Dr. Mary Shetto
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Mary Christine Shetto is a Agriculture and Rural Development practitioner with over 20 years of experience in the management of agricultural development programmes and provision of advisory services in Tanzania. Before joining Kilimo Trust, she worked with the Ministry of Agriculture Food Security and Cooperatives and Development Projects in Tanzania.
She joined Kilimo Trust as the Team Leader of the Competitive African Rice Initiative (CARI) and Kilimo Trust Tanzania.
Dr. Birungi KORUTARO
Country Team Leader – Uganda
Business regulatory environment & enterprise development expert, Birungi has accumulated nearly 18 years of work experience with the public and private sectors, civil society and development partners in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa. She is a Ugandan with extensive experience in conducting investment climate and business environment research, business advisory services, project and programme management of enterprise development interventions. Her experience also includes eight years with Shell where she worked in various capacities. Birungi is a statistician with a Master’s in Business Administrations and PhD in Business Management and Administration.
Anthony Mugambi Makona
Country Team Leader – Kenya
An Agricultural Value Chains Development and Market Access Specialist, Anthony has over 10 years’ experience working with the private, public and civil society sectors across East Africa. Anthony has a passion for market-led initiatives geared at structured and inclusive agricultural trading systems. Anthony is currently the Program Team Leader for Kilimo Trust, Kenya and the immediate former Program Team Leader for a market-led DFID-funded project, the Beans Enterprises and Structured Trade in the EAC dubbed BEST-EAC. The project was implemented in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania where he has been responsible for building and mentoring national and cross-border beans trading consortia.
Patrick Muganga
Senior Program Officer
Patrick Muganga has been with Kilimo Trust since 2011. He is a Senior Program Officer and Value Chain Specialist. Professionally, he has MSc in Food Science and Technology from Makerere University. Patrick has a good understanding of Making Markets work for the Poor (M4P), Value Chain Development (VCD) and Inclusive Development approaches/models. He also a financial literacy trainer and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) practitioner.
Rachel Ajambo
Country Team Leader – Tanzania
Rachel Ajambo, is a Socio-economist and has been at Kilimo Trust since 2010. Rachel is responsible for providing technical and administrative leadership for the three (3) projects (CARI, CHIPS &SIKIA) implemented by Kilimo Trust Tanzania. Rachel has been part of the technical and management team of Kilimo Trust Tanzania since 2014.
Before joining Kilimo Trust Tanzania team, Rachel was program officer Value Chain Institutions and Support Services at KT Headquarters in Uganda where she was leading the Beans value chain linkages in central Uganda; in addition to providing technical expertise in various value chain research and scoping studies conducted by the Trust.
Rachel Katana
Finance Manager
Rachel is a Certified Chartered Accountant (ACCA). She joined Kilimo Trust as an Accountant in 2011. She is part of the Team that ensures that Kilimo Trust achieves sound financial management and performance with the following pillars: Unqualified Audit Reports since the inception of the Trust in 2005 to date; Compliance and adherence to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) and International Accounting Standards - IAS’s; Strong Internal Control Systems by ensuring a robust internal controls and the enabling control environment that has allowed proper financial reporting; and lastly, Compliance with Tax and other Regulations in the EAC region where the Trust operates.
Rachel has accumulated over 8 years of experience in financial management for projects. She is the reviewer and advisor of Kilimo Trust management on grantee financial systems and reports. She is also instrumental in preparing program budgets and ensuring adherence to set budgets.
Andrew Gashayija
Program Officer & Acting Country Team Leader – Rwanda
Andrew GASHAYIJA is a specialist in food and industrial microbiology, with interests in food processing and preservation, food industry management and marketing and has been with Kilimo Trust since 2011. Currently in Kilimo Trust, Andrew is responsible for postharvest handling, value addition and market access and translation of materials from English to French and vice versa and has contributed to the team in selection and ranking of strategic food commodities in the EAC Region, supervision in agricultural surveys has experience in data entry and analysis. Before joining Kilimo Trust, Andrew worked for JICA, as a technical assistant and translator, and Rwanda’s TRAC Plus as a supervisor. Andrew has a BSC in applied microbiology and currently pursuing a Master of food science and nutrition.
ANDREW KIMUTAI CHEBOI
Team Leader Resource Mobilization and Quality Assurance
Mr. Andrew Cheboi is the Senior Program Officer in charge of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for all Kilimo Trust implemented Projects and Programs across the EAC region. He provides M&E and Learning leadership for the organization with support from M&E project officers and assistants based in the country Offices. Mr. Cheboi’s experience spans for over 20 years in implementing donor-funded development projects and programs in East and Southern Africa. He has demonstrated experience designing and managing program monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems that ensure quality delivery of results and contract compliance; and that can be used to review progress toward project objectives, assess project approaches and enable project adaption, as necessary
Shirley Gyera
Human Resource and Administration Manager
Shirley has been with Kilimo Trust since October 2014: she has over 9years of experience in Human Resource Management and Administration and has worked in various sectors (Consultancy, Financial and Oil). She has a Masters in Human Resource Management from Makerere University and she strongly believes that any organisation is as Good as its People.
Owen Nelson Mghweno
Assistant Program Officer Owen Nelson Mghweno is an Agricultural Economist and Agribusiness expert with more than 8 years of working with several agricultural research and development programs with experiences in Agricultural research; Project planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning; Micro computer data handling and analysis; Training; Business linkage and; Agricultural knowledge management and communication. Before joining Kilimo Trust, Owen worked with International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) as Research Associate; Assistant lecturer at Archbishop Mihayo University College of Tabora (A constituent college of St Augustine University of Tanzania) and Agricultural Officer at Tabora District, Tanzania. He has MSc Agricultural Economics and BSc Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness from Sokoine University of Agriculture and Diploma in Crop Production from Ministry of Agriculture Training Institute Tumbi.