I believe that the pulse of the planet will be protected when mountain communities (i) are capable to assess, manage and monitor risks; (ii) have access to resilient solutions, diversified income sources and employment opportunities; (iii) are organised and connected with institutional mechanisms and other stakeholders; and (iv) recognize the value of and have the ability to maintain, protect and utilize natural assets. I work to achieve this and focus also on reducing risks and building resilience of mountain communities through understanding opportunities and challenges, packaging and demonstration of simple affordable solutions, capacity building, and facilitation of multi-stakeholder engagement processes.

My favourite part of my job at ICIMOD is the ever-present possibilities of learning and helping people achieve results. There are new things to learn from a multi-cultural and cross-disciplinary team of professionals and opportunities to partner with a range of local, national and regional stakeholders for identifying solutions backed up by scientific research, and demonstration of approaches and practices to improve well-being of mountain communities.

I am passionate about honeybees. I like to learn about their behavior and about communicating tools and techniques for sustainable beekeeping management. I’m fascinated about decision making processes within honeybee colonies and their division of work based on caste, age and need.

My professional life begin with an ICIMOD beekeeping project in 1994. Since then, I have worked with range of organisations in support of rural income diversification, livelihood improvement, and pro-poor and climate resilient value chain development of farm and off-farm based products and services, including thre separate periods of time with ICIMOD. I served as Programme Manager at Practical Action Consulting to lead the inception phase of the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilient (PPCR) project ‘Promoting Climate Resilient Agriculture in Nepal’. I also worked as a member of the senior management team in SNV Nepal, as National Programme Coordinator and Sector Leader Agriculture, managing a portfolio of 4 projects and supervising the team of 20 international and national advisors supporting private sector led value chains and innovative investments in climate smart agriculture and food security, and providing strategic direction for SNV Nepal’s country strategy and business plan. As a part of technical assistance team to the Agriculture Marketing and Enterprise Promotion (AMEP) programme, I worked with SNV Bhutan to carry out value chain analysis of selected renewable natural resources products and organised capacity building activities to enable concerned stakeholders in applying value chain methodology and tools for facilitating marketing. I served as a team of three international experts with Pohl Consulting & Associates, Germany to support pro-poor private sector development initiative under the Project on MSME Sector Development, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Bhutan. I also served as Senior Sector Analysis Expert with TripleLine Consulting, UK to supported the formulation process of the Pro-Poor Private Sector Development Programme of the European Commission in Bangladesh. I worked in GIZ (previously known as GTZ) Nepal, initially as Advisor for Private Sector Promotion Project and then as Coordinator – Local and Regional Economic Development for the INCLUDE program in Nepal and I have provided short-term consulting services to firms from all sectors including Swiss Development and Cooperation/Embassy of Switzerland (Nepal), ICIMOD, Austroproject (Austria), and PTB-Germany.

I am experienced user of the ‘appreciative inquiry’ approach to harness the potential of team members and to create favorable work environments that lead to positive development outcomes and I hold a PhD from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria and an MSc in Botany from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal.