Jean-Michel Voisard

Mr. Jean-Michel Voisard is an agribusiness specialist, with more than 3 decades experience in local and export food supply chains in developing countries.  He has played a lead role designing and implementing innovative value chain initiatives for the World Bank Group and US Agency for International Development (USAID). Recognized by USAID as a thought-leader, his field work is the object of several USAID and World Bank best practice studies on value chain approaches, market systems transformation, women’s empowerment, inclusive digital solutions, extension and advisory services, scaling strategies, and private sector engagement. He brings to his development work his experience as a financial analyst and manager gained early in his career at Deloitte and a major Canadian food distributor, and more recently as financial reporting director at Cirque du Soleil, a global entertainment company.

Mr. Voisard has served as project designer, program manager, technical lead, and project director of USAID and World Bank initiative programs valued cumulatively at more than $400 million in Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana. His work has achieved lasting impacts, where local firms and farmer organizations have boosted their productivity, introduced high-value products and technical innovations, streamlined logistics and traceability systems, implemented quality management and certification, scaled up small business financing, and expanded trade.

His technical work is complemented by contributions to research and learning activities. He has led a World Bank Institute multi-country training seminar on agriculture export value chain competitiveness which convened global thought leaders who interacted with stakeholders from 15 African countries and was the basis of a later publication on the value chain approach. He is now a frequent speaker on USAID's Agrilinks platform webinars and has contributed to numerous USAID Global Learning and Evidence Exchange events (GLEE)  and other industry learning events organized by associations, local authorities and multilateral organizations. He has recently published a peer reviewed research paper on the response of Senegal farmer organizations to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Voisard is a Canadian Citizen graduated from Business school HEC Montréal, Canada and established in Washington DC, USA.