SNV Netherlands Development Organisation
Repositioning a 26-country organisation's funding model
With traditional donor funding tightening, SNV created a two-year mandate to find what else could fund the mission. I led the feasibility study end to end: peer analysis of Hivos, FHI 360, Oxfam, and Mercy Corps; interviews across country teams and global functions; PwC legal and tax structuring; and risk assessment across seven categories. Three revenue pathways came out of it: carbon finance, inclusive commercial value chain services, and investment-linked advisory.
The Executive Team and Supervisory Board approved the strategic direction; three business cases projecting EUR 270m+ in five-year revenue became the foundation of SNV's alternative revenue strategy.
Funding diversificationFeasibility studyBoard engagement
Degas · Chief Operating Officer
Making finance work for 46,000 smallholder farmers
Smallholder lending usually fails on repayment, and when it fails, farmers lose access. We rebuilt the model around cohort-based risk analysis and AI-driven credit scoring linking yield data, climate exposure, and repayment history, with financing terms tied to creditworthiness rather than collateral.
Recovery rose from 76% to 97% and held above 95% across c.20,000 hectares, keeping credit flowing to 46,000+ farmers. Farmer NPS above +80, validated by 60 Decibels.
Smallholder financeFinancial inclusionClimate data
Degas · Chief Operating Officer
Scaling regenerative agriculture with a corporate anchor
Regenerative practices spread when the economics work. An exclusive offtake partnership with Nestlé anchored demand, and we scaled participating farmers from 1,000 to 5,000+ while piloting FarmGPT, an AI agronomic advisory tool funded through a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant.
5,000+ farmers in regenerative practice, a 100% vendor-audit score, and a working model of corporate-foundation-operator collaboration.
Regenerative agricultureCorporate partnershipsFoundation funding
Impact Terra · Head of Operations
Reaching 60,000 farmers with digital advisory in Myanmar
A DFI- and donor-backed platform delivering agronomic and market information in a frontier context. I ran operations through periods of significant delivery risk, launched Golden Paddy Crop Insights with Wageningen University & Research, and aligned operational, financial, and impact metrics into reporting donors and investors could act on.
60,000+ registered users, a new B2B product line, and continuity maintained through a high-risk operating environment.
Digital agricultureDonor reportingFrontier delivery
SNV Netherlands Development Organisation
Investment governance in service of mission
Deploying reserves is a stewardship question for a development organisation. I identified c.40% of reserves as investable, authored the governance framework for a first EUR 5m listed equity allocation with ESG screening at its core, and developed the parallel framework for a higher-risk impact allocation, which the CFO used as the basis for a deliberate decision to pause. Governance that can say no is governance working.
Board-approved framework, an external asset manager appointed from four bidders, and investment discipline embedded in a mission-driven institution.
Investment governanceESGStewardship
