Our Team

Jeff Haskins

Director, Nairobi Office

Jeff Haskins manages the Nairobi office of Burness Communications. As part of his work, Jeff provides communications and media relations advice to international organizations, which regularly results in substantive, high-profile coverage of their work in media outlets around the world. He is an expert communications strategist on agricultural development issues and climate change in particular. He has staffed high-level meetings across Africa and Europe on global development issues.

Jeff has also overseen media campaigns across Asia, Europe, the United States, and sub-Saharan Africa. He co-led the media relations operation for the opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Almost two dozen media outlets—ranging from CNN to the International Herald Tribune and Financial Times—attended the opening ceremony, which took place in the Vault on the side of a mountain in the Arctic Circle.

Since joining Burness in February 2003, Jeff has worked primarily in agriculture, environment, and development issues for a wide range of organizations, including the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Global Crop Diversity Trust, almost all centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Forest Trust (formerly known as the Tropical Forest Trust), and the Rights and Resources Initiative. Jeff is a graduate of St. Lawrence University in New York.