2009 Conference Speakers, Presenters, Facilitators

Richard Beattie – President, CAIDC and Conference Chair

Richard Beattie is a former director at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) who retired from the Canadian Government in 2002. During his career, Richard occupied a number of positions in CIDA headquarters and was also Head of Aid in Ghana 1995-8.  He is now working as an independent consultant providing services to a variety of agencies and institutions, in capacity-building, institutional and policy development, governance, management and youth policy and programs.  From 2004 to 2008, he worked as an adviser to several Central European ‘emerging donors’, helping them to put in place the structures, policies, program management arrangements and processes they need in order to manage their ODA programs.  He has served as Chair of the Board of CAIDC since November 2008 and has served as a member or Chair of several NGO boards.

John Reed – Keynote Speaker 

John Reed joined the Office of the Auditor General of Canada in 1996 and has extensive experience in leading performance audits and managing entity relations in a number of federal departments. He is currently the Principal responsible for National Defence and also for Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Mr. Reed spent many years leading audits of environmental programs and sustainable development strategies for the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Mr. Reed also led the Office’s international environmental auditing-related work, including leading the Working Group on Environmental Auditing of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. Most recently, he led the audit of CIDA and aid effectiveness that was tabled in the House of Commons in November 2009. 

Prior to joining the Office, Mr. Reed spent more than a decade in environmental positions in the petroleum industry, with wide ranging responsibilities related to regulatory and public policy development, strategic environmental planning, risk communication, issues management, and environmental auditing. Mr. Reed also spent three years with the federal government as the lead negotiator for the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Layer Protection.

Mr. Reed has extensive international experience and has been active in many external organizations including within the United Nations system and the International Standards Organization (ISO).

He holds an Honours Bachelor of Environmental Studies (1982) from the University of Waterloo and a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University (1984).

Ian Smillie – Keynote Speaker

Architect and leader in the Kimberley Process, Canadian development figure Ian Smillie has agreed to give a keynote address on ‘Effective Development and the Tyranny of Results-Based Management’ to emphasize the conference’s theme and to help set the tone of the conference’s deliberations.

From his first posting in Sierra Leone, Ian Smillie has remained a keen aid-watcher, practitioner and commentator. A founder of the Canadian NGO Inter Pares, he has served as the Executive Director of CUSO, Research Coordinator on Partnership Africa Canada’s (PAC) ‘Diamonds and Human Security Project’, been a member of the Humanitarianism and War Project at Tufts University since 1997 and taught as an adjunct professor at Tulane University from 1998 to 2001. He is the author of several books, including The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World (with Larry Minear, Kumarian, 2004) and Freedom from Want; The Remarkable Success Story of BRAC published this year. Smillie was instrumental in setting up a process to halt the trafficking of conflict diamonds. Smilie retains his position as Chair of the Diamond Development Initiative, despite his recent departure from PAC amid controversy over the efficacy of the Kimberley Process. Appointed to the Order of Canada in 2003, his advocacy work continues through several NGO boards and current work with the Washington D.C.-based Center for Global Development on the issue of “odious debt’. 

Patrick Johnston - Chair

Patrick has spent most of his professional life in leadership positions in Canada’s voluntary and philanthropic sectors. Patrick has had extensive Board governance experience at the community, national and international level. He has also had a variety of experiences in the public sector.

From 1986-1988, he worked as senior policy advisor to the Social Assistance Review Committee appointed by the government of Ontario to review the province’s income security system. He also worked as senior policy advisor in the office of former Ontario Premier, David Peterson, in 1989-1990. And, from 1994-1995, he was a special advisor to the Deputy Minister of Human Resources Development Canada and Executive Coordinator of the Task Force on Social Security Reform chaired by the Minister, Lloyd Axworthy. From 1995 to 2002, he was President and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy a national, membership organization serving the interests of Canadian charities and foundations. He also worked as Executive Director of the National Anti- Poverty Organization from 1982-1986 and the Canadian Council on Social Development from 1991-1994. Both are social policy research and advocacy organizations based in Ottawa. He began his professional career working at the community level in Richmond, B.C. as Executive Director of the Richmond Youth Service Agency.

