Background

Experts have indicated that having role models is critical for aspiring leaders, and these role models can differ from person to person. Role models represent and expand what is possible, and they demonstrate the mindsets and behaviors on how to grow. In our science organizations, there are currently limited women role models available. This is part of the vicious circle we seek to break. Through this series of seminars, we will make more role models and different leadership styles visible.

About the series

CIMMYT is launching a ‘TED Talk meets fireside chat’-style series on women leaders. We are doing this because, as Marion Wright Edelman said, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” If we want more women leaders in science institutions like ours, we need to provide more opportunities to hear from women leaders about their life journeys, their lessons, and their insights. We seek to highlight women who are leaders in all sorts of capacities and in all sorts of fields and disciplines, because we believe that leadership styles can take many different forms. We aim to hold two seminars per month, starting on July 2023.  

Visit the Catalyst of Change page to watch past sessions from this series.

Join us for the nineteenth Catalysts of Change seminar on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, with Saweda Liverpool-Tasie

8 – 9 a.m. Mexico City; 4 – 5 p.m. Paris; 7 – 6 p.m. Nairobi; 7:30 – 8:30 p.m. New Delhi

The seminar will be in English with interpretation in Spanish. Tune-in through LinkedIn livestreams the day of the event.

Saweda Liverpool-Tasie is a professor of agricultural, food, and resource economics at Michigan State University. She is also a visiting scientist with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Her research focuses on emergent issues related to smallholder productivity and welfare. Liverpool-Tasie is particularly interested in how the transformation of food systems in Africa creates livelihood opportunities for Africans along food supply chains. She is a member of the advisory board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD) and the lead principal investigator for two projects related to the sustainable transformation of Africa’s food systems. One is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded RSM2SNF (Research Supporting African MSMEs to Provide Safe and Nutritious Food) and the second one is the USAID-funded Nigeria Agricultural Policy Activity.