Board of trustees

Alice Ruhweza has extensive experience working at the intersection of conservation and development in Africa and globally, fostering successful partnerships with a wide range of international institutions. She is currently the Africa Region Director for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), where she leads and oversees a regional program comprising 10 countries and 400 staff. There she is leading design of a new conservation framework that brings together work at national, transboundary and global levels, as well as development of a new system of program quality assurance. She sits on the Board of The Global Ever-Greening Alliance and on the steering committee of the Future Earth Water-Food-Energy Nexus working group.

Before joining WWF, she was Vice President of Programs and Partnerships with Conservation International, where she oversaw the Vital Signs Program, which provides data and diagnostic tools to help inform agricultural decisions and monitor outcomes around the world.  She was also the Team Leader and Technical Adviser for the United Nations Development Programme Global Environmental Finance Unit in Africa. In this role, she led a team supporting 44 sub-Saharan African countries to attract and drive public and private finance towards their sustainable development priorities. The program successfully mobilized over USD 600 million over six and a half years, which with co-financing made it the largest environment program in the UN. She is a former Sustainable Agriculture Intensification Commissioner. She holds an MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics.

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda is an animal scientist and a practising farmer with extensive experience, serving as a policy advisor to numerous African governments and global institutions. She is a Professor, Director and Chair of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centre of Excellence in Food Systems at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She is a Nestlé SA Board Member and serves on WorldVeg Board. She is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and a member of Champions 12.3, accelerating progress on UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 12.3, halving global per capita food waste.

She previously served as Board Chair for the International Livestock Research Institution (ILRI); Board Member of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); and program advisor to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). She also served on the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems and as a member of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) Policy Advisory Council. She has served in senior leadership positions in various organisations, including co-Chair of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA), Vice-President, Country Support, Policy and Partnerships for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and CEO and Head of Mission of the pan-African Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN). She holds a PhD and MSc in Agriculture from the University of Reading and a BSc in Animal Production from the University of Alexandria, Egypt.

She was appointed to the CGIAR System Board in April 2021.

Hilary Wild has extensive international experience in the fields of finance, organizational management, governance, and risk management. She has been involved with the CGIAR for several years, initially as a member of the Board of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) and later the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in both cases chairing their Finance and Audit Committees. She is now a member of the CGIAR System Board as well as all the constituent Centers of One CGIAR, as well as a member of the CGIAR Audit, Finance and Risk Committee and is a member of the HarvestPlus ​Programme Advisory Committee and Audit Committee. She is Trustee and Audit Committee Chair of WaterAid UK, Chair of the Church Commissioners Audit and Risk Committee, a member of the Oversight Advisory Committee of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a member of the Advanced Agriculture and Food Advisory Panel of CSIR, South Africa, and Treasurer, Medical Aid for Palestinians.

She was previously Chief Financial Officer of the World Health Organization (WHO), with overall responsibility for financial management of a USD 2 billion organization operating in 140 countries, and Director Business Change. Before joining the WHO, she held various positions in the international financial sector, including as a director ​in investment banking a​s well as asset management in the Kleinwort Benson Group. She also worked for UNICEF in New York as Chief of Finance, and for a major USA commercial bank ​in London and as its representative in Greece. She has chaired oversight committees for the United Nations Development Programme, International Labour Organization, and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

She was appointed to the CGIAR System Board in September 2019.