Susan Pologruto has worked at USAID for over a decade, and she joined the Bureau for Food Security in 2013 to promote local solutions and strengthen civil society engagement. In this role, she led a collaborative process to develop the Feed the Future Civil Society Action Plan and the Strengthening Civil Society's Role in Development: A Handbook for Engagement. Her work emphasizes the importance of engaging local actors early and often in the design, development, and implementation of projects to reduce hunger and poverty. Previously, she worked in USAID's Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance where she managed the Complex Crises Fund to provide support and resources to mission-critical international development programs. Earlier, she served as a Rule of Law Advisor in USAID's Center for Excellence in Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance. Susan received both a J.D. and an M.S.W. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in Women’s Studies from Rutgers University.

Carolyn Barker-Villena has spent a decade working at Lutheran World Relief and has served as the senior regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean since November 2013. In this role, she leads the strategic direction and programming in seven countries (Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Peru). Her regional portfolio includes agricultural development particularly in cocoa and coffee, resilience and climate change adaptation initiatives, gender and youth integration, agro-enterprise development, and emergency response. During her tenure as director, the regional budget and staffing has more than doubled due to innovative partnerships with both public and private sector donors. Carolyn has a dual M.A. in Latin American Studies and Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Vassar College.

Stanlake Kaziboni is World Vision’s business development and quality assurance director in Tanzania. World Vision Tanzania has been implementing the Babati Pamoja project under the Transforming Household Resilience in Vulnerable Environments campaign. Stanlake works with the project team to gather and distill lessons learned and understand the effects of the project on the individuals, households, and wider community. Stanlake has nearly 17 years’ experience in the development and humanitarian industry, with the last four spent in Tanzania.

Sue Cant is technical advisor to World Vision’s social accountability programs, now scaled to more than 400 sites across 48 countries. Sue has expertise in sub-national governance and more than 12 years’ working in international development policy, technical advisory, design, monitoring and evaluation in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Prior to World Vision, Sue worked as democratic governance advisor to the Australian Government in Papua New Guinea and was responsible for leading the provision of democratic governance delivery support, evaluation, and analysis for the Australian Government’s democratic governance program, Strongim Pipol Strongim Nesen. Sue has also worked on and led evaluations on women’s political leadership and gender based violence and holds two Master’s degrees.

Sara Nitz is the policy and advocacy manager for food security and agriculture at InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based international NGOs. In her role, she facilitates the Food Security Working Group and spearheads NGO advocacy for the Global Food Security Act and Feed the Future. Previously, she was gender advisor to the USAID Africa Bureau and drafted a multi-sectoral research study on the intersection of gender, climate change, and USAID priority sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sara also spent several years on the Hill as senior legislative assistant with Congress member Karen Bass. She led office engagement on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, managed the office appropriations process, and helped shape office policy on international and domestic women’s issues, energy and the environment, higher education, and agricultural policy. Sara has a Master of Arts in International Development Studies from the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University and a B.A. in International Relations and History from Colgate University.