Chairman of the Board of Directors
HISKO H. BAAS, lic.oec. HSG, holds a master’s degree in Economy from the University of St. Gall, Switzerland, and is a company director and entrepreneur with more than 40 years’ experience in banking, investment banking, merger & acquisition transactions and project planning and execution. He is the initiator and manager of the ASJEBA GROUP, a partnership of private individuals and companies dedicated to improving the living conditions of people living in rural regions in developing countries. The ASJEBA GROUP aims to do this through the sustainable development of plantations - designed as a commercially viable project - producing food supplements and vegetable oil for commercial applications such as bio fuel, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
Hisko Sr. will act as chairman of the Board of Directors thus shaping future vision and control the sustainable process of the concept. As long as the designated CEO has not yet come aboard Hisko Sr. will hold the position of CEO.
JEANNETTE A. BAAS, economist, 40 years’ experience in HR (Tagesanzeiger), sparring partner for investment decisions and legal issues, trade marks (Metro Group) and Head of trade marks for the Schindler Group.
Jeannette will jointly with Hisko Sr. shape the future of the Asjeba concept and be interims wise responsible for HR, oversee trade mark development and legal issues.
Vice Chair, Asjeba Foundation
Joachim stands for transparency and communication of Asjeba`s values and projects with investors in different sectors of the economy and civil society to make sustainable development and economics a global success story.
He has more than 30 years expertise as Managing Director in the Chemical-, construction- financial/ insurance sector and audit companies (big four). Main projects were analyse/design risk-/compliance- management -systems based on sustainability aspects for leading companies.
He was member of international committees e.g. WBCSD, ICC, UNEP and ISO to create guidelines and KPI`s for Green Economy, ESG-Invest and Carbon Inventars.
ANDREW YEOMAN, RIBA. BA hons. Dip. Arch. DipAA (USSR). Andrew Yeoman is the director of Tower 151 Architects, the design wing of GI Grupa and heads up Strategic Planning, and Development Analysis. With over 30 years in the business he brings a wide range of experience to the group as both a designer and project manager. Mr. Yeoman has been responsible for the Project Management of the largest development in Croatia, HAAC and main designer in several large-scale developments both in Croatia and Europe namely, the Orestaden programme in Copenhagen (won originally in an international competition) and the Adidas headquarters in Germany, and the ELT – the enclosure of the European Largest telescope. Andrew Yeoman’s key skills include design leadership, Urban planning, Constraint planning (incl. logistic and strategic frameworks), Design management, and Project, procurement and cost planning for large and multi-task projects (industrial and commercial sectors).
Andrew and his team will be responsible for planning and project managing the implementation of all infrastructure elements of the plantations, providing land-use planning, landscape-based strategy and solutions and settlement design.
JOACHIM DEGNER, Certified Banking Specialist, worked for various major banks in the Nuremberg and Munich metropolitan regions. He worked primarily in the high-end corporate customer lending business in connection with the financing of major projects and the associated controlling, as well as the restructuring of corporate customer loan commitments. At the same time, he was very familiar with the investment/capital investment sector. His freelance work was in the real estate sector for a long period of time. He supported the development of the property development business in complex global projects as well as traditional project developers, including raising capital for the financing and implementation of the properties. He was also involved in the area of management consulting. He has long been interested in innovative, broadly defined “green technologies” in the industry standard, as practiced by the “Asjeba Group”. Due to his decades of experience, his area of responsibility at Asjeba Management AG/Group is in financial management. On the one hand, this involves raising capital to finance humanitarian projects and, on the other hand, financial controlling.
