Fiona Smith
Programme Director for the mAgri Programme
Fiona is the Director for the mAgri Programme and mFarmer Initiative. She founded the programme in 2009 and is responsible for the overall strategy and management of the programme and initiative.
Fiona joined the GSMA in 2007 and managed a number of rural connectivity projects with mobile operators across Bangladesh, India and East and Southern Africa.Prior to joining the GSMA, Fiona worked for Accenture as a management consultant within the Communication and High Technology division in the UK. While with Accenture, Fiona spent a year in Bangladesh consulting to Voluntary Service Overseas on a business partnership.
Previously she worked on development and education initiatives in Latin America and South East Asia. Fiona holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Psychology from the University of Stirling and was an Erasmus scholar at the University of Groningen, Netherlands.
Victoria Clause
mAgri Programme Coordinator
Victoria is the mAgri Programme Coordinator. She is responsible for organising the mAgri working groups and events, providing project management support to the team and coordinating communications plans and knowledge management process.
Victoria also helps to manage cross-programme initiatives within the GSMA Mobile for Development as a whole. Before joining the GSMA Victoria worked at the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation as Programme Officer organising ICT training programmes in Africa, the Pacific, Asia and the Caribbean. She has also previously worked in international TV distribution.
Victoria is originally from Kenya and has an MA in Social Anthropology from Edinburgh University.
Natalia Pshenichnaya
mAgri Business Development Manager
Natalia is the mAgri Business Development Manager. She is responsible for the provision of Technical Assistance to the applicants and grantees of mFarmer programme, implementation of Monitoring and Evaluation framework as well as gender equitability framework across the programme.
Natalia is also contributing to the knowledge management process and knowledge sharing with the wider range of stakeholders. Prior to working on mFarmer programme Natalia has managed a pilot agricultural helpline in Kenya. Before joining GSMA Natalia worked for a mobile network operator, specialising in VAS marketing and product development.
Natalia is originally from Russia and she has an MBA degree from University of Oxford and MA in Economics from St. Petersburg State University.
Amol Jadhav
Project Manager for the mFarmer Initiative
Amol is a Project Manager for the mFarmer Initiative. In this role he is responsible for supporting mFarmer projects across Sub-Saharan Africa with strategy advice around commercialisation, service design, business development and marketing.
Amol is originally from Houston, TX and earned his MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University where he focused his studies on entrepreneurship and new venture incubation at the BoP. Prior to that he served as a Micro Financing and Small Business Development Advisor with VSO in Uganda. Earlier in his career Amol held various Marketing and Business Development roles in the enterprise software industry.
Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman
mAgri Technical Programme Consultant
Ashraf is the mAgri Technical Programme Consultant, specialising in rural VAS design and development and working horizontally across all mAgri projects. Before joining mAgri, Ashraf was carrying out his new media consultancy for different international and local organisations in Bangladesh. Before that, Ashraf was the Head of Interactive for BBC Media Action, working on multiple ‘Media for development’ projects including the award-winning mEducation project BBC Janala.
Before joining the BBC World Service Trust, Ashraf was responsible for the day-to-day operations of Grameenphone’s (Telenor Bangladesh) mobile VAS team. He’s also worked in marketing and sales coordination for handset manufacturers Nokia and Sony Ericsson.
Ashraf graduated from the Institute of Business Administration from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh.
Michael Nkonu
mAgri Technical Programme Consultant
Michael is the mAgri Agriculture Programme Consultant and is driving agricultural content management strategy and delivery with all mAgri grantees. He specialises in market access, agriculture and rural development.
Prior to joining mAgri, Michael worked with Fairtrade for over 7 years in the position of Executive Director for Fairtrade Africa. He oversaw the establishment of institutional structures for Fairtrade across Africa and increased the number of smallholder farmers benefiting from fair trade conditions to over 1million by the end of 2012. Over the years, he worked with farmer based organisations, stakeholders such as NEPAD, Oxfam and KPMG and trading partners such as Sainsbury’s and Kraft Foods amongst others to provide technical support and improve trade for farmers across the African continent. Michael has also worked with CAB International, a bio-science organisation with several years of experience agricultural research as Development Communications Scientist supporting the use of ICTs in Agriculture in the early 2000s.
Michael is originally from Ghana, he holds an MSc degree in Agriculture, Food Security and Natural Resources Management from the University of Hohenheim, Germany; and an MA in Sustainability Leadership from Cambridge University, UK. He also holds a BSc in Agriculture Science from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.
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