The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and S&D Coffee & Tea have announced the recipients of the 2019-2020 Leadership Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Scholarship Program. Scholars include: Sunghee Tark; Co-founder and Director of Bean Voyage in Costa Rica Karla María Boza Carbonell; Marketing, Innovation, and Business Relations for Finca San Antonio Amatepec in El Salvador Emi-Beth Quantson (pictured); CEO and Founder of Kawa Moka Limited in Ghana MJ Engel; Teaching Fellow at Phillips Academy Andover in the United States Amara Sao; Founder and Coffee Roaster at Homecoming Coffee Company in Cambodia LEAD, launched at the Re:co Symposium in April 2018, enables access to professional development resources to people from underrepresented or marginalised communities to increase diversity of leadership within the global coffee community. This program is supported by S&D Coffee & Tea. “We were pleased to work with SCA to develop the LEAD program in 2018. Our unified goal of providing access to resources otherwise beyond the reach to many in our coffee community is being fulfilled. The first year of this two-year inaugural cohort has exceeded our expectations, and we are so pleased that we decided to sponsor another five scholars for 2019-2020,” says Helen Griffith, Vice-President, Marketing, S&D Coffee & Tea. “These scholars have the proven ability to create real change in the industry and we want to make sure they get off to an excellent start.”
As a global non-profit organisation, the SCA says it recognises that access to membership, coffee events, and education differ for individuals depending on their identity, background, and access to financial resources. LEAD is designed to be a small but important step towards progress in this area. “The LEAD Scholarship Program is now in its second year, thanks to the generosity of our partners at S&D Coffee & Tea, and we receive dozens of applications from all over the world each year,” SCA Executive Director Yannis Apostolopoulos says. “We couldn’t be happier to work with these five professionals who will embark on a two-year program with us that includes free participation at SCA’s industry events and educational activities, as well as career development and network expansion opportunities.” For more information, visit sca.coffee/LEAD Follow Global Coffee Report on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for up-to-date news and analysis of the global coffee industry.
