THE 2018 JURY
Meet the 2018 Jury
The Jury consists of seven representatives from EU institutions, the private sector and NGOs, as well as the Rapporteur from the Evaluation Committee. The European Commission, in collaboration with the International Trade Centre, nominates the Jury. The members of the Jury serve on a voluntary basis; they do not receive any financial compensation for their contributions.
The Jury selects the winner and ‘Special Mentions’ from the shortlist provided by the Evaluation Committee. The Jury bases its decision on the content of the shortlisted applications, the evaluation reports from the Evaluation Committee, as well as the the presentations pitched by the cities via video-conference.
The Jury makes final decisions on the Award Winner and Special Mentions in a closed, non-public vote. It is expected that the Jury will arrive at their decisions via consensus. However, if consensus cannot be reached, a voting method will be put in place.
Sergi Corbalán - Executive Director, Fair Trade Advocacy Office, Brussels
Sergi Corbalán studied law and International Politics in Spain, Switzerland and Belgium. He counts with 18 years’ experience in various private sector and civil society European and Global networks on EU and Global policy and advocacy. In 2008 Sergi became Executive Director of the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, based in Brussels. The Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) speaks out on behalf of the Fair Trade movement for Fair Trade and Trade Justice with the aim to improve the livelihoods of marginalised producers and workers in the South. The FTAO is a joint initiative of Fairtrade International and the World Fair Trade Organisation (Europe and Global). Through these three networks the FTAO represents an estimate of 2.5 million Fair Trade producers and workers from 70 countries, 24 labelling initiatives, over 500 specialised Fair Trade importers, 4,000 World Shops and more than 100,000 volunteers.
Ashish Shah - Director Division of Country Programs, International Trade Centre (ITC)
Mr. Ashish Shah has been working at ITC for 13 years in different capacities and currently serves as Director, Division of Country Programmes. He previously held the post of Acting Deputy Executive Director. He has also spent several years in the Office for Africa and the Office of the Executive Director, where he was head of strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation. Prior to joining ITC, he worked first at the International Labour Office in Geneva and then at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Mr. Shah has more than 20 years of international and United Nations experience in the field of trade promotion and development, during which time he has been providing strategic advice on trade-development issues and engaging in high-level policy dialogue with stakeholders in Africa, Asia and the Arab Region.
Mark Hidson - Deputy Regional Director, ICLEI Europe
Mark joined ICLEI – Local Government for Sustainability in 2003. He is a member of ICLEI Europe’s Board of Directors and responsible for ICLEI’s Sustainable Economy and Procurement work. Mark is the Global Director of ICLEI’s Sustainable Procurement Centre, lead of the United Nations One Planet Network on Sustainable Public Procurement, Vice-Chair of the International Green Procurement Network and a member of the European Commission’s Green Public Procurement Advisory Group. Mark oversees ICLEI’s Global Lead City Network on Sustainable Procurement, the Procura+ – European Sustainable Procurement Network, the international Procurement Forum and ICLEI’s sustainable procurement conference series – EcoProcura.
Dr. Pierre Gröning - Director Advocacy, Amfori
Pierre Gröning is Director Advocacy at amfori (formerly: Foreign Trade Association) which brings together more than 2,200 retailers, importers and fashion companies with a combined annual turnover in excess of € 1,600 billion. amfori is the leading business association of global commerce to promote the values of open trade and sustainable supply chains. Dr. Gröning is responsible for developing amfori’s international policy strategy and is representing the association’s interest at government level and towards stakeholders.
He is a member of the European Commission Group of Experts on EU Trade Agreements and the Economic Diplomacy Board of the Diplomatic Academy of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BDA). In 2018, he was appointed Vice-Chairmen of the Policy Committee of the European Services Forum (ESF), the umbrella organisation for the European services sector. Before joining amfori in 2011, he was with a Brussels-based public affairs consultancy. Pierre Gröning, a French-German national, holds a Dual Degree in Political Science from IEP Lille and the University of Münster and a Master’s degree from the College of Europe. His doctorate thesis is on EU-India relations. He was awarded the honorary citizenship of the city of Bruges.