GEORGE FRANCIS, PhD, CEO of JATROPOWER Group. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, he conducted 6 years of fundamental research on Jatropha. He also has extensive experience of managing intercultural projects. Dr. Francis played a key role in the DaimlerChrysler-DEG Jatropha project titled “Biofuels from Eroded Soils in India”, during his time at Hohenheim. This was the first comprehensive project to investigate the many aspects of Jatropha cultivation on wasteland, extraction of oil from its seeds, biodiesel production and the potential uses of the by-products remaining after oil extraction. He has acted as a consultant on Jatropha and other bio-energy projects to national governments, multinational financial institutions and private companies world-wide. He has several articles on the potential of Jatropha to his credit and has delivered keynote lectures on this and related topics at international fora. In December 2018 Jatropower was awarded with Solarimpulse Effcient Solution for their F1 Hybrid jatropha seeds. An innovative seed to facilitate production of new generation biofuel conforming to stricter sustainability guidelines through climate-smart agriculture.
George will be responsible, in cooperation with the agricultural university of Hohenheim, Germany and the local agricultural university, for the agricultural footprint of the plantations. What is going to be planted, in which sequence, where and how much? Once the soil is fertile again: what kind of vegetables, fruits or other plants can be planted between the rows of trees as the intercropping modus?
GEORGE GRUBER, studied Economics and Natural Resource Management in Erlangen/Nürnberg, Germany, and Santa Barbara, California, U.S.A. His doctoral thesis (1992) outlines a new developed CO2-carbon based prize setting system, executed at the examples of pure plant oil, diesel and hydrogen. For 30 years he does R&D on pure plant oil as fuel for trucks, tractors, generators and 100% Renewable Energy Hybrid Systems in Latin-American, Asia and Africa. Dr. Gruber is co-owner of Vereinigte Werkstätten für Pflanzenöltechnologie, keeps 10 patents on engine technology, fuel production and fuel quality, grants licenses on it and sells know-how. Georg will be responsible for an energy transformation concept from centralized, limited fossil resources to decentralized 100% renewable energies systems, including an holistic CO2-Recycling Concept of various oil plants to Fuel, Food, Feed and Fertilizer.
George will be responsible to create a concept to transform local industry around the plantation (remote areas) from fossil oil dependence towards vegetable oil use.
Vice President MAN Energy Solutions. Dr. Tütken is responsible within MAN Energy Solutions for the sales of energy solutions including engines, turbines, storage and power plants for power generation customers in the region Europe. He has been working since 2006 for MAN Energy Solutions and previously over 12 years for ABB in the power generation sector. In his career, he was active in all regions of the world. His background is PhD in physics with a background in photovoltaic components. Tilman and MAN Energy Solutions will provide invaluable input on the development of sustainable energy solution strategy and implementation plan which uses the crop and other resources of the project. (www.man-es.com)
Tilman and MAN Energy Solutions will provide invaluable input on the development of sustainable energy solution strategy and implementation plan which uses the crop and other resources of the project.
Christian is a Post-Doctoral Research Scientist at ETH Zurich in sustainable cocoa production systems. From 2011 to 2019, he worked at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), where he compared organic vs. conventional cocoa production systems in Bolivia for their agronomic, economic and ecological performance. From 2015 to 2018, he did his PhD on the cocoa swollen shoot virus disease in Ghana. He continues to work in the country on dynamic agroforestry systems with cocoa for his Post-Doc. Christian is also the founder of the Swiss-based association OPC (Obrobibini Peace Complex), which is implementing projects in Ghana, among them the establishment of a centre of excellence for sustainable social enterprises and circular economy, as well as a 20 ha organic agroforestry farm.
President/Founder
United Action for Children(UAC) Cameroon
Orock Thomas Eyong holds a Bachelor’sDegree in Public Law and Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling.He is President/Founder of United Action for Children-UAC Cameroon with more than twenty-four years of experience in community development work and functional education activities.
He is the Initiator/Proprietor of two model schools-Jamadianle Nursery/Primary School and International Children's Academy in Cameroon. He is very concerned with the welfare of Children and is out to see that children are well prepared to face the challenges of the future through quality and functional education. He is a strong proponent of education that prepares children more for the future than just for examinations.
