Claire is the Head of Climate Response, focussed on designing and delivering Challenge Works’  climate-focused Challenge Prizes, including strategic support to the Ofwat Innovation Fund.

With +20 years of experience, Claire is passionate about bringing diverse groups together to innovate and solve complex environmental and livelihood challenges.

Before joining Challenge Works, Claire founded and led Producers Direct for 15 years, an award-winning charity driving farmer-led innovation. Under Claire’s leadership, the organization reached and improved livelihoods for over 1 million farmers across East Africa and Latin America. Prior to this, Claire worked with a number of international organisations facilitating multi-stakeholder initiatives to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including with Ecoagriculture Partners, UNDP, Gates Foundation, UK Aid and Bayer CropScience. 

Claire is an international Acumen Food Systems fellow, with a MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, University of London and an MA in Biological Sciences from Oxford University.

Outside of work, Claire enjoys urban gardening (aka attempting to keep the plants on her balcony alive) and doing her part to maintain international demand for coffee (“Sin café, no hay mañana”)!

The Challenge Works Team