Contact

Bountifield United States Headquarters

729 N. Washington Ave., Suite 600, Minneapolis, MN 55401

Bountifield Senegal

Yoff Toundoup Rya, Lot N79
Cites des Junes Cadres Lebous
Dakar, Senegal

Bountifield Malawi

Area 47/4/805
Viphya Street
Lilongwe, Malawi

General Inquiries

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U.S. Team

Alexandra Spieldoch

CEO

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Alexandra Spieldoch

Executive Director

Alexandra has served as Executive Director of Compatible Technology International since 2013 and brings more than 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector with expertise in gender, food security, agriculture, and economic policy. Prior to joining Bountifield, Alexandra served as director of the Trade and Global Governance program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and global coordinator of the Network of Women Ministers and Leaders in Agriculture (NWMLA). She has contributed to numerous articles and books related to global governance, gender and food security, rural livelihoods, and sustainable development. Alexandra received her M.A. in International Policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Her B.A. is from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri with a major in French literature. She has a certificate in business from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen. She lived in France and Argentina and speaks both French and Spanish.

Brian Dotson

Senior Program Advisor

Bridget Gerenz

Technology Coordinator

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Bridget Gerenz

Technology Coordinator

Bridget (Carey) Gerenz has been with Bountifield since February 2017, filling various positions, currently serving as Technology Coordinator. Bridget graduated from University of Saint Thomas in 2018 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Peace Engineering. While at St Thomas, she led a collaborative effort between the engineering and justice and peace departments to develop the peace engineering program’s accessibility and programmatic focus. Peace Engineering intentionally applies the technical skill set of engineering with the social analysis skills of justice and peace studies to work toward justice, socio-economic equity and sustainability, and promote peace. In addition, she presented at multiple conferences on the topic of peace engineering, contributed to research on drying breadfruit in Haiti, and was published in Roots for Change: Grounding Processes of Peacebuilding.

Don Jacobson

Technical Advisor

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Don Jacobson

Technical Advisor

Don Jacobson’s career as a biochemist focused on Research and Development at both the General Mills and Pillsbury companies in Minneapolis. The interesting, but complicated, story of Don’s career is how he managed to be the only person to work at both places twice — then retire with the summation of 31 years at both companies. Don’s career was derailed in 1995 by a brain aneurysm that required three years of rehabilitation at the Sister Kenny Institute, after which Don was rehired at Pillsbury. The brands that Don touched throughout his career were an eclectic combination, including pet foods, soy-based meat analogues, coffee replacements, Bisquick™, Godfather’s Pizza™, microwave popcorn, potato processing, and Green Giant™ frozen vegetables. Don capped off his professional career in the research libraries of both companies doing literature and patent searches.

Lori Olson

Director of Philanthropy & Corporate Giving

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Lori Olson

Director of Philanthropy & Corporate Giving

Lori is a Marketing and Brand expert with a proven track record in customer-focused, multi-channel marketing. She has worked for Blue Stem Brands, Lands’ End, Artful Home, HISTORY, Major League Baseball and Kohler. The majority of her work has been centered around strategies to grow the customer base, implement new business models, and profitably grow sales. She is a graduate of the Carlson School of Management. Lori has been active as a volunteer for several community projects impacting hunger and homelessness in Minneapolis. She has also supported diabetes and cancer research activities through donor walks, rides and donations. Lori has been a Bountifield Donor since 2014 and is excited to be able to contribute to Bountifield in additional ways. Lori and her husband Andrew have 2 children and reside in South Minneapolis.

Mai Yang

Africa Program Manager

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Mai Yang

Africa Program Manager

Mai Yang is an international development practitioner with experience in monitoring and evaluation, program development, and management. Ms. Yang has managed multi-million dollar U.S. government-funded projects as well as non-government-funded programs, provided monitoring and evaluation support, and conducted evaluations of USAID programs. At Bountifield, she serves as Africa Program Manager, overseeing programming in Malawi and Senegal. She holds an M.A. in International Affairs with a concentration on Governance and Rights from the New School University, and a B.A. in English from the University of St. Thomas.

Ricardo Romero

Communications Manager

Steve Clarke

Technical Advisor

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Steve Clarke

Technical Advisor

Steve is an international agricultural development specialist with more than 40 years of experience in designing and delivering technical services and training, as well as managing projects for smallholder farmers, especially in Africa. Trained as an agronomist, Steve has special expertise in postharvest processing technologies, grain storage, certified seed production, and crop quality standards. He served as a rural development volunteer for Peace Corps in Benin, field agronomist for ICRISAT in Senegal and Mali, and the in-country director for a crop storage and marketing project in Rwanda financed by USAID and implemented by the University of Minnesota (UMN). For 15 years, he helped manage a special USAID-supported partnership between UMN and ag universities in Morocco. More recently, he worked for seven years as a senior technical adviser for MCC on a major Morocco ag project. Steve has been actively involved with Bountifield since the 1990s, and helped design and initiate implementation of the McKnight-funded project on groundnut technologies in Malawi and Tanzania, as well as the new USAID-funded project to commercialize Bountifield’s millet threshing technology in Senegal.

Field-Based Team

Aliou Ndiaye

Chief of Party for USAID I Yombal mbojj, Country Represetative – Senegal

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Aliou Ndiaye

Chief of Party for USAID I Yombal mbojj, Country Represetative – Senegal

Aliou has many years of experience working with small farmers, Senegalese governmental organizations, international NGOs, and the private sector. He has worked as an advisor on agriculture and rural development with the Senegalese agencies SAED and ANCAR, training farmers to improve crop productivity, connecting them to the market and facilitating access to capital. Before joining Bountifield, Aliou worked as a Value Chain Manager for a USAID-funded project focusing on sorghum and millet in Senegal. Aliou has a degree in Agricultural Engineering and a Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) at University Cheikh Anta Diop Dakar. Aliou is also a Geographic Information System specialist and has used this skill to gather important agricultural data throughout Senegal.

