Adam Gross Email & Phone Number

Leeds, Gb

Sub-Saharan Africa, Mena And South Asia

Working with World Bank and IFC to design, fund-raise and implement programmes to support access to finance for MSMEs, agribusinesses, smallholder farmers, producer organisations and refugees/IDPs (including particular focus on women borrowers), while leveraging ag- and fintech and strengthening value chains, livelihoods and market linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA and South Asia

Ethiopia

Technical lead in a multi-year large-scale complex implementation to design and build the ecosystem for collateralised commodity lending in Ethiopia through warehouse receipt system (WRS) and collateral management agreement (CMA) culminating in three successful years of piloting and scale-up.The project has involved:- program design, partnerships and fundraising- developing the legal framework with new legislation and standards- designing and capacitating a new regulatory authority- incubating a new industry for warehouse management services- capacitating banks, farmer orgs and agribusinesses- setting up physical infrastructure and reshaping value chain flows- supporting Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) to develop secondary markets for non-mandated commodities- advising ECX on the development of its corporate strategy and transformation plan

Design of sustainable Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technology and finance solutions in East Africa

Invited by Africa's commodity exchanges to provide technical guidance and implementation support in the set-up and development of a new pan-African industry association which aims to strengthen the Continent's expanding cohort of commodity exchanges and drive pan-African economic integration by facilitating regional commodity trade.

Lead advisor to the World Food Programme which is pioneering in Ghana a next generation model for food and nutrition security and livelihoods programming linked to ag value chain and e-governance digitisation, covering food and market systems development, sustainable social protection and CBT models, emergency preparedness and response, agro-industrialisation and export promotion, access to finance, and smallholder farmer market linkages, focused on the most food insecure and vulnerable populations

Carrying out a technical feasibility study and implementation planning exercise for the ICCO's Africa Cocoa Exchange project, assessing and designing commodity exchange- and warehouse receipt-based opportunities for the African cocoa sector - including Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon - to drive intra-regional trade, value addition, export competitiveness, sustainability, financial inclusion and producer livelihoods

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

Adam is a Director with Darhei Noam, a boutique consultancy offering commercial, development and specialist consulting with focus on emerging markets. Darhei Noam leverages its capabilities, experience and networks, together with its consulting prowess, to build close relationships, to manage projects on-time and on-budget, and to deliver value and excellence for clients in all it does.Commercial services include emerging markets strategy, business and consultancy representation, and corporate consulting.Development services include thought leadership, development consulting, and programme support services.Specialist services include:- Livelihoods Promotion (with focus on microenterprise development, commercialisation of cooperatives, associations and cottage industries, and microfinance support).- Commodity Marketing (offering comprehensive support services for structured trade and finance platforms such as commodity exchanges, warehouse receipt systems and value chain finance, market information systems)- Capital Markets Development (offering comprehensive support services for stock and derivative exchanges, clearinghouses and depositories)

Rome, Latium, Italy

Appointed as one of ten international experts, and the sole practitioner, to the working group developing Global Model Law on Warehouse Receipts, as a joint effort of UNIDROIT (the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) and UNCITRAL (the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) https://www.unidroit.org/work-in-progress/model-law-on-warehouse-receipts/#1700039161282-ab9aa555-8a5d

- Strategy consultant: AGRA five-year strategy design - inclusive markets, trade and finance - Contractor and lead consultant: Malawi agricultural structured trade policy and regulatory reform project

Corporate strategy and business development sub-strategy formulation for Malawi's smallholder farmer apex organisation and its affiliated portfolio of agribusinesses

Advising ACE on the establishment of the ACE Commodity Fund, designed to facilitate increased bank lending to smallholder farmers and other market actors through refinancing and risk sharing facilities, with fund coverage including warehouse receipt finance, input credit and commodity options

Advisory support to the CEO and COO on special projects linked to the Ghana CARES Programme

Advisor on feasibility and due diligence review relating to Afrexim investment in structured trade, commodity and financial market infrastructure

Lead consultant to the senior management team for the development of GCX's inaugural five-year strategic business plan

East Africa

Lead technical specialist for the final phase of the DFID-funded, DAI-implemented Food Trade East and Southern Africa (FTESA) programme, evaluating programme achievements and architect for structured trade action-learning activities with agribusinesses across the region.

