Hilary Barry

Founder and Secretary General, LadyAgri Impact Investment Hub

Hilary Barry is founder and Secretary General of the LadyAgri Impact Investment Hub.  She is Irish. Since her first experience in Ghana in 1993, she has dedicated her career to the design and implementation of social impact programs across Africa, Caribbean and Pacific states. She holds an MsC in Cooperatives, Agri-Food and Sustainable Development from University College Cork, Ireland.  She has  managed EU, UNDP, World Bank, FAO, ITC , Bilateral funded programmes in agri-SME support public health, food safety compliancy, agri-value chain development and women entrepreneurship across over 35 countries in African Union and Small Island Developing States. She is a gender impact specialist and advises Women led SME’s, Financial Institutions, Agri-Corporates and Multilateral agencies on structuring of agri-value chains, food and commodity agribusinesses through a gender lens. She designs services to accelerate women’s agri-entrepreneurship and access to finance she advises on effective monitoring and evaluation systems to measure gender impact of future and existing agri-investments.

Her Mantra: “Investing in Women is Simply Smart Economics”

She founded LadyAgri in 2018 with her 2 cofounders, Ayélé Gabiam from Togo and Aida Bakri Ethiopian-Swiss. The association has 25 active members, with a  secretariat  in Brussels and an extensive network of technical experts working in-country on LadyAgri projects and programs.  LadyAgri works in partnership with DFI’s, Impact Investment funds, philanthropists, agri-corporates, the international donor community and local ‘Gender Smart’ banks, investing in women in agri-value chains , food system transformation and climate and renewable energy transition.