Convened by: 
Convened by:
Karri Byrne is currently the Lead Facilitator for the Markets in Crises (MiC) Community of Practice and brings over 20 years of programme management experience from both emergency and development contexts. She has worked extensively on market systems and livelihoods programming and more recently has begun helping teams apply adaptive management practices to their work. She supported the SEEP Network with the update of the Minimum Economic Recovery Standards (part of the Sphere Standards) and is keen to see more collaboration between the private sector and the humanitarian community.
Amy Sink Davies leads RTI’s programs in food security and agriculture, which work to help decrease hunger and improve economic and nutritional wellbeing for populations around the world. She is an expert in global food security, humanitarian assistance, and resilience, with extensive experience in sub-Saharan Africa.
Ms. Davies joined RTI in 2015 after more than 15 years at USAID, where she served most recently as director of strategic planning and performance management in the Bureau for Food Security. During her career, she has managed responses to large food security crises, including multiple droughts in eastern and southern Africa and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. She won a Superior Honor Award for her leadership of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in 2014.
Ms. Davies received her undergraduate degree from Lenoir-Rhyne University, as well as a master’s degree in international affairs from the University of Kentucky.
Shannon Gaffney is a trade and development specialist with 15 years of research, policy analysis, and project management experience. Her technical expertise spans trade agreements, global trading patterns, trade facilitation, export promotion, investment, and enterprise and value chain development. Ms. Gaffney has industry experience in textiles and apparel, agriculture, and ICT, as well as field experience in Botswana, Burkina Faso, Chile, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, and Zambia. She currently serves as DAI’s Acting Global Practice Lead for Trade and Competitiveness. In that role, she guides DAI’s trade portfolio, providing technical assistance and support to flagship projects including the East Africa Trade and Investment Hub, the Southern Africa Trade and Investment Hub, and the Competitiveness, Trade and Jobs project in Central Asia. Ms. Gaffney received her Master’s Degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Sven is the country director in Bolivia and designated regional director for Latin America for Swisscontact. Swisscontact is a Swiss private and independent operating foundation, founded in 1959. Swisscontact promotes sustainable economic growth in currently 36 developing countries. Furthermore, Sven is a Market Systems Development expert with 20 years of work experience in international development cooperation.
Bobbi Gray, Research Director at Grameen Foundation, has over fifteen years of research, evaluation, and monitoring experience collaborating and coordinating research, evaluation and monitoring activities with in-country research teams, academic researchers, and partner organizations, which includes over 100 microfinance institutions, agribusinesses, and non-governmental organizations across Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, to determine solutions for measuring and assessing the social performance and impacts of integrated financial and non-financial services for adults and youth across a variety of client outcome dimensions. Her recent research has focused on assessing integrated programs implemented with women’s savings groups designed to address household resilience and health, the interaction between child labor and gender-based violence and women’s economic empowerment programming, and the integration of information, communication, and technology (ICT) approaches, such as satellite technology and digitized farmer extension services, with smallholder farming support services. Bobbi holds a Master of Public Administration degree in International Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and a B.A. in French and Spanish from Texas Tech University.
Lilian has worked extensively in agriculture, resilience and market systems-related research in several International Non-governmental Organizations. She provides technical support in implementation, proposal development and assessments on market-based approaches in food security. Her work concentrates on climate change resilience and agricultural value chains (cassava, sorghum, cocoa, banana, cowpea, millet) especially in Sub Saharan Africa. She works with several actors; women associations, cooperatives, micro-finance institutions and the private sector facilitating coordination and linkages to markets for a more sustainable rural economy. Lilian is currently working with Oxfam America as a Senior Advisor for Agriculture and Markets. She is responsible for providing technical support to country programs in Asia, East and West Africa on agriculture, climate change resilience and market based programming. She has a PhD in Gender and Natural Resource Management from Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany. She is based in Washington DC.
Amy Ostrander is the Technical Advisor, Markets & Livelihood at Project Concern International (PCI). PCI is a global development organization that drives innovation from the ground up to enhance health, end hunger, overcome hardship, and empower women and girls. Amy sits on PCI’s food security team and is responsible for technical leadership on market-driven approaches to economic development and response analysis for humanitarian interventions, with a particular focus on market analysis for design. Amy has 10 years of experience in international food security, and prior to PCI she worked with Fintrac, Save the Children, and Global Communities. Amy was a Leland International Hunger Fellow in Bangladesh and served as US Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala where she supported the establishment of a grower-owned coffee cooperative. She earned her MPA in International Development from Princeton University.
Julian is the Global Livelihoods Programme Development Manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) where he is responsible for developing and implementing NRC’s Global Livelihoods Strategy. Julian is passionate about creating innovative partnerships between humanitarian and development organisations to develop comprehensive and market-based livelihoods programmes for displaced people. Prior to his current assignment he worked in the Enterprise, Microfinance and Local Development Programme of the International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin, Italy and with the ILO’s Fragile States and Disaster Response Group in Geneva. Julian holds a Bachelor's degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from the University of Bradford and a MSc in Applied Labour Economics from Sciences Po' Paris. Julian works in German, English, Spanish, Italian and French.
Serena has worked in international development for more than 20 years, with a specific focus on serving rural, small holder farming communities since 2007. Serena has held long-term field leadership roles in Rwanda (resilience), Afghanistan (alternative livelihoods and community development), and Cameroon (HIV/AIDS, youth development); and provided short-term assistance to programs in Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya and Sri Lanka.
Serena currently serves as the Senior Director for World Vision United States’ Food Security and Livelihoods sector. She brings to her work a passion for strengthening local food systems, promoting social and behavior change and fostering innovation.
Serena holds a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology and African Studies (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), a Master of Public Health (Johns Hopkins University) and a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems (Tufts University). She is also an active Rotarian and a member of Fairfax County's Food Council in Virginia.
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