Patrick is continuing his association with the Walter and Gordon Duncan Foundation as Senior Fellow, having served as President and CEO from 2002-2009. He is currently undertaking a project looking at Canada's international development policy. Patrick has undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Education from York University and Queen’s University respectively. He also holds an M.S.W. in Social Policy, Planning and Administration from the University of Toronto.

Hon. Dr. Keith Martin (Lib), MP Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca – Panellist

Born in London, England, Keith has a Bachelor of Science (with High Distinction) and Doctor of Medicine from the University of Toronto. Prior to becoming a physician, he held several jobs including being a correctional officer, and medical researcher. After graduating he worked in British Columbia as an emergency room physician and general practitioner from 1987 to 2006. 

He has been a Member of Parliament since 1993, winning six general elections in the riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca on Vancouver Island. Dr. Martin’s work in Parliament has been quite broad and includes; health care, foreign affairs, international development, defence, social program renewal, the environment and poverty reduction. In Parliament he has championed important legislation including, a National Head Start Program for children, initiatives to democratize Parliament, ban landmines, health care (domestic and international), the prevention of deadly conflict, etc. He has been a delegate to conflicts in the Sudan, Colombia, the Middle East and Zimbabwe and has provided emergency relief in a number of areas including Southeast Asia after the tsunami, and various countries in Africa (a continent he has travelled to 26 times). He has held many positions in Parliament including Parliamentary Secretary for National Defence, and Chief Opposition Critic posts in Foreign Affairs, International Development, and Health. Dr. Martin is the founder of the Canadian Physician Overseas Programme.

He also started the first ever All-Party International Conservation Caucus in Canada in 2007. His work on the environment has been recognized by the Sierra Club. He was named by Macleans Magazine as one of the top 100 Canadians to watch. On October 14^th, 2008 Dr. Martin was re-elected for a sixth term as the Member of Parliament for Esquimalt - Juan de Fuca. Since then he has served as the Official Opposition Critic for Amateur Sport, Health Promotion and the Vancouver Olympics.

Paul Dewar, (NDP) MP Ottawa Centre – Panellist

Paul Dewar is the Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Ottawa Centre and serves as the New Democratic Party (NDP) Foreign Affairs Critic.  He is the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and other Crimes Against Humanity.  He is also a member of the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament and sits on the Parliamentary Friends of Burma Committee.

Paul has travelled to Erbil, Iraq where he participated in a conference titled Practical Federalism in Iraq, to Morocco, Afghanistan, and more recently, Lebanon, where he acted as an election observer with the New Democratic Institute.  He also recently travelled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of a delegation focused on aid, development and peace building.

Before being elected to Parliament, Mr. Dewar was Vice-President of the Ottawa Carleton Elementary School Teacher’s Federation.

During the 1980s, Paul worked as an organizer for Tools for Peace in Central America.  He is also a former board member of the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Amitav Rath – Chair

Amitav has worked on issues of development policy, with a focus on technology, innovation, energy, environment and climate change for over twenty-five years in a large number of countries. He was trained in engineering at the undergraduate level at Kharagpur (India) and then at Berkeley (US) for his Masters and Ph.D in Operations Research, with a focus on economics and systems analysis. As a manager at the International Development Research Centre he managed the large multi-donor global energy review “Energy Research Group”, with multiple institutions including the UN, the World Bank and a number of countries. Amitav is currently the lead member of the Technical Advisory Group, for the two global trust funds on energy managed by the World Bank, which requires ongoing reviews and over views of the entire energy sector and climate change issues, and, working in close cooperation with multiple donors. Some of his other work on energy and climate change includes a number of studies on the potential and role of energy efficiency services and options; on biomass; technical options and institutional capacity to reduce green house gas emissions in the buildings sector, and a six country study of energy efficiency options and climate change for the IEA. Other notable recent work includes reviews of renewable energy issues for the Shell Foundation; advising CIDA on integration of energy and environment issues; Innovation Indicators in Africa; South-South cooperation for UNDP; and a synthesis study for DFID promoting innovations in natural resources portfolio.

