The Chief Executive Officer, Dr Daniel Elger, is responsible for managing CABI’s affairs and is directly accountable to the Chair of the Board.
Leonard Kimutai as CABI’s Chief Financial Officer is also a member of the Board.
Chair: Chileshe Kapwepwe
Chileshe Kapwepwe has served as Secretary General for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa since 2018. Her experience in leadership, business and operations management in the public and private sectors spans more than 30 years. Chileshe brings to CABI a strong track record in leadership, business and operations management, and policy formulation and implementation. She has extensive knowledge in government, aviation, international trade, quality assurance, finance and economics.
Previous experience includes Executive Director roles at the International Monetary Fund and Deputy Minister and Nominated Member of Parliament at the Ministry of Finance and National Planning, Zambia. Other roles have included Managing Director of the National Airports Corporation Limited, Zambia and Contract Manager for Societe General de Surveillance.
Chileshe holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Bath and is a fellow at the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, UK. Chileshe has held several previous board posts, including Global Water Partnership SA, Zambia Revenue Authority and the Central Bank of Zambia.
Executive Council Chair: Vishnu Dhanpaul
His Excellency Vishnu Dhanpaul has served as High Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago to the UK since August 2021. In a career spanning over 34 years, he previously worked in the public service of Trinidad and Tobago including as Permanent Secretary in the Ministries of Finance, Energy and Energy Industries, and Public Utilities.
HE Dhanpaul chaired several state boards, including the Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, the National Investment Fund Holding Company and the Agricultural Development Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. He was the Alternate Executive Director in the World Bank Group from 2010-2012, and was also the President of the Tourism and Industrial Development Company and the first President of the Tourism Development Company.
HE Dhanpaul received a National Award in 2021, the Gold Public Service Medal of Merit. His studies at the University of the West Indies comprised an Executive Master's in Business Administration, postgraduate studies in Economics and International Relations and a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics.
Christoph Chesher
Christoph Chesher has over 38 years’ experience in academic publishing and will retire in 2022 from his role as Chief Commercial Officer of the Taylor & Francis Group. He brings widespread skills to CABI’s Board, including strategic management, contract negotiation, executive team leadership and publishing expertise in journals, open research, books and e-books.
His publishing career began in 1984 with Blackwell Science where he progressed to the position of International Sales Manager. He then joined Oxford University Press as Sales and Marketing Director for the Science, Medicals and Journals Division before moving to Routledge as Sales and Marketing Director. In 2008, Christoph became Group Sales Director for Taylor & Francis.
Christoph holds an MBA from the University of Birmingham as well as a Master of Letters: Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling. He has a long association with the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication where he has been a guest speaker, external examiner, and more recently, Chair of the Industry Advisory Board.
Gary Ernest
Gary Ernest recently retired after over 30 years’ experience in senior finance and audit roles in the Unilever Group and Rentokil Initial Group.
He joined Unilever as a trainee in 1987 and over the next 23 years served in a wide range of roles in operating companies and at corporate level, including Head of Internal Audit Europe, Chief Financial Officer of the Global Foodservice business, Head of Group Financial Planning and Analysis, and for four years, Financial Controller of China. Gary then worked for Rentokil Initial for almost 10 years as Director of Risk Management and Internal Audit. With this extensive experience, Gary has been appointed as the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee on the CABI Board.
Gary holds a Master’s in Computer Science from Cambridge University and is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He served as a Governor and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at Kingston University from 2012–2019 and since January 2020 is an external member of the Cambridge University Audit Committee.
Simi Kamal
Simi Kamal is the founder and Chairperson of the Hisaar Foundation. She has 40 years of experience in establishing institutions, building platforms and developing programmes, specializing in areas related to water, poverty and gender. As a women’s empowerment advocate, she has promoted gender equity and equality in programmes, with governments and through international campaigns.
Simi is the founder of several private and non-profit organizations as well as international and national networks, programmes and initiatives. She has served on numerous boards, committees, task forces and networks. Her experience ranges from being a member of a task force on food security assisting the government of Pakistan (2020–2022), to her current roles as Chair of the International Water Management Institute and as a Trustee with WaterAid UK.
Simi has extensive experience working on donor funded programmes, including those with USAID, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and UN agencies. She is a geographer educated and trained at the University of Cambridge.
Ann Tutwiler
Ann Tutwiler is a Senior Fellow with Meridian Institute and a Senior Advisor to Just Rural Transition. She is the Chair of the Expert Review Committee of the Food and Agriculture Benchmark for the World Benchmarking Alliance that will evaluate 350 global agribusiness companies on their commitments and actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Ann is also an advisor to ClimateAi, providing strategic advice and insight to start-up companies using artificial intelligence and information on future weather and climate change to help farmers and agribusinesses make better decisions and investments.
Ann was previously a board member for the International Water Management Institute, a member of Foodshot Global’s advisory board, a Senior Advisor to SYSTEMIQ, and Chair of the Independent Steering Committee of the Water Land and Ecosystems Research Programme. She also served a six-year tenure as Director General of Bioversity International (2013-2019), where she developed transformational innovations to deliver scientific results at scale. Ann has also had senior roles at the United Nations and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
She holds a Master's in Public Policy at Harvard University (1985), and later attended Harvard Business School on the Agribusiness Executive Education Program (1997), and has authored and co-authored over 50 selected publications. Ann was also a James Knox Batten Visiting Professor in Public Policy at Davidson College (2022).