Lawrence Pratt is the Assistant Director of the INCAE’s CLACDS (Latin-American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development). He also works as professor in the area of competitiveness and the environment. He is responsible for the sustainable development programs encouraged by the INCAE. He is also an international consultant for diverse private companies, multilateral organizations, and financial institutions on issues related to sustainable business strategies.

Mr. Kilian finished his master’s studies in agricultural sciences in 1994 with an emphasis on economics at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. Later he studied for a doctorate in the economics of environmental resources and graduated in 2000. From 2000 to 2002, he was in charge of an economics project within a national macro-project in Germany, known as precision agriculture. During this period he also gave diverse post-graduate courses at the University of Hohenheim. He was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota in 2000/2001. Since the beginning of 2003, Dr. Kilian has been part of the CIMS Foundation headquartered at the INCAE, Costa Rica. He has led numerous market research projects, primarily about coffee, fruit, beef, wine, and soy in the US and European markets. Since May 2005, Mr. Killian is a faculty member at INCAE.

Ms. Schroeder studied Agribusiness at the Universidad de Costa Rica and Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de Centroamérica. She has worked as commercial manager for banana exporting companies, specializing in the European Market.
Since 1999, Ms. Schroeder has been an English-Spanish translator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is in charge of project development at CIMS.

Mr. Rivera is an Agronomic Engineer graduated from EARTH University. He joined CIMS in January 2004 and has worked on developing the CIMS trade intelligence products and services for sustainable coffee. In addition, during his work practicum as an EARTH intern at the INCAE, he collaborated on the CIMS sustainable tropical fruit and coffee sections. He has experience in agricultural/livestock project financial analysis and implementation in the commercial area of his university.

Mr. Guevara is a Biotechnology Engineer graduated from Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica (ITCR) and has worked with CIMS since March 2007. Currently he is working on a research project on geographical indications and trademarks in specialty coffees. During March 2007, he participated in a study for InWEnt as part of the preparation for the workshop “Enhancement of Central America SMEs through integral management strategies with an emphasis in corporate social responsibility”. Between July and December 2006 he participated in the development of a solid waste management program in the Municipality of Santa Cruz, during the execution of his final graduation project. He implemented the project: “Solid waste dynamics in Santa Cruz: Characterization and quantification” as the first step to develop the municipal solid waste management program in Santa Cruz, Guanacaste.