Assistant Director General (External Relations), ICRISAT – International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics & Executive Director, Smart Food
Joanna began her career as an agricultural economist and later moved into market research in the agribusiness area. Since then she has worked in a wide variety of other marketing-related areas including strategic marketing, communications, fundraising, knowledge management, and uptake of scientific research.
She has worked for government, private industry and with nonprofit organizations (including four CGIAR agricultural research centers). As part of this she has lived and worked in India, Sri Lanka, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia and has 30 years professional experience.
Currently she also leads the global Smart Food movement which was selected in 2017 by USAID and the Australian government as one of the winning top 10 global food innovations. Smart Food is food defined as food that is good for you, planet and farmer. The movement targets diversifying staples across Asia and Africa to be able to have a major impact, and bring smart foods into mainstream.
She has a Bachelor of Economics, Graduate Diploma of Management, Professional Post Graduate Diploma of Marketing and a Master of Science (Global Marketing).
As founder of Smart Food, the vision is is a world where food is healthy, environmentally sustainable and contributes positively to the welfare of those who produce it especially the small holder farmer.
One key objective of Smart Food is to diversify staples – not with any food – but that which fit into the Smart Food criteria of being good for you, good for the planet and good for the farmer. We believe that by focusing on diversifying staples across Africa and Asia, typically 70% of the plate, we can make a big impact.
