Meet the team
Our team comprises consultants and specialists with diverse expertises. We have experts with knowledge and experience at the local context and with international expertise. All our consultants have extensive experience in Ethiopia and other African countries, as well as in developing countries around the world, and have developed a good understanding of what is feasible in terms of context and culture.
If complementary technical knowledge or skills are required, we work together with associate consultants, who can be engaged for specific assignments.
To take a look at our team in Fair & Sustainable Consulting, based in the Netherlands, please CLICK HERE
Assegid is a seasoned development practitioner and consultant, with valuable experience in sustainable rural development programs. His engagement on freelance consultancy, among others, encompasses – Project management, Organizational/thematic Capacity development, SMEs, and Participatory community/youth development. Since 2008, Assegid has conducted numerous studies, evaluation assignments, and program management support to several international and national organizations.
Multidisciplinary in approach, he believes that structural issues (in socio-political-economic context) often play a crucial role in advancing human development, not just through technical solutions. He holds a BSc in forestry/NRM and M.A. in rural development; an advanced diploma in Enterprise development through Value chains; as well as professional certificates in contemporary development topics. He’s a certified International Project Manager. Assegid has an extensive experience & wide exposure in short-term consultancy works as well as facilitated a number of training workshops in over 10 countries, particularly in eastern and southern part of Africa. Assegid is currently serving as General Manager for Fair & Sustainable Consulting (Ethiopia), and he lives in Addis Ababa with his family.
Teklemariam Awoke is has 17 years of work experience in different government and private business organizations in Ethiopia out of which he spent 11 years in the Ethiopian microfinance sector. He has experience in microfinancing, rural finance, business planning & organizational management, market linkage & value chain development, entrepreneurship & marketing, cooperative development, and social performance management, & micro &small enterprise development.
By profession, he is an accountant, marketer, and business manager. He lived and worked in Ethiopia.
Her career journey has touched different sectors and programmes that include education, media, development programmes and gender and community empowerment both in Ethiopia and oversees for more than a decade. As a teacher I taught in country and in Kyoto Japan for three years. I joined the media sector as a reporter and had got the position of deputy editor in the English service of the national television of Ethiopia. She won a one year scholarship award FK-Norway sponsored by the Norwegian Prime Minster Office to get the opportunity to work in Tanzania as a feature writer in the newspaper called ‘The African’ and researcher at the Tanzania Media Women Association in 2007. Since then she started to involve in gender and related topics.
Through working in media in producing documentaries and reportage on different political and social issues, she become more engaged in different research and training opportunities. This has driven her to join the development sector with particular focus on gender and community empowerment. Working for an international NGO as a gender officer and programme support officer, she managed gender mainstreaming works both at institutional and community level. This includes income generating activities, community empowerment and leadership. In addition, she has worked on WASH, Livelihoods and Health programmes with particular focus on programme management.
Started his career as a Journalist on a weekly newspaper called Awramba Times in 2008, Gizaw Legesse has developed his knowledge of the country’s social, political and legal environment for four years. At the time, as Deputy Editor-in-Chief, he was responsible for editing and writing variety of Columns as well as monitoring the whole content of the newspaper on legal aspects. By the time he joined his current organization – Fair and Sustainable Ethiopia – in April 2014, he has already further developed his creative and communication skills with a formal education and experience in Creative and Graphic Designs.
Currently Fair and Sustainable Ethiopia hosts and implements a number of agricultural related development programs which Gizaw Legesse plays key role in most of them. He is the Communication Facilitator for the AgriProFocus Ethiopia network; his tasks include: managing the online interaction of www.agriprofocus.com/ethiopia platform with over 1700 online members, managing related Social Media Accounts (Twitter and Facebook), and organizing networking events for members (starting from designing PR materials to event facilitation and reporting). In parallel, he manages the www.foodsecurityethiopia.nl platform (and its Social Media outlets) established by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ethiopia for the purpose of reflecting food security programs of the Embassy.
In 2014 he was trained and certified by akvoflow.org on how to manage the dashboard of the AkvoFlow Mobile Survey application. Since then he has worked on AkvoFlow and similar survey and data collection tools – preparing questionnaires, training enumerators, analyzing data – for varies types of surveys requested by organizations and programs such as SNV, BENEFIT-SBN, DairyBISS, FSRE Fund and so on.
