Breadth and depth in experience

The Springfield Centre's human resources comprises both in-house personnel and a range of associates with whom we have a close working relationship. Guiding our work is a management team of Alan Gibson, Rob Hitchins and David Elliott.

Tim Stewart
Tim joined the Springfield Centre in October 2011 after eight years with Mercy Corps where he played a leading role in taking the M4P approach into their work. An agriculturalist by training, Tim’s has a strong foundation in practical farm and livestock operations (managing farms/livestock operations in the UK and Argentina from 1991 to 1998), and also working in organic horticulture, forage and forest production. 1999 to 2001 he taught agricultural sciences at secondary level in Ghana. Following that he designed, managed/advised on economic and market development programmes in Afghanistan, DRC, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Liberia Mongolia, Pakistan and Uganda. In 2008 Tim designed and managed Mercy Corps' first M4P programme which has now been expanded to another region of Georgia. 2010 to 2011 Tim was a global advisor for Mercy Corps’ technical support unit and undertook a number of field missions including an assessment of the Liberian palm oil and cocoa sectors, and a conflict and market assessment of Northern Uganda.

Kevin Seely
Kevin joined the Springfield Centre in July 2011. Building on his academic training in political and economic development, Kevin spent two years working for the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development. He was part of the team working on results measurement for private sector development programmes. He also published research on other aspects of private sector development. He has undertaken assignments in Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Thailand and Malaysia.

Roger Oakeley
Roger joined the Springfield Centre in July 2010. With a background in rural development planning and agricultural economics, Roger has supported a wide range of projects and programmes as a consultant, trainer and researcher in agriculture and livestock development. He has considerable experience in project and programme management and delivery, and has worked extensively in South East Asia as well as Africa and the Middle East. His areas of expertise include approaches to community-based service delivery and his recent experience includes the management and oversight of a range of projects addressing, among other issues, business enabling environments and local economic development.

Daniel Nippard
Daniel joined the Springfield Centre in June 2009. A development economist by training, he has three years of experience working in the international consulting sector. He has worked primarily for donor agencies, assisting resident consultant teams with short-term technical inputs on project missions and general project management duties. Daniel’s experience to date has been focussed on regional integration, export competitiveness, and aspects of trade facilitation. His most recent work has been assisting Swisscontact Indonesia to review and upgrade its systems for intervention planning, results measurement and documentation to international standards.

Sarah Brown
Along with academic training in political science and economic development, Sarah Brown has wide experience of working as a policy advisor in government. She has worked for the UK government (HMG) in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office and the Home Office. Her expertise is in international drug strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean and regulatory reform. At the Home Office she led the production of the drugs and crime strategy for the Caribbean. In 2006 she worked as the Secretariat for the Cabinet Committee Panel for Regulatory Accountability. Since June 2009 she has been working for the Springfield Centre. She is acting as part of the secretariat for ENABLE, a DFID-funded project run jointly with Adam Smith International to improve the business environment in Nigeria.

Gavin Anderson
Gavin has been involved with various types of business services work for over 14 years. Throughout his career Gavin has been an important innovator in business services, having played a key role in research on SMEs' use of services in Uganda and on "hidden" services embedded within commercial relationships in Asia. Gavin's recent focus has been developing media-based business services, especially radio programmes, as commercial services that can reach the smallest and most rural businesses. He has worked in 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe on projects funded by a wide array of agencies. A freelance consultant since 2005, Gavin joined forces with the Springfield Centre in 2007 to advance private sector and small enterprise development.

David Elliott
Prior to joining the Springfield Centre in 2003, David worked in a leading public economic regeneration agency in London; as resident adviser to the provincial government in Northern Cape in South Africa, and for several years, with a leading international economics consultancy. He has extensive experience in private sector development gained in more than 20 countries. More recently he has been the manager of an action research fund exploring innovative approaches to private sector development, has undertaken leading research on factoring and is an appointed adviser on private sector development to the UNDPs Poverty Reduction Network. Among his key areas of focus are SME finance, local economic development business linkages. He has a Masters degree in Development Economics.

Rob Hitchins
Rob has been with the Springfield Centre since 1997. An economist by training, Rob worked for the accountancy and audit firm KPMG, before setting up his own tourism business in Indonesia. He has worked with market development programmes in a range of countries and has written extensively on the subject. In recent years this has included the design, evaluation and support of major private sector development programmes, including business services, value chains, business environment reform and local economic development; strategic adviser to several agencies seeking to incorporate the market development approach into their policies, programmes and practices; and research on business services in rural areas and the role of government in service markets. Rob has played a key role in designing new Springfield training programmes. Among his main areas of expertise are the policy and regulatory environment, monitoring and evaluation and sector development approaches.

Alan Gibson
Alan is a co-founder of the Springfield Centre. His background is in economic and business consultancy for major corporate and government clients but also includes a period in Bangladesh working with a local NGO. He has worked in the development sphere for more than 15 years. From 1996, working with the Committee of Donor of Agencies for SME Development, he led the major re-assessment of donor agency interventions that underpinned development of market development approaches to business services. Building on this experience, he has been an important influence in the emergence of market development as an overarching framework in development. An experienced trainer and consultant, Alan has worked in more than 20 countries with a range of organisations. Key areas of specialism include monitoring and evaluation and the role of the state in SME development.