Our people

Fenosoa has been the Executive Secretary of the BioGuinea Foundation since October 2014. Before joining the Foundation, he was the Executive Director of the Tany Meva Environmental Foundation of Madagascar for 12 years, after having been a consultant in various entrepreneurship promotion and development projects.

He is a member of various international environment finance and development networks, including CAFÉ (Consortium of African Funds for the Environment), CFA Task Force for (Conservation Finance Alliance), ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas and territories) and the Wetlands International Africa Advisory Group.

He holds a Master degree in Project Development studies from Senghor University of Alexandria-Egypt.

Over the span of more than 30 years in East, Central, and West Africa, Paul Siegel has contributed to the management of marine, freshwater, and forest ecosystems, community empowerment and development, wildlife conservation and management, conservation finance and international environmental policy.

Following his Peace Corps service, teaching in DR Congo in the early 70’s, Paul completed his Ph.D. in marine biology at the University of California and returned to Africa teach at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. In 1988, he became Field Director of the School for Wildlife Conservation and Management in Kenya, and in 1990, he joined WWF where he spent 20 years supporting and catalyzing links among African natural resource professionals.

Over the years, Paul has been awarded a Fullbright Biodiversity Award, was an Environmental Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was decorated by the Malagasy Government as a Chevalier de l’Ordre National. He currently serves on Boards of Directors of the BioGuinea Foundation, the Western Indian Ocean Marine Sciences Association (WIOMSA).

Paulo Gomes is the founder of Constelor Investment Holdings, an advisory firm that has facilitated over $500 million in investment into West Africa.

He has a deep expertise in African politics and economic policy with over 25 years of public and private sector experience. He is a co-founder of New African Capital Partners, chairman of the Africa-South East Asia Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Board of the Green Climate Fund.

Formerly, Paulo served as the Executive Director at the World Bank Group leading strategy for over 20 African countries. He served previously as a principal advisor in Guinea-Bissau’s Ministry of Finance.

A passionate advocate of the environment, Paulo works to ensure that Africa’s sustainable development is at the heart of policy discussion.

Paulo holds an MA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Sylvie Goyet is Director, Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability at SPC –Pacific Community, based in Noumea, New Caledonia.

She has 20 years of experience in directing and managing environmental programmes, special expertise in coastal and marine issues, conservation finance and conservation trust funds, and a general background in organizational management and strategic planning.

From 2006 until end of 2014, she was the Director General of FIBA – Fondation Internationale du Banc d’Arguin, a private Swiss foundation working in West Africa on coastal and marine issues. In her previous assignments, she was Regional Coordinator of the UNOPS/UNDP/GEF MedWetCoast project, Programme Manager at WWF International and programme officer at UNDP Black Sea Programme, UNEP Caspian Sea Programme, and UNDP Fiji.

Sylvie is a French and Swiss citizen, holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from the University of London, an MBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master in International Business from the Business Management School of Lyon.

Sylvie presently serves on the Board of the BioGuinea Foundation (Guinee Bissau) and on the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation; she is President of the Wild Touch Association (France) and an Executive Committee member of the Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA).

sylvieg@spc.int

Camila has 17 years’ experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating sustainable finance mechanisms for conservation in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.

She has led the development of a number of national and regional funding programmes, mobilizing international resources towards biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. Her work focused on supporting conservation trust funds (CTFs) to design instruments and adopt practices to leverage finance for their portfolios. Camila spent a decade at Funbio, the Brazilian Biodiversity Fund, one of the largest CTFs globally. During this time she led international projects through RedLAC, the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Environmental Funds, and the Conservation Finance Alliance, focused on knowledge and innovation in financial mechanisms for conservation. Currently, she is a Manager at a UK-based consultancy called Terranomics, focused on private finance for conservation.

Camila is passionate about multicultural exchanges as a way of learning. She is particularly interested in integrating gender equality and women’s economic empowerment into conservation and sustainable development efforts.

Ibrahima Thiam has lead Wetlands International programs in Africa since 2008- having previously managed Oxfam America programs in West Africa. In addition to his conservation and development expertise, he brings to FBG in-depth experience in economics, microenterprise development, and government relations.

Ibrahima is particularly interested in technology, entrepreneurship and innovation and is passionate about generating new conservation ideas and mechanisms in and for Africa. He a rural economist by training having graduated from the MIT Sloan School.