Simon Carter – Panellist

Simon Carter joined IDRC in February 1998. He has a BA and PhD in geography from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He has worked extensively in Latin America and Eastern and Southern Africa with the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Program, researching agrarian and environmental change and soil fertility management in smallholder agricultural systems. Simon joined IDRC in 1998, and led the Minga programme initiative for natural resource management in Latin American for 6 years. In 2004 he was appointed team leader for the new Rural Poverty and Environment programme initiative. In 2006 he was appointed Programme Manager to oversee the work of RPE and the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa Research and Capacity Development Programme (CCAA).

Pr. Michael Brklacich – Panellist

Mike Brklacich's teaching and research interests reflect his long-term interests in interdisciplinary approaches for assessing relationships between human use and impacts on environmental and natural resources, and in the application of science to public policy. Over the past decade, he has collaborated with Agriculture Canada and Environment Canada on several projects investigating the effects of climatic change on commercial agriculture in Central Canada, the Canadian prairies and the Mackenzie Basin in northern Canada, and how farmers perceive and respond to environmental and socio-economic change.

Over the past few years, he has begun to re-orient his research to focus on human dimensions of global environmental change in general, and more specifically on issues relating to agricultural adaptation to global change and food security. This newer work relies heavily on participatory research methods and on the integration of  quantitative and qualitative research methods. He has been actively involved in the development of the Global Environmental Change and Human Security project, a core project within the International Human Dimensions Program. He is also a member of the Planning Group for the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems Project , a joint project of International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) and World Climate Research Programme (WCRP).

Prior to joining Carleton's Geography Department in 1992, Mike was a research scientist with Agriculture Canada. He continues to collaborate with several agencies in the Canadian government. He is also active in the Environmental Studies and Environmental Science programs at Carleton, and was the Environmental Studies Coordinator in 1997-98. He also participates in the Geography graduate program. He has supervised 6 MA students through to graduation, and is currently supervising 5 MA and 1 PhD candidates.

Food Security

Diana Maclean – Chair

Diana McLean is a food security analyst and advisor who has been actively involved in programme and project development, implementation and evaluation in developing countries for thirty years, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. She first worked as an agriculture development officer in Mali and then as the Regional Agronomist for West and Central Africa with USAID. After a two-year secondment with the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) in The Hague, she came to Canada. Since 1988, she has worked as an independent consultant for a number of organizations, principally CIDA, GTZ, ISNAR, IDRC, CARE, Team Technologies, the Chr. Michelsen Institute, the North-South Institute and Bayer-CropScience. In 2001, she formed the Cornucopia Group Inc., a small consulting firm that specializes in agricultural development and food security.  She served for six years on the Board of WARDA (now the Africa Rice Center). She was actively involved in two corporate evaluations of the World Food Programme and has worked with FAO since 2001 in staff development. She has a 20-year involvement in the CIDA Ghana program, including serving for 10 years as the monitor of the Ghana Grains Development Project and since 1999 as a food security advisor to the Ghana Food Security and Agriculture Program, one of the largest in the Agency. She and her family operate a mixed farm and managed forest in Lanark County and for a number of years she was the principle breeder of Karakul sheep in Canada.

Renaud de Plaen – Panellist

Renaud De Plaen is a skilled researcher whose work cuts across critical development issues such as the environment, food security, and human health. Renaud De Plaen holds a PhD in geography from Rutgers University.

De Plaen joined IDRC in 2001, bringing with him extensive field experience in natural resource management and its influence on the life of rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa. With IDRC's Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health program, De Plaen guided research on the interactions between environmental change, livelihoods, and human health. He has also studied linkages between food production systems, HIV/AIDS, and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. His work currently focuses on the impact of community-based natural resource management systems on rural populations in Latin America and on systemic approaches to address food security issues.

