Krishanu Chakravarty
Ashley Dean
Sarah El Ouadili
PC Das
Valentin AtchaoueLet's Collaborate
Our Team
Krishanu Chakravarty
Chief of Party
An accomplished and commercially astute Senior Executive with over 24 years of international private sector experience—of which the most recent 15 years have been in agricultural commodity and food processing industries. Krishanu has a demonstrated track record of leading successful business operations to address varied stages of growth challenges, including building the foundation for successful start-ups, transforming small businesses to expand and achieve scale, and reengineering business models to turn loss-making large businesses into profitable enterprises. As Chief of Party, Mr. Chakravarty leads the formulation and execution of the Prosper Cashew’s vision and strategy and drives engagement with the project’s partners and key stakeholders.
Ashley Dean
Deputy Chief of Party
A seasoned operations and project management specialist, Ashley Dean boasts more than a decade of experience supporting large economic-development and agriculture programs in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Prior to joining Prosper Cashew, Ms. Dean backstopped TechnoServe’s portfolio of projects across West Africa and led mobilization efforts for a $24 million cashew project in Benin. As DCoP, Ms. Dean oversees the operations; monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL); and communications teams and provides leadership on cross-cutting components such as gender.
Sarah El Ouadili
Capital Investment Lead
Sarah El Ouadili has more than ten years of experience in the investment banking industry, financing development programs of large-scale agribusinesses in Europe and in the US. Prior to TechnoServe, Ms. El Ouadili worked for the African Development Bank in Abidjan as a Senior Investment Officer, where she contributed to design innovative financing mechanisms for impact-oriented SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa, through a collaborative cross-departmental approach. Ms. El Ouadili supports the execution of the Prosper Cashew investment strategy and serves as the primary technical liaison between social lenders, impact funds, banks and cashew processors.
PC Das
Technical Support Lead
PC Das brings over 29 years of experience in food manufacturing and distribution operations. Prior to joining TechnoServe, some of his roles included Production Head at Ecom AgroTrade, where he led manufacturing operations in India, Africa, and Far East. As vice president at Olam International in Cote d’Ivoire, Mr. Das oversaw cashew processing for West Africa, a portfolio valued at over $100 million. As technical lead, Mr. Das leads Prosper Cashew’s technical/engineering capacity-building strategies for processors.
Valentin Atchaoue
Regional Business Support Manager
Valentine Atchaoue is an experienced cashew professional. Prior to joining Prosper Cashew, Valentin served as the senior manager for cashew processing on the BeninCaju project. He has also consulted for the African Cashew Alliance and worked at Red River Foods, where he developed and implemented procurement and export strategies. As the regional business support manager, Mr. Atchaoue manages the implementation of the project’s capacity-building efforts targeted at improving the profitability of cashew processors and other emerging value chain enterprises.