As researcher and practitioner, Victor has worked on: value chain / supply chain analysis and development, setting up partnerships for smallholder inclusion in value chains, cooperative arrangements between private / public / civil society sector, program development, strategic advice, monitoring and evaluation of development programs.
Victor has worked on value chain development projects in West Africa for 5 years, being based in Bamako, Mali. He was Consultant / Manager of Fair & Sustainable West Africa for the last 2,5 years of that period. His professional experience lies in the field of sustainable economic development. He has worked in Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and India.
Fluent in Dutch, English and French, able to conceptualize development challenges from both a business and a development perspective, and develop tailor made models for smallholder farmer inclusion in national and international value chains, Victor can add value to your development initiative.
Victor holds a Masters degree in both International Business (University of Maastricht) and International Development (International School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam).
Lidya is our young and energetic consultant with diverse practical experience working in governmental and non-governmental organizations. She has BSc and MSc in Agricultural Economics, and she is member of the Ethiopian Economist Association.
As a Social Economist, Lidya was contributing for the Bilateral Ethiopia Netherlands Effort for Food (BENEFIT) program for two years in areas of livelihoods, documentation, gender equality, nutrition and food security as M&E and Capacity Building Expert.
Since February 2020, Lidya joined the F&S Team to add value to the business development services we provide as a social enterprise.
Ms. Inge Baaijens is an openminded and result oriented cultural anthropologist and economist with more than 25 years of practical experience in the implementation of youth business/job creation programmes. Throughout her career, she has gained extensive experience in designing and managing projects in the area of enterprise development and start-ups for youth and women. She has developed capacity building programmes offering tailormade business creation programmes, including training through innovative and blended learning methodologies.
Her long-standing expertise includes training and mentoring of MSMEs in different phases of development, from ideation to scaling up. In addition, she has designed and (co)managed several entrepreneurship education programmes in TVET, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Her wide experience in vocational education has enabled her to become familiar with the challenges in the industrial sectors, both in terms of labour market perspectives as in terms of MSME opportunities and threats for youth and women.
Having worked on several projects in Ethiopia, Zambia, Tanzania, Netherlands, Spain, Georgia, Indonesia, she has considerable experience in managing teams of business experts and trainers from diverse cultures and backgrounds. As a consultant and as an owner of a small business, Ms. Baaijens has developed good networking, communication and language skills. She has wide experience with establishing partnerships and networks with local NGOs and government institutions in various Sub-Saharan African countries. As a developer of training and learning materials, she had developed good conceptual and writing skills.
Her strong analytical and communication skills have allowed her to design training curricula and learning materials on entrepreneurial skills development and business management. She delivered impactful training and mentoring to entrepreneurs with various backgrounds (youth, women, diaspora, migrants, refugees) in The Netherlands and developing countries, mainly in Sub-Sahara Africa. Related to entrepreneurs’ training, she conducted various training of trainers for local business service rendering organisations. In her work, Ms. Baaijens has a participatory leadership style and strong cross-cultural communication skills to motivate a heterogeneous team of experts and collaborate with stakeholders with different cultural backgrounds.
She is open minded, able to think in opportunities and value multiple perspectives in a complex environment. She is committed to her work and has a strong ability to motivate and inspire others.
Abdissa is result oriented, analytical and passionate in development interventions. His educational background MA in Development studies with specialization of Development Management, has given him the right skill set and knowledge to craft sustainable development. Having BA in Business Administration and numerous short-term trainings in various themes have given him good perspective and understanding of, particularly, rural contexts and livelihoods.
He is an experienced leader, manager and expert in rural development of Ethiopia with a demonstrated history of working with INGOs and in the private sector. In the last 18 years he has worked with and provided consultancy service for various organizations in Ethiopia, such as Oxfam GB, SOS Shale, ICCO Cooperation, GIZ and others.
Abdissa has modeled, designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated as well as managed various projects in the areas of Micro financing, market and business development, food security, livelihoods, youth employment services, economic development, market linkage, climate change, and pro-poor value chain development and analysis.
One of his recent success is the establishment of micro franchise social business model in four regions of Ethiopia. Adopted from CARE Bangladish, it is a business led women economic empowerment model which helps to improve the social and economic status of marginalized, destitute and poor women.
He is also winner of the 2013 and 2014 “Human Story Contest”, international contests organized by CARE International. In addition he has two publications in the area of microfinance and climate change, namely “Factors Affecting loan repayment performance of Micro finance clients” and “Mini Study on Climate vulnerability capacity assessment”.
