Dalhousie University

University of Guelph

Regional Program Manager and Market Systems Adviser

Skills: Non-profit Fund Development · Program Implementation · Agriculture · Business Development · Access to Finance · Adaptive Management · Economics · Financial Oversight · Organizational Development · Food Systems · Agribusiness · Negotiation · English · Team Management · Natural Resource Management

Helvetas

Country Director

In this position I managed a regional project based in Hanoi, Vietnam and covering Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar.  The program applies market systems thinking to trade in food and cosmetics products in the three target countries.  Key responsibilities included general oversight of the project, developing competent national country teams and coaching and guiding the project's strategic development.  Management of this complex project requires extensive coordination across internal organizational boundaries and between different donor country programs.

Regional Manager

In mid-2013, I moved from Georgia to Bosnia and Herzegovina to take on a struggling multi-sectoral private sector development project covering the food processing, IT, tourism and tradable services sectors with a team of 19 local staff and co-facilitators.  Under my leadership, the project was recognized for innovation and for achieving large scale, sustainable results by the donor and by external sources such as BEAM Exchange.  Particularly successful interventions were developed in the IT sector and disaster risk management as a tool to boost private sector growth, as described in case studies published on my profile.

Project Manager and Country Representative

Starting in late 2011, I managed a livestock-focused market systems development project in Kakheti region of eastern Georgia.  Key responsibilities included strategic guidance of the project, staff capacity building, guiding market analysis, and managing relationships with stakeholders from government and international organizations.  An additional responsibility was to lead implementation of a monitoring and evaluation system that complies with Donor Committee on Enterprise Development standards.  In addition to targets for sector growth and poverty reduction, the project worked extensively to improve disaster and climate change and disaster resilience in this semi-arid region, applying tools such as CRiSTAL and the Hyogo framework.

International Team Leader

After leading design and acquisition of the project, I managed of a team of 19 to implement an innovative program assisting rice millers and farmers to adapt to price volatility and increase their resilience.  The project incentivized rice millers to organize and support farmers’ groups with advice, credit and other embedded services in return for support to improve milled rice recovery and product quality and safety.  Responsibilities included general project management, strategic guidance of project activities and maintaining strong relationships between government, multiple project partners and the donor (EC).  The model developed by the project was highly successful, and has since been incorporated into other donor initiatives in Lao PDR.

Helvetas, Swiss Association for International Cooperation

Chief Technical Advisor

In my first international posting, I worked as a technical advisor to a project of seven people, providing technical assistance on marketing and providing backstopping for value-chain development activities in the organic agriculture sector.   Additional responsibilities included management support, facilitating planning activities, project controlling, and government relations at the national, provincial and district level.  At this time I also worked as a private consultant for the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, where I delivered a project design for implementation of Good Agricultural Practices and participated in meetings of ASEAN GAP.

Project Advisor

After completing projects for the CHC, I became acting Vice-President and manager of the Ontario Produce Marketing Association (OPMA), a not-for-profit association of fresh produce industry companies and retailers which employed 5 people.  In this position, I spent 50% of my time on government relations, lobbying and nutrition promotion programs for the food trade and retail sector.  OPMA contributed the remaining 50% of my time to the Canadian Horticultural Council to work on a package of regulatory reform projects targeting the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).  These projects led to increased availability of market information, reformed agricultural product standards and improved the business environment for national and international trade in fresh food products.

Ontario Produce Marketing Association

Acting Vice President

After graduation from my MBA/JD, I worked as a project manager for a national association of agricultural producer groups, working on projects dealing with international trade, NAFTA mandated commercial arbitration and agricultural risk management.  I also acted as the horticulture industry representative to the North American Plant Protection Organization (NAPPO) and facilitated the Canadian Plant Protection Advisory Committee (CPPAC).  The most important achievement during this assignment was creation of the first project proposal to receive funding from the Canadian government’s Private Sector Risk Management Partnerships funding program.

Andrew Wilson