Sherri Arnott - Panellist   

Sheri Arnott is World Vision Canada’s Senior Policy Advisor on Food Security and Nutrition and co-chair of the Canadian Food Security Policy Group, a coalition of more than 20 Canadian development and farmers organizations. Sheri has worked for donor agencies and NGO’s, in Canada and in Eastern and Southern Africa. She has expertise in gender/social analysis, natural resource management, agriculture development and sustainable livelihoods. She has an MSc (Agriculture) from McGill University and a BA in Human-Environment Relations from Concordia.

Economic Growth: Necessary but not Simple

Mary Lynch – Chair

Dr. Mary Lynch has more than 30 years professional experience, with 23 of these focusing exclusively on international development.  Lynch has focused her work primarily on private sector development but has also combined this with governance and enabling environment issues important for economic growth.  Lynch has worked on issues such as the impact of governance on economic opportunities, methods to support economic development at the local level, and approaches to building greater competitiveness of small enterprises.  She has: designed projects and programs of support; facilitated strategic planning with agencies; and undertaken complex performance assessments of initiatives including agency wide reviews, sectoral reviews and country level reviews. Her consulting work has taken her to over 40 countries in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Americas and Central and Eastern Europe, working with the public sector, private sector, and non-governmental organizations.  These assignments have been funded by development partners such as CIDA, World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Danida, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter-American Institute on Cooperation in Agriculture and UNDP.  Mary has a Doctorate in economic development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Asif Chida – Panellist

Dr. Chida has close to 30 years of private sector development policy and practitioner experience. For example, he has considerable experience in Management and Development Consultant work in the Caribbean for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) /International Labour Organization (ILO) Projects, and Commonwealth Secretariat Public /Private Sectors. More recently, he has focused his energies on the informal sector including livelihoods, local economic development and poverty alleviation projects. In 2007, he acted as Chief Technical Adviser and Rapporteur for the Working Group on Informal Businesses and Entrepreneurship which was part of the UN Commission on legal Empowerment of the Poor co-chaired by Hernando de Soto and former United States Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. Other recent assignments include Private Sector Development programmes for the UNDP Solomon Islands to design sustainable livelihoods, “green employment” and financial literacy programme (2009), Trade and Private Sector Development for UNDP Pacific Centre, Suva, Fiji (2009). His background also includes Private Sector Development Scoping missions and Evaluation of projects for CIDA in the West Bank and Gaza and in Afghanistan (2008).

Pr. Yiagadeesen Samy – Panellist

Yiagadeesen (Teddy) Samy is Associate Professor of International Affairs at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. Samy holds a PhD in Economics, and his fields of specialization are international trade and economic development. His research interests include trade and labor standards, debt relief, political economy of foreign direct investment, small island developing states, and state fragility and its implications for aid allocation and aid effectiveness. Samy recently won a research achievement award from the Faculty of Public Affairs at Carleton University for his work on state fragility. His research has been published in academic journals such as Applied Economics, the Journal of International Trade and Economic Development, the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Foreign policy Analysis, and Conflict Management and Peace Science. He is also the author of several book chapters and technical reports. His book (co-authored with David Carment and Stewart Prest) on “Security, Development and the Fragile State: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Policy” was published by Routledge in 2009.

Mark Gawn – Panellist

Bidding for Better Aid: the changing landscape for Canadian contractors

Mark W. Lusignan - Facilitator

Active internationally for more than 28 years, Mr. Lusignan has considerable experience in the design, implementation and management of development assistance and commercial projects abroad. 

Recently appointed Director General, Grants Contributions and Contracting Management, Mark brings significant first-hand knowledge of CIDA operations and programs at the executive, operational and field levels.  He previously held the positions of Director, Business Operations and Director, Contracting Policy within the Agency.