Southern Africa

Regional lead consultant for commodity finance, risk management, structured trade and agricultural investment under contracts with USAID Southern Africa, the USAID Southern Africa Trade and Investment Hub, USAID Southern Africa Bridging Activity, the USAID Feed the Future Agricultural Diversification Activity (Malawi), and the USAID Feed the Future Regional Southern Africa Seed Trade Programme. Roles included:- Lead consultant supporting the Trade Hub's Agricultural Storage Investment Facility (ASIF), a regional strategy to build out the storage footprint in support of warehouse receipt systems and commodity exchanges in Southern Africa through innovative finance and investment structures, which culminated in a landmark USD 35m investment from European Investment Bank- Lead on financial institution capacity building to support deployment and scaling of warehouse receipt finance; - Lead institutional development support for regional warehouse receipt systems and commodity exchanges, and their enabling ecosystem, including ACE (Malawi), ZAMACE (Zambia), and BMM (Mozambique), in partnership with JSE (South Africa).- Consultant supporting inclusive and catalytic investments to incubate an efficient and scalable regional seed sector

Lead consultant for the development of the policy paper to inform implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in the area of commodity exchanges, engaged by GFA Consulting on behalf of the African Union

Development of AGRA's post-harvest and markets strategy

Consultant on the Africa Crop Receipts Initiative, a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to introduce securitised pre-harvest financing instruments - 'crop receipts' - into Africa based on the precedent of Brazil. The crop receipt is the pre-harvest equivalent of the warehouse receipt. Backed by an appropriate legal framework, and with an ecosystem covering the financial, agribusiness and farmer sectors, crop receipts have the potential to unlock large scale financing for agri value chains

Joint venture contractor, study architect and lead author of the Bank's pan-African strategy for promoting agricultural market access in Africa through standards systems, commodity exchanges and warehouse receipts, managing a large project team performing stakeholder engagement survey, investment analysis and pipeline identification, program design, and policy and capacity-building frameworks, covering all five African regions - North, West, Central, East and Southern Africa.

Research studies on value chain finance and agricultural and financial technologies (agtech/fintech). Feasibility studies for regional agricultural financing and market linkages programs linked to agricultural value chains and food system in West and Central Africa. Editorial support - CTA's Spore Magazine.

Malawi

Consultant to the Government of the Republic of Malawi developing the legal-regulatory framework for commodity exchanges and warehouse receipt systems

Malawi

Project consultant advising the UK FCDO (ex-DFID)-funded Business Innovation Facility on the development of collateralised financing systems for MSME Malawian agribusinesses linked to the warehouse receipt system of the Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE)

Johannesburg Area, South Africa

The AUDA-NEPAD Business Foundation is strategically positioned at the Intersection of Private and Public Sector in Africa. Affiliated to the African Union and its development agency, AUDA-NEPAD, the Foundation mobilizes private sector to identify, structure and participate in the critical agriculture and infrastructure investments required for Africa’s economic and social development, as formulated under the African Union-NEPAD framework, including through the CAADP and PIDA programmes. Aside from leading in general the work on finance and capital markets, Adam's work with the Foundation - performed on a pro bono basis - drove the conceptualisation, fundraising and implementation of the Africa Investment and Integration Desk (AVID), the Foundation's structure that drives Public-Private Partnerships and Investment Facilitation. AVID packages solutions for African domestic and cross-border projects, including regional integration priorities, to deliver AU goals. Service delivery focuses on building capacity and frameworks for PPPs and packaging blended financing solutions involving commercial financiers and investors, development finance institutions (DFIs), impact investors, and bilateral, multilateral and private donors.