Helmut Scholz - MEP, European Parliament (DE, GUE)
Helmut Scholz is Member of the European Parliament, where he serves since 2009 as Coordinator of the GUE/NGL group in the Committee on International Trade. He is also Member of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, and substitute Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He is Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Fair Trade Working Group, where he was in charge of promoting the establishment of the EU Cities of Fair and Ethical Trade Award by the EU Commission. Mr Scholz is Member of the EP’s Steering Committee for the Parliamentary Assembly at the WTO, and of the UN working group of the Foreign Affairs committee. He graduated at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations in political science in 1980 and served as diplomat in the Embassy of the German Democratic Republic in the PR China. He has been Head of the International Department of his party PDS, later Die LINKE, was elected to the party’s executive committee, as well as to the executive board of the Party of the European Left (EL).
In numerous reports and speeches Helmut Scholz has argued for creating the necessary regulatory framework to cope with new global value chains and rapid technological development in order to provide for fair and mutually beneficial trade relations as a contribution to prevent conflict, to implement the United Nations’ Social Development Goals and to overcome poverty and exploitation.
Gudrun Niedorf - Head of Sector, External Relations - South, Committee of the Regions
Gudrun Niedorf is coordinating the Committee`s activities in decentralized cooperation for development as well as Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. With a background in European Studies and international management, and after academic research and publications, she has been working in capacity-building as well as communication for several EU institutions including the European Commission.
Ewa Synowiec - Acting Director for Sustainable Development, European Commission, Directorate-General for Trade
Since 1 June 2018, Ewa Synowiec works as an acting Director for Sustainable Development; Economic Partnership Agreements, Africa-Caribbean and Pacific, Agri-food and fisheries. Simultaneously, since October 2015 she has been a Principal Advisor at the Directorate General for Trade of the European Commission. Her portfolio covers trade relations with six Eastern Partnership countries (notably implementation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) of the Association Agreements with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) as well as with the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). Before (2006-2010), she worked as a Director in charge of public procurement, intellectual property and bilateral trade relations with European (non-EU) and Central Asia countries and thereafter as a Director of the European Commission Representation in Poland (2010-2015). Before joining the Commission, she worked for Polish public administration as a Director of the Integration Policy Department at the Office of the Committee for European Integration where she coordinated the domestic adjustment process linked with the accession of Poland to the European Union. In years 2003-2005, she was posted in Brussels as Deputy Ambassador/Deputy Permanent Representative of Poland to the EU. She has PhD in economics and is author of several publications on integration of Poland with the EU.
Evaluation Committee Rapporteur
The Rapporteur presents the findings of the Evaluation Committee to the Jury and is available to provide them with technical support if and where needed.
Dr. Bob Doherty - Professor of Marketing and Chair of Agrifood, University of York
Bob specializes in research on the management aspects of fair trade and social enterprise organizations competing in the food industry. He is currently a trustee on the board of the Fairtrade Foundation. Prior to moving into academia Bob spent 5-years as the Head of Sales and Marketing at the Fairtrade pioneer Divine Chocolate Ltd.
Technical Committee Representative
The Technical Committee Representative provides insights into the multi-stakeholder process that defined the content band rules of the first Award.
Elen Jones, Policy Advisor - Globally Responsible Wales, Office of the Future Generations Commissioner
Elen Jones is a bi-lingual project manager/disruptor and has spent the last decade in the international development sector, supporting Wales’ role in being the world’s first Fair Trade Nation. She relishes her current role which supports public bodies in Wales to understand what it means to be globally responsible, from ethical procurement to international community development partnerships, global education policy to refugee policy and support to fossil-fuel divestment and ethical investment. Elen is proud to work with a wide range of wonderful people and an inspiring Commissioner, on such a vital piece of work.
The EU Cities for Fair and Ethical Trade Award is an initiative of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade implemented by the International Trade Centre.