Mark began his career in the Public Service with Consulting and Audit Canada where he was Director of International Services, providing support to CIDA in the mobilization of short term consulting resources, as well as the implementation development programs, primarily in the area of public sector modernization and reform. 

Prior to joining the Government, Mark was a private sector procurement consultant to CIDA, the World Bank, as well as other multilateral development finance institutions and other donor agencies.  He has worked and travelled extensively in developing countries in North, West and East Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Making Monitoring & Evaluation Matter

Heather Buchanan – Chair

Heather Buchanan is a senior consultant, specializing in issues of organizational and program effectiveness in the public and non profit sectors. She founded Jua, Management Consulting Services in 1997, following a successful 20 year career in a provincial occupational health and safety organization, where she held senior management positions as a Director of a multi disciplinary client service program and as Director of Training and Development. 

Ms. Buchanan’s consulting work addresses a continuum of designing, asserting and evaluating the performance of organizations, programs, policies and training.  She has both a domestic and international client base, having undertaken work for numerous federal and provincial government departments, as well as for the World Bank, various United Nations Agencies and the Commonwealth Secretariat. She has taught evaluation in a graduate program at Carleton University, in the World Bank’s International Program for Development Evaluation (IPDET) and at the United Nations Staff College in Turin, Italy. 

Heather holds a Masters degree in Public Administration. She is a member of the American Evaluation Association and the Canadian Evaluation Society. Heather recently completed her term as Vice President of the CES National Council and currently sits on the Board, as Past President of the National Capital Chapter. She was a 2003 recipient of the Karl Boudreault Award for Leadership in Evaluation. Heather led the Canadian Evaluation Society’s Professional Designations initiative from October 2007 to the approval of the Credentialed Evaluator designation by CES National Council in May 2009.

Barbara Levine – Panellist

Barbara Levine is currently manager of the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) and an adjunct prof at the School of Public Policy and Administration. From 2001- 2006 she was Director of Programs, World University Service of Canada, responsible for overseas and Canadian programming. Prof. Levine has spent over twenty-five years working in the field of international and social development, including 15 years with the Canadian International Development Agency. Among other positions she served as director, Strategic Planning, in CIDA’s Policy Branch, as well as senior program manager and senior advisor in several bilateral programs. She has worked in Central America and the Caribbean, Southern Africa, South and Southeast Asia, on issues ranging from social policy, human rights and peace-building to environment and human resources development. Sustainable economic development is a key theme of interest for her, as are civil society- government relations.

Firmly believing that work at an international level must be grounded in one’s local realities and local experience, Prof. Levine has worked in support of development, social justice and education issues in Canada. She was the first coordinator of the Community Economic Development technical assistance program, a national program based at Carleton that supported local development and the social economy in poor, marginalized and remote communities in Canada. She also served as Director of the Multiculturalism Program at Canadian Heritage from 1999-2001 and continues to take a keen interest in issues related to migration and refugees, settlement and identity.

Fred Carden – Panellist

Fred joined IDRC's Evaluation Unit in 1993 and became the Director in March 2004. He has written in the areas of evaluation, international cooperation, and environmental management.  His current work includes assessment of the influence of research on public policy, and the development of use-oriented evaluation tools and methods in the areas of organizational assessment, participatory monitoring and evaluation, program evaluation and outcome mapping. Recent co-publications include “Outcome Mapping,” “Organizational Assessment,” and “Evaluating Capacity Development.” He has taught and carried out research at York University, the Cooperative College of Tanzania, the Bandung Institute of Technology (Indonesia) and the University of Indonesia. He holds a PhD from the Université de Montréal and a Master’s degree in environmental studies from York University.

