Closing

Bruce Crowther

Founder Fair Trade Towns Movement and Oxfam activist

He now serves as Executive Director for the FIG Tree producing delicious fair trade chocolate and was the International Fair Trade Towns Ambassador for the International Fair Trade Towns Steering Committee for many years.
A vet by profession, Bruce Crowther is an experienced activist who began campaigning for Oxfam in 1984. A fervent and vocal Fair Trade campaigner, who managed to persuade his fellow residents in the small market town of Garstang to declare itself the world’s first Fair Trade Town in 2000.
In 2009, he was awarded an MBE in the New Year honours list for services to Fair Trade and Oxfam. The honour recognises his work supporting developing countries through Fair Trade Towns, Oxfam and the twinning link between his hometown of Garstang in Lancashire and New Koforidua in Ghana.

Tobias Meier

Project Manager ecos and President of Swiss Fair Trade

Tobias holds the position of Senior Project Manager on the ‘Green Economy’ team. His main field of focus is business models along the sustainable textile supply chain, which extends all the way from the organic cotton fields in West Africa to the consumers. Tobias Meier is also the President of Swiss Fair Trade, the industry organisation representing parties involved in fair trade in Switzerland, and a Member of the Management Board of Gebana, a fair trade association.

Billy Linstead Goldsmith

Director Fair Trade Campaigns US

Billy Linstead Goldsmith came to Fair Trade Campaigns from an eight year career in the grassroots environmental movement. He recruited, trained and developed hundreds of grassroots leaders and facilitated campaigns on national, statewide, and local campaigns. He has mobilized fence-line communities, organized public hearings, and led other local actions to hold polluters and politicians accountable. Upon traveling with his wife, Rachel to Venezuela, Billy was inspired to focus his career on international justice and embraced the opportunity to contribute to the Fair Trade movement.

Since becoming the first full-time Director of Fair Trade Campaigns in 2009, Billy has grown the program from 18 community-based efforts to over 300 local advocacy campaigns, including the launch of Fair Trade Colleges & Universities in 2010, which has grown to over 150 campuses across the country.

Sagrario Angulo

Coordinator of the Ecuadorian Consortium for Fair Trade

Sagrario Angulo serves as the coordinator of the Ecuadorian Consortium for Fair Trade. She is part of the local committee Quito Cuidad por el Comercio Justo, whose efforts led to Quito’s declaration as a Fair Trade Town in 2016. Quito was the first Latin American capital city to earn this designation.

She is the general accountant for the Ecuadorian Popular Progressive Fund (FEPP), a private enterprise that supports local development through training, credit and technical assistance. In addition, she is the general manager of Camari, a store that sells local agricultural and handicraft products in support of FEPP’s mission to empower small producers in Ecuador.

Manfred Bischof

Mayor Vaduz

Manfred Bischof is a graduate engineer (FH), specialising in electronics, measurement and control technology, as well as an industrial engineer. He has been mayor of Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, since 2019. Prior to that, he worked for the Liechtenstein National Administration, where he was Deputy Head of the Office for Construction and Infrastructure. As mayor, sustainability issues are of great concern to him. He is convinced that even small communities and cities can make a big difference when it comes to sustainability.

Santiago Guarderas Izquierdo

Mayor of Quito

Santiago Guarderas Izquierdo, the Mayor of Quito,  is a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. Specialist in Procedural Law and Master in Procedural Law from the Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil. He was dean and professor of the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE).

He is active in academic and trade union relevant issues in Ecuador. In the public sphere, he was a deputy for the province of Pichincha in the National Congress.