Lawrence Nze

Resourceful Program Implementation Professional with over 15 years of experience providing technical and strategic leadership in agribusiness and value chain development, agribusiness finance and investment, gender and youth inclusion, research and development. Provided extensive access to finance, investment, market, business and trade service support to private sectors and also supported strengthening government policies for an enabling business environment, serving on agribusiness-based projects of USAID, IITA and commercial banks.

I work as a technical and strategic lead in programs and value chain development, research and policy development, finance and investment, production and management, with special focus on gender and youth inclusion in Nigeria.

In my current role as the Deputy Chief of Party for the USAID-Funded Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity, my core responsibilities include: ; working closely with the Chief of Party to provide technical and managerial oversight for the Activity including development and implementation of the annual work plans, annual reports, events and all Components-led interventions, maintaining rigorous focus on the achievement of the key performance indicators. In my previous role as the Agribusiness Director, I provided oversight to the field-based Agribusiness Managers in seven states who serve as the project’s lead generators to ensure a high level of regional interest, awareness of the project and a steady volume of high-quality leads on policy development and advocacy, finance and investment deals, performance improvement needs of agribusinesses, MSMEs and farmers groups.

My most relevant education is International Master of Science in rural Development (IMRD). The joint IMRD offers the opportunity to study international visions on rural Development in their diversity of approaches and applications and to make comparative analyses of EU and non-Eu Agricultural and Rural Development strategies and policies. This is a 2 year Master programme jointly organized by seven European leading institutions in Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, in collaboration with several partners in the United States, China and other non-EU countries.