Yigremachew Seyoum (Ph.D.) is working in the AFR100 team of the Global Restoration Initiative program in WRI Africa office, based in Addis Ababa. He is leading restoration activities in Ethiopia in collaboration with water, climate, and city programs. He is also supporting the TerraFund for AFR100 initiative and he is actively involved in the planning, execution, and monitoring of the EoIs and RFPs submitted by CBOs, CSOs, and other eligible partners. He is also supporting the resource mobilization efforts undergoing both at national and regional level.

Trained as a forester at BSc., MSc., and PhD levels, Yigremachew Seyoum’s qualifications have been evolving along the course of various areas of engagement over the past 20 years. In his progressive professional and leadership route, he has acquired skills that have allowed him to satisfactorily handle policy, development, and managerial assignments. Forest conservation, development, and degraded land restoration are the key fields of areas that he has been engaged in over the last two decades. His assignments in various leadership positions equipped him with the skills of working with individuals and teams with diverse professional, cultural, and social backgrounds. His experience in the management of time bounded and resource-limited tasks enriched him with the passion and capability of delivering under complex and challenging situations. He has utilized these skills in the leadership roles he assumed as National Project Coordinator and Project Management and Monitoring Consultant positions in FAO-Ethiopia and GGGI-Ethiopia, respectively. He has practiced the state-of-the-art of project oversight tools including Result Based Monitoring and Evaluation Systems. Furthermore, his career has made him conversant in working with diverse stakeholders including the local community, policymakers, private sector actors, CSOs, academia, and research institutions. He has also broadened his insights on gender inequality. His experience of engaging stakeholders is manifested in the Stakeholder Engagement and Consultation guideline he has developed during his engagement with GGGI and in the number of workshops, meetings, and pieces of training he has successfully managed. He has well-developed communication skill which is crafted over the course of communications made with high-level officials including parliamentarians, broadcasting media, international negotiation panels, and scientific forums. His scientific communication skills are evident from his publications in national and international peer-reviewed journals. Building on his two decades of experience, he has acquired skills for developing more innovative and forward-looking solutions to restore degraded landscapes through different options. His vast and proven experience in research, policy, development, and project management engagements made him competent in the management and coordination of landscape restoration, agroforestry, climate change, green growth, and natural resources projects with tailored skills in planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation, resource mobilization, capacity building training, and stakeholder management. His recent (2023) MSc degree in Project Management, with a thesis entitled ‘’ Determinants of effective monitoring and evaluation system in a forest and landscape restoration project: the case of a REDD+ program in Ethiopia’’ was graded "EXCELLENT". This recent academic achievement has added him very useful insights on project management and specifically on the monitoring and evaluation dimensions of Forest and Landscape Restoration projects.

He is living in Addis Ababa with his wife and three sons.