“Our programs aim to benefit smallholders regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, religion or other such differences. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive workplace for all staff, where diversity of person, thought and experience are valued and respected. We wish to work alongside like-minded partners to promote these principles.” 

Simon Winter, Executive Director, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. 

The Foundation’s headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland. Our country and regional staff are primarily based in:

• Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, China, South-East Asia
• Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Kenya

Our more than 150 employees represent some 15 nationalities and a wide variety of professional backgrounds. 

With our Policy, we want to promote practices that create and maintain a supportive, high-performance, team-orientated culture in order to:

• Enable the development of agricultural innovations for smallholders, and for them to use these innovations productively and profitably
• Encourage partnerships and develop scalable programs with high and inclusive impact
• Help attract, retain and advance capable, skilled persons in our teams by valuing diversity and inclusion, investing in development and opportunities, and providing a fair and safe working environment for all.

• Innovation and creativity: We want to encourage Diversity & Inclusion to promote innovation & creativity for all our staff
• Beneficiaries: We want to better understand smallholders’ and agri-entrepreneurs’ individual needs and wishes, so they can participate fully in local economic life.
• Staff: We respect the unique contributions that different social groups bring to our workplaces and collaborations.
• Safety in diversity: We are pushing for a working environment in which employees feel safe to be themselves, without fear of discrimination.
• Collaborations: We promote diversity throughout our programs and partnerships.
• Monitoring performance: We want to maintain a high-performing culture that values diversity.
• Collective responsibility: All our employees respect the Diversity & Initiative Policy in offices, project sites, and programs.

The D&I Champions are our regional “face and voice” for topics related to Diversity & Inclusion. They act as good examples and encourage the local application of SFSA’s D&I Policy and related action plan. Our gallery below shows who they are. 

Meet some Champions 

From time to time, we feature individual D&I Champions on our website. Meet Parikrama Chowdhry and Ye Pyae Kwaw. 

Rebecca Hubert Scherler - Legal Counsel 
Victoria Johnson-Chadwick - Head of Partnerships
Simon Winter - Executive Director 
Vivienne Anthony - Senior Scientific Advisor
George Osure - Country Director Kenya
Baskar Reddy - Country Director India
Mamadou Cisse & Paul Castle: Communications