Marc-André Fredette – Panellist

Born in Montreal, Marc-André has over 30 years of experience working at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This time was split almost evenly between policy analysis and operations both here and abroad. He has worked in 5 Branches at CIDA including Policy, Multilateral, Africa, PKMB – Performance and Knowledge Management Branch, and, most recently, Strategic Policy and Performance Branch. He is currently the Director for Performance Management at the Canadian International Development Agency after having served as Country Director for Ethiopia and Head of Development Co-operation for the Horn of Africa, based in Addis Ababa from 2003 to 2007 and Regional Director for Atlantic West Africa from 1997 to 2003. André has travelled and lived extensively for over 10 years in Africa while also having travelled and worked in 200 missions in over 70 countries. He also has a degree in Classical Studies and an M.A. in Development Economics.

Gender Roundtable:  How do I Measure Thee - Let me Count the Ways...

Nidhi Tandon - Facilitator

Nidhi Tandon is originally from East Africa, and is Founder and Director of Networked Intelligence for Development. Nidhi works on local grassroots issues, in the context of globalization and increasing disparities between peoples and nations. Recently she has been specialising in digital media, information and communication technologies and applications that enhance women’s livelihoods in developing countries. She designs and runs grassroots training workshops for women’s organizations, small business and farmer communities in East and West Africa and in the Caribbean, enabling women to organize and articulate their priorities around sustainable development. Much of her work revolves around the relationships between women and water, energy, natural resources and policy decisions. She has recently published critical articles on climate change and its impact on water, and on the negative implications of biofuel monoculture on women's land use options. Prior to NID, Nidhi worked at the Overseas Development Institute, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the British Broadcasting Corporation in London, UK. Nidhi sits on the Boards of Ontario Nature, the West End Food Cooperative, and Greenest City in Toronto, Canada. She has a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Sussex.

Dana Stefov – Presenter

Dana Stefov is a policy analyst for the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, working on issues of environmental justice, human rights and gender equality. Previous to joining CCIC, Ms. Stefov was based in Washington DC and coordinated the International Coalition of Human Rights Organizations of the Americas, a group of over 100 civil society organizations committed to the strengthening of the inter-American human rights system of the Organization of American States. She also lived in Central America for several years working with an array of national and community-based women's, youth and indigenous groups.

Karen Craggs-Milne - Presenter

Karen Craggs-Milne is the Director of Gender Equality Incorporated. Originally from Kenya, she has ten years of international working experience promoting gender equality in Canadian and International Development. Karen is one of the leading Gender Auditing specialists in Canada. Since 2005 she has presented on this topic as an expert panellist at the CIDA International Cooperation Days (2006), and conducted Gender Audits for five organizations including the Canadian Co-operative Association, Canadian Nurses Association, Oxfam Canada, Canadian Red Cross and Canadian Executive Services Organization. Karen is also an accomplished Gender Trainer. She works closely with a diverse range of clients in Canada and Overseas to develop customized training, resources and tools to support gender sensitive development. Karen has a BA in International Studies with a Certificate in Refugee and Migration Studies from Glendon College, York University (Toronto, Canada).  She also holds an MSc in International Development Management from the London School of Economics -LSE, (London, UK).

Emily Wilson – Presenter

Emily Wilson works with OXFAM Canada, traveling frequently to Zimbabwe and South Africa to work with local women’s organizations. She has an MA in Geography from Carleton University and a BA in International Development and Human Rights from the University of Guelph. Her MA research focused on participatory mapping of natural resource use with Wapichan women in Guyana. Over the past decade, she has also been involved with social justice and community development work in Africa, Central Asia, and Canada. This has included volunteering as a gender consultant with NGOS in Mali and Ethiopia, teaching English in rural Nepal, and working for an Aboriginal health organization in Canada. In January 2008, Emily produced a documentary film “Undermined: Communities, Consultation and Corporate Accountability in Guyana.”

Dorienne Rowan-Campbell - Presenter

Dorienne Rowan-Campbell has been working on a wide range of women, gender and development issues for more than 30 years. Her organic farming experience has widened the emphasis to include questions of export, access, business management, ICTs and organic production. Based out of both Canada and Jamaica, which affords a useful “bifocal” world vision; she works as an independent development consultant. Dorienne owns and manages a small, certified organic farm and produces Rowan’s Royale Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee. She is a qualified organic crop inspector, Board Member of the Jamaica Organic Agriculture Movement and interim Vice Chair of the fledgling Caribbean Regional Organic Agriculture Movement (CROAM).

