Simon Winter became Executive Director in 2017. He joined the Syngenta Foundation from TechnoServe, where he had most recently been Senior Vice President, Development, in Washington, D.C., and previously led regional operations in sub-Saharan Africa, having joined in 2003. Simon was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company from 1998-2003. Prior to that, he worked as an economic planner for the Botswana government and a development consultant in Southern Africa. He started his career with Barclays Bank plc in the UK, Côte d'Ivoire, and Australia. From 2015-2017, Simon was a Senior Fellow of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS), where he researched climate risks and sub-Saharan African food and agricultural systems, co-publishing three papers with the Harvard Corporate Responsibility Initiative. He currently chairs the Steering Committee of the Farm to Market Alliance and the board of ACRE Africa. Simon also advises many organizations focusing on agriculture and economic development, including the World Economic Forum. Simon originates from the UK and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1998, which focused on the development of the manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe.