The World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) announced that Hannah Ward has joined as its new director of environment.

As director of environment, Ward will lead WCF’s environmental focus area, through the organization’s landmark collaborative program, the Cocoa & Forests Initiative (CFI). Additionally, she will lead the development of new projects and drive collaboration with internal stakeholders and external partners to improve forest protection, reduce and reverse cocoa-related deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions in cocoa-producing countries.

WCF Vice President of Programmes Peter Koegler comments, “The team and I are very excited, Hannah brings such a wealth of experience and enthusiasm which will be needed to expand and scale-up CFI and other collaborative programs.”

With over 15 years’ experience in international development and sustainability, Ward comes to WCF after designing numerous successful landscape programs across the coffee, cocoa, and forests sectors throughout Africa and Latin America. Well-versed in cross-sector collaboration and direct engagement with partner organizations, and having spent a substantial amount of time with cocoa and coffee farmers across multiple origins, she brings a unique skill set that will aid WCF as it continues to deliver its vision and mission in the world of cocoa sustainability.

Prior to joining the World Cocoa Foundation, Ward was a senior manager of institutional relations at the Rainforest Alliance, where she had the overall responsibility for the organization’s relationships, program design and development, and resource mobilization from and with European Governments and multilaterals such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF). She has previously worked at Twin & Twin Trading, leading programs and partnerships with coffee sector stakeholders across East Africa and Latin America, and the U.K. Department for Energy and Climate Change as the Head of Fuel Poverty Targeting as a Senior Policy Advisor. She has lived in West, East, and Southern Africa, with experience in South Asia and Latin America.

“I am honored to be joining the World Cocoa Foundation at such a critical time for the cocoa sector. I firmly believe that sustainability solutions need to be more rapidly realized, and this can only be achieved through sector-wide collaboration and holistic approaches. Furthermore, the realities of smallholder families, and the economic, social, and environmental pressures they face must be taken into account. I am excited to leverage my experience working closely with both public and private partners, and on landscape-level and multi-country programs to ensure that environmental preservation goes hand in hand with better economic returns for farmers," says Ward on her WCF appointment.

Ward holds a Masters in International Development: Social Policy and Social Development and a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from Manchester University.

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