Kavita Prakash-Mani

Biography

Kavita is Practice Leader, Markets at WWF. The Markets Practice leverages market mechanisms including working with small producers and enterprises, international companies, value chains and consumers to help meet the WWF goals of protecting wildlife, forests, freshwater, and oceans as well as mitigating and adapting to climate change. The Practice focuses on shifting demand for commodities like palm oil and rubber to sustainable options, reducing demand for illegal products like ivory, developing circular economy solutions e.g. for plastics, supporting community enterprises gain economic benefits from conservation of biodiversity – all underpinned by innovations, like blockchains.

Previously, Kavita was the founder and executive director of Grow Asia, a multi-stakeholder partnership in South East Asia, catalyzed by the World Economic Forum and the ASEAN Secretariat, focused on inclusive and sustainable agriculture development through supporting smallholder farmers. Prior to that Kavita was Global Head, Food Security Agenda at Syngenta International focused on developing new business models that enable environmental sustainability of agriculture and development of smallholder farmers. Kavita has also held positions as Executive Director, SustainAbility in London; Associate at the World Resources Institute in Washington DC; and as Brand Executive at Glaxo SmithKline in India.

Kavita is a Board member of Volans, Member of the Unilever Sustainable Sourcing Advisory Board, and a Member of the Advisory Board of SustainAbility Inc. She has been a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Food Security and Nutrition; Member of the Rice Bowl Index Advisory Board; Member of the Executive Committee of the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania; Board Member of the Institute for Human Rights and Business; and a Trustee of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre.