CR Advisors

Peter Neidecker has spent 20 years working internationally in the private sector and 5 years in non-profit. He held regional responsibilities for Hewlett-Packard in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. He served in executive roles and on the boards of three non-profit organizations focused on sustainable development, including programs in health, education, the environment and community-based economic development. In his last role he served as CEO of Millennium Promise, the non-profit responsible for the Millennium Village Project, in partnership with Columbia University. Mr. Neidecker’s key areas of expertise include strategy, international management, operational planning, monitoring & evaluation and reporting. He holds an undergraduate degree in literature and economics from Hobart College and a master in business administration from Harvard Business School.

Ivane Bochorishvili has extensive senior project management experience in the field and at headquarters with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). His main fields of interest and key areas of expertise include project management, sustainable development, emergency relief and poverty reduction. Ivane received his undergraduate and master degrees in International Relations and International Law from Tbilisi State University. He performed Peace and Conflict studies at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He also obtained master degrees in: International Leadership in Oil and Gas from the Graduate Institute of Geneva with focus on corporate responsibility; International and European Security from the Geneva Center for Security Policy; Master of Business Administration from the University of Geneva.

Dr. Paul Pronyk is a global health and evaluation specialist with 15 years of professional experience in Africa and Asia.  He has held director-level positions and has worked extensively with universities, UN agencies, industry, bilateral organizations and major foundations.  Dr. Pronyk has published extensively on child health, microfinance, nutrition, health systems, medical informatics, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.  He holds faculty appointments at the Mailman School of Public Health and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University as well as at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Silvia Zeder-Nagy is the founder of GG Evolution, an organization that measures levels of sustainability, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) impacts and related risks. Silvia started her carrier with Arthur Andersen, then moved to UBP (Union Bancaire Privée), where she worked first as an Internal Auditor, and then, for seven years as a Risk Manager. Her experience as Head of Operational Risk and Head of Institutional Clients Risk Management for the Group within UBP allowed her to develop a strong leadership aptitude as well as a strong sense of anticipation, both skills that prove to be extremely useful in the venture she has undertaken. Deeply concerned by the environmental issues since the inception of Kyoto protocol in 1997, she has been eager to conceptualize solutions that could help reducing the impacts and risks the environment is facing. Driven by her will to make a difference in this field, she decided to create her own company. From there on, she has built a model to assess and advise companies, applying risk management processes to the environmental field. Silvia holds a degree in Economics-Finance from the University of Geneva.

Shefa Siegel has spent ten years working in environmental policy and development planning for extractive industries governance. He has worked with the private sector, international institutions such as the World Bank, NGOs and academia. He led mining research and projects with the US Department of State and a number of mining companies including Anglo Gold Ashanti, Newmont Mining and Freeport McMoran. His areas of expertise include artisanal mining, sustainability assessment, conflict evaluation, community engagement and chemicals management. He has performed extensive fieldwork in over a dozen countries in South America, Africa and Asia. He has researched and published on mining issues for policy and academic journals as well as for the general public. Mr. Siegel has a BA in religion and anthropology from the University of Michigan, a Master Degree in Environmental Policy & Planning from Tufts University and a PH.D. in Mining and Environmental Policy from the University of British Columbia.

Kenneth Raphael served as in-house counsel with several US-based, Fortune 500 companies, specializing in corporate law, for more than 25 years. As part of his duties Mr. Raphael focused on matters involving Corporate Social Responsibility. He relocated to Geneva, Switzerland in 2002 where he taught various courses at the International University in Geneva, including a graduate level course on Corporate Social Responsibility. He also taught writing, law and Legal English at the International Center of the Moscow State University Faculty of Law in Geneva. In addition to a Juris Doctor degree from Brooklyn Law School Mr. Raphael holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Leicester and a B.A. degree from the State University of New York at Oswego.

Guram (Guga) Tsanava has been working for private sector for more than ten years, particularly in banking, management consulting, energy and mining industries. He also has extensive experience of working with international financial institutions and non-profits. He served in an executive role in one of the largest holding companies in Georgia, as well as on the board of International Chamber of Commerce. In his last role as Business Development and Strategy Director, he led a turnaround of the large energy holding in Georgia. Mr. Tsanava’s key areas of expertise include strategy, business development, project management and negotiations. He holds Bachelor degree in Business Law from Georgia Technical University, MBA from Grenoble Graduate School of Business and MSM from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also holds a credential of Stanford Certified Project Manager.

John Roberts as a specialist in sustainable development, Mr. Roberts has specialized in environmental and sustainable development with focus on the extractive sector. His specialty areas include waste management, water and air quality, forest management systems, climate change strategy, and corporate environmental policy. As a business executive, Mr. Roberts completed corporate policy initiatives in environmental, health and safety management systems, and improved reporting structures for senior management and their boards of directors. As a research director he focused on environmental policy, water and energy issues and adaptation to climate change. In his own consulting practice he has worked on climate change strategy, adaptation and offsets markets. He is a qualified Mental Modeling Technology consultant which addresses stakeholder engagement and change management communications. Mr. Roberts currently teaches an undergraduate course on sustainability reporting at the University of Waterloo and sits on the board of a not-for-profit environmental organization. 

Lynda Davis has extensive consulting experience from the private sector and non-profit organizations. Her areas of expertise include mission/vision creation, strategic planning, value chain modeling, customer experience, organizational development and change management.  Prior to her consulting work, Lynda led internal business consulting teams at Hewlett Packard and with Fortune 100 companies to design new products, develop effective value chains, improve customer satisfaction and maximize efficiencies. Lynda holds undergraduate degrees in Business Management and Marketing from Boise State University. She has studied management, leadership and systems thinking at the University of Utah and at MIT.

Thomas Kadala is an internationally recognized researcher, writer, speaker and facilitator on topics targeted to chief executives and political leaders. His background is in economics, engineering, technology, finance and marketing. His views are regularly published by industry publications and distributed to executives. He has worked both in government and the private sector and served as the founder & CEO of Alternative Technology Corporation (ATC, Inc.) for 20 years. Mr. Kadala works with a wide range of audiences to structure and address complex issues. Most recently, he developed a facilitated discussion framework called Business Model Innovations that was successfully implemented at the United Nations session on renewable energy investments strategies for developing counties. He currently offers collaborative strategic consulting services in English or Spanish to companies, governments and academic institutions worldwide under the trademark ResearchPAYS®. Mr. Kadala holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Cornell University and a Master in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.