Cathy Phiri

Cathy Phiri is an agricultural expert who specializes in strengthening market systems to increase competitiveness while preserving natural resources, increasing food security, and integrating gender. She leads our market systems resilience work in our Quality Impact and Learning team at Corus International. She advances learning, market systems development, private sector engagement, collaborating, learning, and adapting. Her focus on agriculture came from working in the high-value horticulture supply chain in the U.K. and a desire to improve agricultural supply chains for farmers and others.

Cathy started her career at ACDI/VOCA where she spent 10 years working on USAID, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other donor projects, including five years in Ghana and Sierra Leone managing large USAID Feed the Future and Food for Peace projects. Her other assignments include designing proposals and project management and oversight in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. She was a co-author on publications on climate information services and designed new tools for financial systems to track climate expenditures.

Cathy holds a Master’s degree in international management from the School for International Development, Vermont, and a Bachelor's degree in agri-food marketing and business from Harper Adams University in the U.K.