centered design and strategy to design systems that unleash innovation and foster equity. She has a proven track record helping social innovators realize their visions and catalyze their growth.
Meredith began her food systems career investigating the social equity implications of agro-export models in Central America. She was then a general manager at the leading international social entrepreneurship non-profit, Ashoka. Following her MBA, Meredith pursued her passion for food at a start-up spun-out from the human-centered firm, IDEO. She more recently served as the Director of Innovation at High Start Group, driving the consulting firm's human-centered design practice.
Eilif
Ronning
Eilif is a geographer with a passion for agrobiodiversity, seed sovereignty, and inclusive sustainable development. He is a multilingual researcher and facilitator who has advised UN agencies, NGOs, foundations, and governments across four continents.
Prior to Food Systems Foresight, Eilif worked with the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation in Beijing. He previously led–and remains a trusted advisor to the Board of–a non-profit organization working towards socially and environmentally sustainable development in northern Haiti.
Esona Makinana
Esona is a social innovator and cross-cultural facilitator. He believes in leveraging HCD and the power of collaboration to empower those who remain invisible and less powerful to generate their own solutions and not defer to experts.
With over 5 years of experience co-creating & facilitating HCD learning experiences for public and private sector clients, as well as multilateral development actors.
Amaris Mercado
Amaris is a public health professional passionate about food policy, nutrition, and sustainable agriculture. Her expertise in health management and policy, as well as food studies from production to consumption, equips her with extensive experience in project management and customer success. Fluent in English and Spanish, Amaris actively participates in initiatives like the UN Zero Hunger Challenge and the World Food Forum, promoting inclusive, resilient food systems. She aims to leverage new technology and a global public health foundation to address food-related challenges worldwide.
María Cordero-Fernández
María is a rural development professional with a strong passion for socio-environmental justice in food systems. She believes in the importance of strengthening local capacities and supporting bottom-up initiatives as a catalyst for social transformation, challenging the dominant unsustainable paradigm of food systems.
María participated in action-research projects in Nicaragua, focusing on alternative development pathways in rural areas, and in Peru, with an emphasis on agrobiodiversity governance. As a fellow in the European Leadership Programme, María recently organized a conference on Just Transitions in Food Systems with a European focus.
Collaborating Alumni
Chase Keenan
Chase is a systems thinking and strategy consultant who specializes in the application of cutting edge techniques to help his clients solve some of the most complex challenges the world faces now, and will face this century. Through his work he has advised a variety of institutional partners, including the World Bank, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Government of Vietnam Ministry of Finance.
With extensive experience on food systems, climate change, and resilience planning, Chase brings perspectives from diverse fields to inform adaptive and forward looking strategies to help his client grapple with the problems they want to solve.
Sharon Chacha
Sharon is a food and nutrition professional working at the nexus of agriculture, nutrition, and grassroots community development. She is passionate about community-driven development and brings experience in resource mobilization and the implementation of nutrition sensitive interventions from farm-to-fork.
Through her work in Kenya with Food Security for Peace and Nutrition Africa (FSPN-Africa) and the HealthyDiets4Africa Consortium, Sharon aims to empower rural smallholder farmers by scaling up innovations among youth and women to usher in sustainable production, processing, and consumption of more nutritious diets.
Princess Uwawuike
Princess is a writer and researcher with a background in biology and journalism. She comes to Food Systems Foresight with a strong interest in words and the way they express what is true and concerning about healthy food and its distribution around the world. Princess is an advocate for food equity locally and globally.
Katia Galambos
Katia is a geographer and systems thinker focused on interrogating the ‘where’ and ‘why’ of food system conditions. She is curious about connections across scale - from the farm to the region to the world - and sees food systems as an avenue to more socially-responsible, climate-resilient futures. Katia has a keen interest in biodiversity and ecological sustainability and previously worked in conservation and environmental education.
Caitlin McNamara
Caitlin is a researcher in consumer psychology and communications. She comes to Food Systems Foresight with a passion for systems thinking, building a sustainable future, and reducing food waste and loss. She is an experienced social media manager and strategic communications specialist.
Melissa Benn
Melissa is an innovation and strategy consultant passionate about sustainable food systems in emerging markets. She is experienced in agricultural development, investment facilitation, livelihood diversification, and women's empowerment. She comes to Food Systems Foresight with international development experience in business development, strategy, and implementation as both a donor and an implementing partner, primarily in East and Southern Africa. Melissa is interested in a career helping to make food more inclusive, sustainable, and accessible around the world.
Levi Benjamin Clay Rokey
Levi is a researcher in sustainable food systems, he holds a keen interest in the intersection between agriculture, rural development, and youth. His past research focused on rural development policies supporting the permanency of beginning young farmers in rural areas.
Levi comes to Food Systems Foresight with over a decade of experience in research and analysis, project management, business development, and managing stakeholder relationships within the communications and public relations sectors. He also brings experience in youth empowerment, international development, and education both in Rwanda and South Korea.
Helena Jennifer Afordoanyi
Helena is a strategist inspired by the conceptualization and launch of new products who relishes the opportunity to churn ideas into reality. Her previous work in banking and finance and as a food business entrepreneur grounds her approach to product development which centers emerging economy consumers. She also brings experience in lean operations and frugal innovation.
Katie Collier
Katie is a researcher in cognitive science, choice and behavior, and a Fellow of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. She has a keen interest in the climate effects of industrial agriculture and potential multi-disciplinary policy solutions to improve climate resilience. Katie has worked as an advocate for fossil fuel divestment policy at the national and local levels.
Kristin Kessler, RDN
Kristin is a registered dietitian nutritionist and communications professional with a passion for equitable access. Influenced by her previous roles leading food access and nutrition programming at food pantries and the Food Bank For New York City, she approaches her work with humility and the belief that the solutions we seek to the challenges vexing our food systems can be found within the community if we listen.
Kristin has experience in nonprofits and social justice, healthcare, and direct nutrition services, as well as private sector food operations. This deep and varied experience allows her to bring a grounded perspective to her food systems work.
Juliette van Vliet
Juliette is a researcher with an academic background in International Development with a focus on social and environmental justice. She comes to Food Systems Foresight with a passion to advocate for the inclusion and recognition of local farmers’ knowledge in development initiatives in the Global South. Juliette’s past research focused on small-scale farmers’ perspectives and knowledge in sustainable food systems.
Jackson Stoller
Jackson is a researcher in public policy and finance. He comes to Food Systems Foresight with a passion for constructing sustainable agriculture systems and building safe and healthy communities. Prior to Food Systems Foresight, Jackson held public and private sector finance roles in the food and agriculture sector.
Stephanie Yoon
Stephanie is a researcher in marketing and cultural anthropology with a deep interest in reshaping people’s relationship with food. She sees food as an effective channel to bring lasting change to communities, and uses systems thinking to conceptualize, design and advocate for more resilient food practices.