In thirty years of committed effort, Dorienne has provided institutional strengthening, capacity development, training, policy and programme analysis, networking advocacy, visioning, strategic planning and alliance building and technical inputs to a wide variety of government, NGO, private sector, academic and donor clients, always adopting a participatory, change management approach.

Using Information Communication Technologies and Best Practice to Optimize Monitoring and Evaluation 

Keith Phillips - Facilitator

Involvement with Qlbs has enabled Keith to do leading edge work in some of the more fascinating parts of the world. He has worked with the City of San Jose in Silicon Valley, a leading Engineering Consultancy in Colorado, the Manufacturing Industry in Britain, the Business Communities of 12 countries of the Pacific and the Gulf state of Qatar. This work focused on deploying Performance Improvement Systems across business and other organisation communities and is seen as leading globally in this field.

 Prior to this he had an International Business career spanning Europe, USA, Middle East, and Africa with Unilever, Gillette and Apple Computers.  He was an International Marketing Manager for Gillette for a group of 54 countries, Managing Director of Apple Computers UK, and a Director of Marketing for Apple USA.  Significantly Apple UK was Apple’s ‘Country of the Year’ during his tenure. 

Settling in New Zealand he has focussed on growing, investing and taking to the international market a number of innovative companies.  He built New Zealand’s leading Interactive Media Company and successfully sold it to News Media affiliate INL. Keith built IT Capital, a leading Venture Capital Organisation, which chalked up some impressive exits. He has also been a director of several technology companies.  Keith has now focussed all his efforts on QLBS which he believes is a truly transformational technology capable of scaling to a business of significance.

 Keith was a technology advisor to the last 2 previous NZ governments. He participated with the past Prime Minister in business delegations to India and in meetings with the Prime Ministers of India, Singapore and Pakistan assisting in the positioning of NZ innovation and Technology.

Keith has a Business Degree with triple majors in Marketing, Economics and Business Science.  He has also attended the INSEAD Advanced Management programme for Top CEO’s in Europe.  He initiated and delivered a post-graduate course for the Auckland University Business School called “The New Marketing” which covered e-commerce.  He is an accomplished international speaker and consultant.

Bruce Branch - Facilitator

Bruce Branch is a senior consultant/systems analyst with over 20 years in the fields of Application Development, and Financial Accounting Systems.  He has extensive experience in all aspects of the systems development life cycle.  The varied projects he has worked on required the use of his strong analysis and design skills, and adaptability to different working environments.  

Bruce’s skills are currently being applied with QLBS.com in developing best practice models for clients in various arenas (business, engineering, government), performing QLBS evaluations and product demos, and in Criteria analysis and development for QLBS clients, in North America, United Kingdom, Qatar, and New Zealand.  He has also participated in a number of workshops with clients as part of the knowledge transfer process.  This experience has enhanced his solid understanding of the QLBS product suite and its client potential.  He has been involved in organizing business presentations, workshops, and marketing meetings in preparation for QLBS moving more significantly into the North American marketplace, and is also responsible for QA on new criteria development and enhancements.

Accessing Untied Aid Contract Opportunities

Leigh Wolfrom - Facilitator

Leigh Wolfrom is a Deputy Director in the International Trade Portfolio and Strategic Analysis division at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. The division’s mandate is to ensure Canadian business access to international development, trade, and investment finance. Some areas of focus include the commercial impact of aid effectiveness, public sector investment finance support, and competitive challenges in the trade finance market. In his previous capacity, Mr. Wolfrom spent 4 years advising Canadian firms on how to get involved in aid-funded procurement, including through a short assignment as Canada’s liaison officer at the African Development Bank in Tunis. Mr. Wolfrom has a Master’s degree in International Affairs.    

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