Yves Savidan, New Board Chair of CIAT

Dr. Yves Savidan took over as the new Chair of CIAT Board of Trustees on 19 May 2006. Handing over the office to him, Dr. James W. Jones, outgoing Board Chair, said: "I am happy to leave the Board and CIAT is such good hands. I am very confident that Yves will provide strong leadership for the Board and CIAT. His knowledge, experience, enthusiasm, leadership abilities, and personality are ideally suited for this new responsibility."

Dr. Savidan, a national of France, joined as a member of CIAT Board of Trustees in 2003. Until he took over as Board Chair, he had been serving as a member of the Program, Executive and Finance, and Nomination Committees of the Board. He chaired the Program Committee from 2004 to 2006.

Thanking the Board of Trustees and management of CIAT for their trust in him, Dr. Savidan said he was committed to CIAT's mission and totally confident in CIAT's staff capacity to contribute very significantly to reducing hunger and poverty in the tropics through collaborative research that improves agricultural productivity and natural resource management, despite the Center's recent financial difficulties.

A plant biologist who worked 24 years in developing countries, Dr. Savidan is currently in charge of International Relations and Partnerships at the French research consortium AGROPOLIS. He is also a member of the French Committee for International Agricultural Research (French acronym: CRAI), member of the Science Council of Cirad, member of the Regional Research Council in Montpellier, and member of the steering committees of two Challenge Programs (Generation and HarvestPlus). As a representative of France, he has been attending the meetings of the Science Council of the CGIAR and the AGMs since his return to France in 2000. Before that, he worked at CIMMYT for 10 years, as project leader in the Applied Biotechnology Centre. He previously held other positions in Brazil as a consultant with Embrapa, and in Côte d'Ivoire where he started his carrier.

CIAT Board of Trustees, senior management and staff wish Dr. Savidan every success in steering the Center forward in serving poor farmers in the developing world.