Sean de Cleene
Our Team
Sean de Cleene, Lead Advisor - Food & AgTech Innovation Fund
Sean de Cleene is highly regarded internationally as a systems leader and for his work in brokering relevant transformational partnership and inclusive business solutions. He is currently a senior advisor for various organisations including: UN Environment Programme, Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management (CPTM), Synergy Global, Food Action Alliance and an adjunct Professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology (commencing in Jan 24)
As a former member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum, for nearly six years, he had executive oversight and responsibility for Food Systems, and at different times, for the Tech for SDGs portfolio, the Sustainable Development Investment Partnership (SDIP), Nature portfolio, Climate Governance Initiative, Hoffman Tech and Environment PhD Fellows, and Civil Society Engagement. Sean chaired the UN Food Systems Summit Innovation Lever of Change.
Sean brings a lot of experience catalysing multifaceted investment partnerships like Grow Africa, Grow Asia, Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, and the Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor or more recently Food Innovation Hubs in India, Vietnam and Colombia, or as the Co-Chair ad interim, together with the Chair of the OECD DAC, of the Sustainable Development Investment Partnership.
Previously he held positions as – Senior Vice President Global Initiatives, Strategy and Business Development for Yara International, Vice President of Business Development, Inclusive Finance and Strategic Partnerships at AGRA and spent over a decade as a social entrepreneur catalysing a range of leading platforms, organisations and sustainability financing initiatives mostly in Southern Africa.