Consultant advising the Capital Markets and Securities Authority of the United Republic of Tanzania on bond market development and on derivatives market training for intermediaries

Consultant to the Ministry of Agriculture on the establishment of a commodity exchange

Advisor to DFID's West Africa Food Market Fund to perform feasibility review and due diligence on the AFEX Commodity Exchange, Nigeria, for a grant to provide seed capital to support AFEX's implementation strategy

Consultant on the Nigeria Non-Lending Technical Assistance (NLTA) - Trade Facilitation in Agricultural Markets, with focus on warehouse receipt systems and commodity exchanges

Conducted the study to review the potential for warehouse receipt system and commodity exchange development in the ECOWAS region.

Gaborone, Botswana - Johannesburg, South Africa

Oversaw all aspects of strategy and implementation for a pan-African commodity and derivatives exchange, including legal, regulation, product, business, clearing and settlement, technology, connectivity, operations, HR, research, analysis, investment and capital-raising

India

Provided advisory support to the CEO of an Indian social enterprise focused on rolling out pedagogy and business support services for a growing network of low-cost affordable private schools, customising and deploying the Fundacion Escuela Nueva 'Montessori for the Poor' methodologies to the Indian context.

Geneva, Switzerland

Expert on commodity finance, risk management and information, specialising on commodity exchanges and warehouse receipt systems, within UNCTAD's Commodity Branch (now Special Unit on Commodities). Main activities included provision of technical assistance to countries in Africa and Asia, programme design, policy analysis and advocacy, partnership facilitation, study design and implementation, and end-to-end delivery of intergovernmental knowledge and learning events involving public and private practitioners from around the world. Led a five country global impact assessment study involving the leading commodity exchange from each developing region (JSE - Africa, MCX India - South Asia, Bursa Malaysia - South East Asia, DCE China - East Asia, BM&FBovespa - Latin America), managing a study team comprising over 50 experts from commodity exchanges, regulatory authorities, financial institutions, farmer organisations and commodity value chain actors.

Mumbai Area, India

Working with senior management, formulated group- and company-level strategy for India's leading national multi-commodity derivatives exchange, linked to then-nascent initiatives for warehouse/collateral management (NBHC), price information (Tickerplant), spot trade (NSEL) and institutional learning (FTKMC) as well as expanding group presence in fast-growth emerging markets, including the Dubai Gold and Commodity Exchange (DGCX).At the time, MCX was India's 2nd largest commodity exchange and the world's 12th - it subsequently became India's largest and the world's 3rd largest. National Bulk Handling Corporation (NBHC) grew rapidly to become - and still is - the largest of 15+ Indian private warehousing firms, with coverage across thousands of sites facilitating finance for over 100 commodities from over 50 banks under India's subsequently introduced Warehouse Receipt System framework under the Warehouse Development and Regulatory Authority. DGCX has become the leading commodity exchange in the MENA region.

London, United Kingdom

(Formerly Mercer Management Consulting)

London, United Kingdom

(Formerly Mercer Management Consulting)Advised at board level leading global corporations in sectors including telecoms, technology, white goods, consumer appliances, processing industries and utilities. Projects included sales and marketing strategy, channel strategy, industrial networking strategy, organisational design, change management, profitability analysis and margin engineering, regulation, M&A and post-merger integration. Competences included project management, relationship management, financial modelling, financial analysis, market analysis, business model analysis, process mapping and multi-media presentation.

London, United Kingdom

Westminster, London

Ba/Ma Joint Honours, Philosophy, Politics & Economics (Ppe)

Activities and Societies: President, Oxford University PPE Society

Ma, With Distinction, Development Studies

Diploma, Conflict Resolution, Crisis Management And Post Conflict Rehabilitation

Ba (Joint Hons) Philosophy Politics And Economics