Ann Tutwiler

M. Ann Tutwiler
Born	Margaret Ann Tutwiler (1958-01-23)January 23, 1958 Columbia, South Carolina
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Agriculturalist
Years active	35
Known for	Director General of Bioversity International

Ann Tutwiler (born 23 January 1958) is a Senior Fellow with Meridian Institute and serves as a Senior Advisor to the Just Rural Transition. She also chairs the Expert Review Committee for the Food and Agriculture Benchmark for the World Benchmarking Alliance. Previously, she was the Director General of Bioversity International from July 2013 to February 2019 and the first woman Deputy Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) from January 2011 to November 2012. In 2022, she has been awarded the John Knox Batten Teaching Fellowship in Public Policy at Davidson College in North Carolina.

Education[]

Margaret Ann Tutwiler, sometimes referred to a M. Ann Tutwiler or, more simply, Ann Tutwiler, was born in Columbia, South Carolina in the United States. She obtained a bachelor's degree from the Presbyterian Davidson College in North Carolina and a master's degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She also has executive education certificates in agribusiness from Purdue University and INSEAD. Her studies included a period in Spain and she also worked as a teacher in a remote part of Western Kenya.^[1][2][3]

Career[]

From 1981-1983, Tutwiler was the Publications Editor for the Group of Thirty, a wise men's group working on international finance and monetary affairs. After completing graduate school, she was selected as a Presidential Management Intern, where she worked for USDA's Economic Research Service. From there, she moved to the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (1987-1992) where she co-authored numerous articles on US and EU agricultural policy, and international trade. While at NCFAP, she co-founded the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council where she was deputy director until 1992. From 1992 to 2002 Tutwiler was Director of Government Relations for the multinational agribusiness company Eridania Béghin-Say. From 2002 to December 2005 she was the President of the International Food and Trade Policy Council, based in Washington D.C.. At the beginning of 2006 she joined the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she created to Foundation's agricultural markets program. She joined the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as the Global Food Security Coordinator in 2009, coordinating USDA's participation in President Barack Obama's 'Feed the Future' initiative. In January 2011 she took up the post as Deputy Director-General for Knowledge at FAO, Rome, moving to FAO's Geneva office in late 2012 as a Special Advisor to the Director-General, Jacques Diouf. In July 2013 Tutwiler became Director General of Bioversity International, an organization based near Rome that is devoted to safeguarding agricultural biodiversity and is one of the 15 members of the CGIAR partnership.^[1][2][4]

On leaving Bioversity Tutwiler became Chair of the Steering Committee of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE); she is a Senior Fellow at the , a non-profit food and agriculture consultancy; and a Senior Advisor at SYSTEMIQ. She chairs the Expert Review Committee of the World Benchmarking Alliance's Food and Agriculture Benchmark (and was formerly chair of the advisory board of the Access to Seeds Foundation. She also serves on the advisory board of Foodshot Global.^[4][5]

Awards[]

Ann Tutwiler received the John W. Kuykendall Award for Community Service in 2005. This is an award given annually to alumni of Davidson College.^[6] Tutwiler has been selected as the Batten Professorship at Davidson College, where she will teach a course on global food systems' transformation.

References[]