Unparalleled insights and intelligence for decision makers addressing the world's most pressing issues.

Henrik Skovby, Chairman

Henrik Skovby is the former Global Managing Partner and founder of Dalberg. In his current capacity as Executive Chairman of Dalberg Group, most of Henrik’s time is dedicated to industry innovation and establishing new business lines under the Dalberg brand. As a strategy consultant, Henrik’s main focus has been corporate strategy and organizational reforms. He has led a series of institutional reviews in the development sector and has been involved in launching several global commissions and thought leadership initiatives.

Prior to Dalberg, Henrik worked at McKinsey & Company, where his focus was financial and public institutions. He began his professional career at the United Nations Development Program, where he worked on project management, budget matters, and strategic positioning of the organization. Henrik holds a Masters of Public Administration degree from Harvard University, a degree in Business Economics from Copenhagen Business School, and an undergraduate degree in Political Science from University of Aarhus.

Alex Holm Jensen

Alex Holm Jensen is co-owner of Systematic A/S, a leading international IT company delivering mission critical systems and services to the defense, healthcare and public sectors as well as finance and service professions. He is Chairman of the Board and has for many years been Executive Vice President at Systematic.

Prior to Systematic Alex served for 15 years as managing director at a medium sized Danish bank. He has also worked as business consultant as well as professional board member in many companies and public institutions. Alex is experienced within financial, organizational and strategic issues and has a special interest in combining strong business performance with human talent development and CSR considerations.

Today Alex is an active investor in African private sector enterprises with emphasize on SME companies. He is a member of several boards of Africa-based companies and Deputy Chairman of Dalberg Research A/S. Alex holds a Master's degree in Business Economics from Aarhus University.

Yana Watson Kakar

Yana Watson Kakar is the Global Managing Partner of Dalberg Global Development Advisors. In this role, Yana stewards the firm’s global strategy and oversees activities across Dalberg’s 14 offices worldwide.

In her client work, Yana advises leaders across the public, philanthropic, and private sectors on inclusive business strategies, economic development, and investment in emerging and frontier markets. Yana has led teams across Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, including post-conflict and post-disaster countries such as Haiti and Afghanistan. Her perspectives have been published in a number of media outlets including the Financial Times, Devex, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, and The Guardian.

Yana is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). She serves as an Advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and is a member of the Frontier Markets Council for the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA). Yana also serves on the Boards of Convergence, Speak Up Africa and Agora Fund. Prior to joining Dalberg, Yana was with the Boston Consulting Group, VISA International, Women’s World Banking, and Arthur D. Little. She holds a BA from McGill University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Paul Callan

Paul Callan is Dalberg's Global Operating Partner and co-leader of the firm's Strategy and Performance practice area. Based in the Washington D.C. office, Paul has provided advice on strategy, organizational development, design of new initiatives, and change management to many United Nations agencies, the World Bank, regional development banks, non-governmental organizations, donors, and governments.

Paul has worked in 30 countries and across multiple sectors, ranging from the launch of a global e-schools initiative and studying the use of mobile phones for educational applications, to evaluating the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, to strategic planning for the International Council for Research on Women, to developing ideas for using social media to tackle absenteeism by health workers and teachers. His recent work includes change management for the UN's "Delivering as One" initiative in eight pilot countries and strategic reform at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Melissa Carson, CEO

Melissa Carson is the Managing Director of Dalberg Research with over 20 years of experience in academia, publishing, business and international development. In this role, Melissa stewards the firm’s capabilities in research and knowledge services.

She has developed and guided Dalberg Research’s intelligence quarterlies in agriculture, our economic modelling work in employment, and our studies on a wide range of themes from mutli-stakeholder initiatives to delivering transformational change on complex issues for foundations, UN and donor agencies. She is passionate about complex global issues and particularly about helping decision makers have access to the right information and insights to make decisions that maximize opportunities and minimize unintended consequences, and effectively engage stakeholders in a way that mobilizes positive action.

Prior to Dalberg Research, Melissa has worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit, McKinsey & Company and London Business School and run her own social consulting firm serving NGOs. She has delivered projects in countries around the world. Melissa has a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from Oxford University.

Core team

Our core team bring a set of diverse backgrounds ranging from economics to journalism combining in-depth development expertise with skills honed in high-caliber academic and professional organizations.

Contributors

Our contributors are in-country economists and researchers who conduct front-line data collection managed by our core team and data-collection protocols we have developed to meet various data collection needs. Our wide contributor pool allows for wide geographic reach, local coverage, and range of languages and value for money in large data collection efforts. Data collection by our pool can be both quantitative and qualitative, and include interviews, desk research as well as surveys and market intelligence. Contributors are typically recent graduates of Masters and PhD programmes from top universities such as The London School of Economics, SOAS, and Obafemi Awolowo University.

Fellows

Our fellows are a global network of the most prominent experts, academics and practitioners in their fields who act as content experts and typically play an advisory role on projects. Our fellows may be methodological experts in niche areas such as scenario planning or content experts in areas such as economic development, employment, or humanitarian issues or indeed industry experts in fields such as agriculture, education and health care. Our fellows bring cutting-edge thinking on the most complex and challenging development problems.