Currently Abdissa is working for Fair & Sustainable Ethiopia as a senior business development consultant.
Roba has a decade long extensive experience of working in various pastoral and agro-pastoral initiatives, as well as in cross-border resource governance and livelihood systems. Including the USAID funded Peace Center for Climate Change and Social Resilience project of the Haramaya University, he had the opportunity to work with a number of development actors active in climate change and resilience. HEKS/EPER, ID Ethiopia, CIFA, and OSHO are some of the organizations he engaged with in humanitarian, livelihoods, resilience and environmental projects.
Educated in Geography and Environmental Study, and subsequently specializing in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Programme, Roba has been equipping himself with conceptual knowledge and practical skills in contributing to supports and development efforts targeting poor and marginalized communities. Moreover, Roba is familiar and knowledgeable to the challenges of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities, especially in Borana and surroundings. He is multi-lingual, fluently communicating with Oromiffa, English and Amharic.
Currently, Roba works for Fair & Sustainable Ethiopia, assigned as the Market Systems Development Facilitator to the Jersey Overseas Aid (JOA) project – Developing Inclusive and Profitable Dairy Value Chains for Pastoralist Communities in Borena Zone – which Fair & Sustainable Ethiopia co-implements with its consortium partners CST Ethiopia, CIFA, and OPA.
Meskerem has long years of experience in Finance and Admin positions in various business companies. At F&S, she is the key person in handling finance and administration matters.
Here versatile and quick-learning skills has helped her to manage and oversee multiple projects. In addition, her up-to-date knowledge about legal and financial matters in Ethiopia, as well as experience and familiarity on regulations and procedures of many international organizations has contributed a lot for smooth implementation of assignments.
Meskerem leads the Finance and Admin team, and oversees client relations, HR matters, and project facilitations.
Seble, a graduate in Accounting, handles the back-office support and facilitation, as well as finance related matters here at F&S. She also provides solutions in connection with project implementations and has years of experience in logistics for field assignments and variety of events, including workshops and B2B events.
With the Admin team, Seble makes the work of F&S Consultants smooth and manages relations with partners, associate consultants, and clients.
John Otini is a Kenyan citizen and a career development practitioner since 1999. He started his career in emergency and humanitarian context in Southern Sudan where he worked in education and child protection projects.
In 2007, John moved back to Kenya program and settled for community development interventions through 2012 while he joined the social enterprise band wagon which remains to be his passion to date.
John’s training background in the development context comprises of Sociology, Development Studies, Project Management and Enterprise Development. Currently he lives in Eldoret Town in Kenya with his wife of 17 years and their three sons.
Mr. Ayalew Abebe is a Certified Management Consultant specialized in market research, pro-poor value chain studies, matchmaking for finance and market, and Business Development Services. He obtained his first degree in Business Management and second degrees in Rural Development (first level distinction) from Addis Ababa University and Indria Gandhi National Open University, respectively. Over the past fourteen years, he has worked for international consulting firms, international NGOs, government parastatals, and business conglomerates with the capacities of project manager, research specialist and business development advisor.
Mr. Fasil Abate is a business development consultant with specific focus on SME coaching, TVET, Entrepreneurship as well as Private sector engagement. As a BDS specialist, he has over 14 years of relevant experience supporting women & youth led micro and small business development. In his recent engagement as a senior expert at the world bank project, Fasil has successfully contributed to conduct a thorough diagnosis of 33 urban based local SMEs, identification of their gaps, and preparing technical assistance plan (TAP) – so that these SMEs create B2B linkage with FDI firms located at Bole Lemi and Hawassa Industrial parks.
In addition, Fasil has served as National Project Coordinator to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) country office; under the Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Promotion (YOWEP) project. In this project, he has led different working groups in the development of the National Entrepreneurship Strategy for Ethiopia (NES) and designed and implemented BDS capacity building for governmental and private sector organizations. He also served as key expert in the GIZ supported project focusing specifically on the component of Innovative Training Systems in Resource Management, commissioned by GFA.
Fasil earned a BA in computational science and Business Administration from Addis Ababa University. In addition, he’s also obtained MBA in Global Impact Entrepreneurship from the University of Cattolica Del Sacro Cuero of Milan, Italy. Fasil is a member of various professional networks, and a reliable associate to Fair & Sustainable.