James is an economist with over 20 years’ experience working on economic development in both public and private sectors, with governments, businesses and private foundations. James has worked on a wide range of issues such as national level skills development, small business development, trade policies, export promotion strategies, innovation incubators and productivity campaigns. He has led work to identify future growth sectors for several countries in Africa and worked across Africa developing industry strategies and assessing investments in key sectors. He has spent most of the past 20 years living in and working on industry transformation efforts in East Africa, with the past 15 years working in organisations taking a market systems lens to their work. He has worked extensively on tea, coffee, cotton, textiles, leather and BPO, among others. At Gatsby Africa, James first led our sector programmes across the region, before taking his current role championing the learning from our work and bringing together research from elsewhere to reflect on how Gatsby, as well as our partners can better deliver on the economic transformation imperative in an environmentally responsible manner.