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- Sam Dryden (February 9, 1950 – August 10, 2017) was a thought leader and advocate for food and nutrition security, with a particular focus on small-holder farmer led agricultural development in Africa and Asia. Lately Dryden was a Fellow at Imperial College, working on a project to promote digital technologies that can catalyse sustainable agricultural transformation across the food system in Africa. Dryden led the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Agricultural Development strategy, making it the largest funding program along-with polio, and re-oriented the program to focus on pro-poor staple crops, women farmers and local institutions. Dryden's appointment was seen as controversial, but his leadership and vision to promote pro-poor agricultural development interventions, linked with nutrition and women's empowerment, were lauded by critics and supporters, and earned him the Hunger Hero Award from the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on the nomination of World Food Programme. Prior to the Gates Foundation, Dryden had a distinguished track record as an investor and developer of life-sciences ventures with extensive expertise in the scale-up and commercialization of early-stage agricultural technologies worldwide, as well as public-private partnerships like being the private sector representative in the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Sylvia Matthews Burwell, President of the Global Development Program at the Gates Foundation, summed up Dryden's track record: "Sam brings a wealth of experience to the foundation—not only in agriculture, research, and business, but also in a wide variety of projects related to agricultural development and public-private partnerships. His strong leadership qualities will help the team deliver on our strategy to help small farmers improve their lives." Dryden used to be Managing Director of Wolfensohn & Company, a private investment and advisory firm founded by James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank. There he focused primarily on private equity investments in alternative energies. Until June 2006, he served as the Chair and Corporate CEO of Emergent Genetics, Inc. — a global leader in the development and marketing of biotechnology-enhanced seed products. Emergent Genetics' operations were based in Europe, the United States, Argentina and Brazil, and comprised one of the largest seed companies in India. The majority of the company was acquired in April 2005 by the Monsanto Company and its remaining operations were acquired in June 2006 by Syngenta AG. Prior to that Dryden had worked across the world in various capacities; he began his career at the Bureau of Economic Analysis. (en)
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