ACA Secretariat Welcomes Deputy Managing Director Leonard Garden

Leonard Garden has been named Deputy Managing Director of ACA, marking an important leadership transition at the organization. Garden will be working alongside current Managing Director Christian Dahm through June, when he will assume full MD responsibilities after the official handover takes place.

As only the second Managing Director since ACA’s founding in 2005, Garden was hired after an extensive search and evaluation process by the Executive Committee and Advisory Board. He was formally introduced to these governing bodies at their March meeting in Accra.

Bringing 15 years of experience working in West Africa, Garden was most recently based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, where he worked at a subsidiary of Ecom, a cocoa trade house. His work in cocoa made Garden known as “Mr. Sustainability” in the industry – while at Ecom, Garden helped over 10,000 cocoa farmers to improve their working conditions and to receive premium payments directly from chocolate industry buyers such as Mars and Nestle.  

“I developed what was probably the first database for tracing cocoa back to individual farmers that could present evidence of good agricultural practices,” said Garden of the highlights of his work in cocoa.

Similarities between the cocoa and cashew sectors were key drivers of Garden’s interest in the position at ACA.

“Many of the potential opportunities for optimizing income in African cocoa-producing communities were also apparent to me in the cashew sector,” said Garden. “These include increasing farm productivity, promoting farm entrepreneurship and most of all, adding value to the raw material by processing.”

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Garden’s interest in agriculture led him to become a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo. “Since then my work has always led to improving conditions in rural Africa,” said Garden. That desire led him to The Ohio State University where he received a Master’s degree in Natural Resources. He soon returned to West Africa, living in Niger, Guinea Conakry, and Cote d’Ivoire before his most recent move to Accra, Ghana.

While Garden is working to expand his cashew expertise, he has already gained a strong sense of the industry’s potential as well ACA’s role in harnessing and strengthening it.

“I believe the cashew industry today is headed toward further mechanization and increasing processing capacity in the producing countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria,” said Garden. “ACA hopes to encourage that trend by promoting pro-investment policies and sharing the testimonies of those communities that now benefit from greater employment opportunities.”

Less than two months after his March 7 arrival at ACA, Garden envisions the continued success of business advisory and support programs while continuing to foster an engaged and growing membership. Bringing wisdom from his previous work, Garden’s approach emphasizes sustainability – for African cashew businesses, for the environment, and for the ACA organization itself.

“I hope that ACA can raise awareness among financial institutions concerning the benefits of financing this sector’s processors, as well as on the value of planting cashew to recover degraded lands,” said Garden. “I also hope that our membership will continue to support ACA until we are totally self-sustaining as a membership-based association.”

The secretariat warmly welcomes Leonard, as a fellow team member sharing a commitment to the values and purpose of the African Cashew Alliance.

“I am thrilled to begin this new chapter with ACA and dedicated to increasing Africa-based cashew processing capacity," said Leonard. "I believe the value added in cashew processing will help increase employment for thousands and improve the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Africans.”