About
Our JourneyWe combine solid expertise in food, agriculture and nutrition with finely-tuned soft skills and a deep understanding of African challenges and cultures. This unique blend enables us to offer each of our customers tailor-made, personalised solutions.
About EQ4DEV
Managing change across food systems in Africa
EQ4DEV is a boutique consultancy firm dedicated to transforming food systems across Africa through strategic change management. Our comprehensive services focus on youth empowerment, organizational capacity building, partnership support, and cross-cultural communication.
Our approach lies in providing bespoke services to our clients, supporting them in moving from ideas to action within the sustainable development context. We have strong experience in implementing multistakeholder solutions on the ground in complex environments and the way we operate stimulates inclusive collaboration and tangible results.
With our deep-rooted knowledge and understanding of the African continent, we are a trusted partner for driving positive and sustainable change in the agricultural landscape.
Our mission is to create a resilient and equitable future for African food systems.
Why the name « EQ4DEV » ?
Our name EQ4DEV means “emotional intelligence for development”.
Our approach
Emotional intelligence is at the heart of our approach, because we strongly believe that our emotions are powerful levers for finding solutions and taking action, whatever our objective!
Becoming aware of how we work is the essential starting point for understanding how we relate to others and adjusting our behaviour and leadership to our environment. Knowing and respecting ourselves better enables us to take responsible action -individual and collective- while improving our performance and well-being.
Lead Consultant
Expert Guidance
Caroline de La Maisonneuve
Founder
Caroline has 25 years of experience developing and managing complex partnerships in the agriculture and food sector. She has a strong international profile including 15 years’ experience in Africa with corporates, governments and international organisations from the United Nations to the World Economic Forum. As the Head of Country Operations and Partnerships for Grow Africa, she led operations in 12 countries to increase inclusive and sustainable private sector investment in African agriculture.
Over the last decade, she’s been working on innovative approaches to support leaders, entrepreneurs and SMEs in the agri-food sector to facilitate partnerships and accelerate transformative change. This includes some leading corporates in the food sector. Caroline also worked with the Geneva Challenge, a social entrepreneurship contest initiated by the late Kofi Annan and which focuses on innovative solutions to tackle the challenges of the SDGs. She worked with the finalists both prior and after the award ceremony to boost and unleash their potential, covering aspects from strategy execution to partnerships, funding and leadership development. More recently, Caroline has supported Generation Africa in developing and leading their 2023 Fellowship Program -funded by Bayer- providing bespoke personal and leadership development support to the finalists of the GoGettaz Prize and Pitch AgriHack Competition. GoGettaz is an annual competition for the agri-food entrepreneurs on the African continent and is part of the Generation Africa movement dedicated to support youth and food systems. Pitch AgriHack supports technological innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture across Africa.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Engineer in Agriculture, Food Technologies and Industries
- Master of Advanced Studies in Nutrition
CERTIFICATIONS
- Certified Professional Coach
- NLP Coach certified practitioner
- MBTI® certified practitioner
- EQ-i 2.0® and EQ 360® certified practitioner
- Team dynamic and group facilitation
COUNTRIES OF EXPERIENCE
Afghanistan, Albania, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Pakistan, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan & South Sudan, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
testimonials
Caroline has a deep understanding of the struggle founders contend with. She also seemed to understand local contexts, which was key in dealing with African entrepreneurs. Caroline was also willing to go out of her way to provide support to our group.
What truly stood out for me was the one-on-one experience. It was nothing short of remarkable. It felt like someone had stepped into my shoes, delving into my challenges, and drawing from their own wealth of experience to offer invaluable solutions. These interactions have been an immense source of personal growth and joy.
Caroline never made the decisions for me but helped me understand circumstances and make personal decisions.
Unlike other programs which assume your needs and where you find a fixed program, we went first through a needs assessment to design a program tailored to our needs.
Caroline is so engaged! She gives you the right tools but never tries to influence you. She is a great coach.
some of our clients
Get In Touch
Geneva, Switzerland
+41 78 695 80 32
info@eq4dev.ch