Amadou Dia

Training Coordinator – Senegal

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Amadou Dia

Training Coordinator – Senegal

Amadou is an economist specializing in sustainable development. He has a Master's degree in Economics with an emphasis in Analysis and Economic Policies and a Master in Sustainable Development at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar. He has participated in many field studies, focusing on designing data collection tools (questionnaires, interview guides), focus group organization, and writing reports.

Before joining Bountifield, Amadou worked in the field of development, including work with Monitoring System International, Marie Stopes International, and in the field of marketing networks with Forever Living Products Senegal.

Andrews Chiwawula Because

Agricultural Engineering, Malawi

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Andrews Chiwawula Because

Agricultural Engineering, Malawi

Andrews is a holder of a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Engineering, obtained from the University of Malawi, Bunda College of Agriculture in 2008. He works with the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Lilongwe, Malawi as an Agricultural Engineering Technician.

Prior to this, he worked with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in Malawi for three years as an Agricultural Officer, responsible for Farm Mechanization. He has vast experience in operation and servicing of agricultural farm machinery, conducting staff training, managing programs and providing extension services in crop development.

His areas of interest and specialization are design, development, and evaluation of implements, irrigation and other farm structures.

Bocar Wade

Quality Assurance Specialist – Senegal

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Bocar Wade

Quality Assurance Specialist – Senegal

Bocar has several years of experience working with small producers, producer organizations, government institutions, development projects, international NGOs, and the private sector. After a position in seed multiplication and production with ONG CARITAS Kaolack, he worked as agricultural and rural advisor and focal point of several projects implemented by the National Agency of Agricultural and Rural Council (ANCAR) of Kaolack. As an agricultural advisor, he has worked in several areas, including managing capacity building for productivity enhancement, facilitation of market access and financing, quality of seeds and processed products, environment, market gardening, rural poultry farming, planning, contracting, and monitoring and evaluation.

Bocar holds a degree in Agricultural Engineering and certificate in Seed Technology and Seed Pathology at the Federal University of Lavras in Brazil and another certificate in Agriculture and Rural Development with JICA in Japan. Additionally, he holds a Master’s in Management of Companies and Organizations for Quality, Hygiene, Security, Environment.

Wells Frank Kumwenda

Technical Advisor, Malawi

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Wells Frank Kumwenda

Technical Advisor, Malawi

Wells Frank Kumwenda is a dedicated agricultural engineer and rural development specialist, with many years of experience managing projects in poverty reduction, improving food security, nutrition, and rural development among vulnerable communities. He has worked on groundnut shelling, lifting, and sorting equipment for many years while at Chitedze Research station, where he was head of agricultural engineering.

Wells received his Masters in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Malawi Bunda College of Agriculture.

Wongani Langa

Country Representative – Malawi

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Wongani Langa

Country Representative – Malawi

Wongani brings years of experience working with smallholder farmers in various value chains, including groundnuts. Over the years, Wongani has championed new innovations to smallholder farmers and worked with farmers organizations by linking them to formal markets and improving their agricultural productivity.

Before joining Bountifield, Wongani worked with International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, National Smallholder Farmer Association of Malawi, and most recently, the One Acre Fund. He received a Master of Arts Degree in Economics and a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree from the University of Malawi.

Yacine Seck

Agribusiness Specialist – Senegal

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Yacine Seck

Agribusiness Specialist – Senegal

Yacine Seck is an agricultural engineer specializing in Economics and Rural Sociology. She has experience in supervising farmer organizations, access to markets, strategies for improving the competitiveness of value chains, and sustainable mechanisms for financing the activities of farmers' organizations (seeking financing, acquisition of inputs and marketing of products etc.). She has worked on projects such as the Millennium Villages Project for the Reduction of Extreme Poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 in the Louga region (Senegal).

Yacine holds a masters in Agribusiness and Value Chain Development. She worked as program manager of activities funded by ChildFund and implemented by the Federation of Baol in the region of Diourbel. She was responsible for overseeing agriculture, livestock, and community microfinance projects with the management of more than 250 community savings and loan groups.

Contact

Bountifield United States Headquarters

Bountifield Senegal

Bountifield Malawi

General Inquiries

U.S. Team

Alexandra Spieldoch

Alexandra Spieldoch

Executive Director

Brian Dotson

Bridget Gerenz

Bridget Gerenz

Technology Coordinator

Don Jacobson

Don Jacobson

Technical Advisor

Lori Olson

Lori Olson

Director of Philanthropy & Corporate Giving

Mai Yang

Mai Yang

Africa Program Manager

Ricardo Romero

Steve Clarke

Steve Clarke

Technical Advisor

Field-Based Team

Aliou Ndiaye

Aliou Ndiaye

Chief of Party for USAID I Yombal mbojj, Country Represetative – Senegal

Amadou Dia

Amadou Dia

Training Coordinator – Senegal

Andrews Chiwawula Because

Andrews Chiwawula Because

Agricultural Engineering, Malawi

Bocar Wade

Bocar Wade

Quality Assurance Specialist – Senegal

Wells Frank Kumwenda

Wells Frank Kumwenda

Technical Advisor, Malawi

Wongani Langa

Wongani Langa

Country Representative – Malawi

Yacine Seck

Yacine Seck

Agribusiness Specialist – Senegal

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