Gillian is the managing partner of our East Africa office. She started her career at McKinsey in Canada in 2008 and moved to Kenya in 2015, and has worked across multiple geographies, with a focus on emerging markets (Africa, Latin America, and South Asia). She is a leader in our nature work globally and also leads our Agriculture Practice in Africa.
Gillian focuses on sustainable economic development topics, including agriculture development, nature conservation, sustainable land use, manufacturing and job creation, tourism development, and rural development. She serves governments and donors, as well as the private sector. Some examples of her work include supporting multiple countries in unlocking large-scale financing for nature conservation; coleading a major development program unlocking over $1 billion in the manufacturing sector in Africa; developing a strategy with an African country to scale coffee production by fivefold over ten years; supporting sustainable enterprises in creating business models to protect over 9 million hectares of tropical forest; working with multiple agriculture businesses to scale their models across Africa and other emerging markets; and leading the tourism development strategy for a major nature tourism destination.
Gillian has also led critical research on agriculture development, climate adaptation, e-mobility, and rural electrification in Africa. This work has been featured on CNN, CNBC Africa, and The Economist. She previously worked at One Acre Fund, an agriculture social enterprise serving several million smallholder farmers in Africa. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto.