Meet Leonor Fall AL for Agribusiness Intern

Leonor is an ALA alumna and graduate of EARTH University with a degree in Agricultural Science and Natural Resource Management. She began her career working in vegetable production companies in her hometown before joining a management training program with a multinational company in Côte d’Ivoire where she had the opportunity to work on a smallholder sustainability project and learn about the different processes in the agricultural value chain. This program gave her the skills to influence decision making, create effective processes, and empower teams to perform at their best.

Eager to apply these skills back home, she returned to Senegal to work with social enterprises and nonprofit organizations on projects to improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers, especially women. In the midst of this career evolution, she became a mother and when that happens, there is something that just occurs where you feel like you can conquer the world, that you can do anything. So, her desire for entrepreneurship and public service grew tremendously and she decided to leave the private world to work more on social projects with governments, larger institutions that are striving to make the world a better place.

She became the national coordinator of the Mastercard Foundation’s alumni network, conducting alumni integration and give-back activities, and a budding entrepreneur eager to help herders gain access to year-round feed in a part of the country where droughts and unpredictable rainfall patterns make raising livestock more difficult. While working on these different projects, Leonor realized the importance of networking and supporting others. She took part in the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders at Purdue University to connect with like-minded peers and learn from experienced change-makers. Leonor has now joined the AL for Agribusiness network as a partner engagement coordinator and has begun an internship where she hopes to develop more connections with agribusiness actors on the continent, improve her communication skills and engagement with different partners, and most importantly gain more capacity for effective networking to propel a successful career in service to humanity.