THE SUSTAINABLE SMALLHOLDER CORE TEAM
Erika Balzarelli
Founder & Executive Director
Agriculture and agri-business expert with 15+ years experience across private, public sector, NGO, start-ups and consulting. Ex head of APAC rice Corteva, Nufarm marketing head, Syngenta head of sales and marketing APAC, rice solutions. Board of Advisor member for several start ups in agtech and sustainable ag
Education: MBA, MPA Harvard Kennedy
Certificates: INSEAD marketing & sales, Permaculture Design, digital marketing, co-creation micro-skills
Founder of “DoSomethinGood” – NGO for women empowerment in East India, targeting women rice growers
Founder of Regenerate500 – a phygital platform to support smallholder vegetable farmers to transition to biological practices; successfully exited in 2023
Justin Wright
Co-founder
Justin started his career as a Forex trader before studying psychology and entering the corporate world. Prior to Mangrove, Justin held several innovation roles in specialist units at P&G and Diageo before co-founding Mangrove in 2005. As as well leading a number of sustainability and Stretch projects in categories as diverse as drinks, financial services and agri-science, Justin has funded and co-founded a number of start-ups as well as is co-authoring Stretchonomics.
Bruno Gomes
Silent Partner & Agronomy Advisor
Agronomist, expert in regenerative agriculture and permaculture, biological pest, disease control. 20 years of field experience across Europe, LATAM and APAC. Ex country head BioSani (biological solution control) in Portugal, ex country head Nufarm
Education: Msc Agronomy University Evora, Portugal
MPA Nanyang University Singapore
Certificates: Regenerative agriculture and permaculture solution design – I and II
Nick Pye
Co-founder
Nick went directly into the world of strategy and marketing consultancy, after reading geography at Oxford, Nick’s initial consulting career was interrupted by a brief spell at a Virgin backed start-up. Since co-founding Mangrove, Nick has led a number of sustainability and stretch projects in a diverse range of markets, as well as co-funding several start-ups and co-authoring Stretchonomics.
Analysts “on the bench”
We work with a small group of ‘on-the-bench’ analysts ready to crunch numbers, do research and support with analytical thinking
The profile of our on the bench analysts is usually ex-strategy consulting and specialized in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and design of innovative business models in emerging markets