Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro
Chief Agricultural Officer, Mars, Inc.
Howard has been involved with sustainable agricultural and agroforestry systems, plant breeding, molecular biology and genetics for over 40 years. He has worked with indigenous communities, NGO’s, governmental agencies and the private sector around the world. He was co-chair of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd World Congress of Agroforestry and he led the global effort sequencing, assembling and annotating the Theobroma cacao genome. Shapiro served the World Bank as one of the lead authors of the Mid-Term Review of the Consultative Group on International Agriculture research, serves as an Advisor to the Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility, sits on the Board of the WWF Markets Institute, collaborated on cropping systems with the Tata Trust and serves as a consultant to many NGO’s.
Shapiro founded the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC) and the African Plant Breeding Academy (AfPBA) in 2011.