Jo Anderson, Rocio Sanz Cortes, and Emilio Sempris

Speaker Biographies 

Jo Anderson

Jo Anderson is the Director of Finance and Sales at Carbon Tanzania. Jo’s focus at Carbon Tanzania is to ensure business sustainability through financial management and sales, and to scale  the financial capacity and other work of Carbon Tanzania when opportunities arise. He also works to develop communications strategy, and to explore new client and investor relationships.

As one of the founding partners of Carbon Tanzania, Jo sees the business as a natural extension of Carbon Tanzania's efforts to create and support effective conservation solutions for aesthetically beautiful and scientifically important natural habitats throughout Tanzania.

He has a deep understanding of the ecology of forests and other terrestrial ecosystems, and the need for integrated management of natural resources that genuinely includes the priorities of the people who exist in and around them.

Having spent many years working in the bush in East Africa under various guises – professional safari and hiking guide, landscape ecologist, guide trainer, journalist and amateur explorer – he needs no convincing of the inherent value of the earth’s wild, natural places.

At Carbon Tanzania, Jo puts efforts into communicating the need for us all to value forest habitats for the benefits they bring both to their local communities and to global human health. This means being up to date on all the considerable science and field work going on around the world that continues to reveal how important these habitats are for local economies and livelihoods, as well as their role in the efforts to tackle the damaging effects of human-induced climate change. He also keeps en eye on closely linked credit sales and financial planning needs, and deals directly with all retirements, transfers and credit transactions.

Rocio Sanz Cortes

Rocio Sanz Cortes serves as Emergent’s Head of Origination. Rocio is an agriculture and forestry specialist. Her work focuses on nature-based solutions and climate finance. She has over 15 years of work experience advising organizations such as the World Bank, FAO, UN-REDD, UNDP, GCF, and Indufor. She holds a master’s degree in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a bachelor’s in Agricultural Engineering.

Emilio Sempris

Emiolio Sempris is the Regional Director for Latin America and Caribbean, Coalition for Rainforest Nations Mr. Emilio Sempris is the former Minister of Environment for the Government of Panama. He has over 20 years of experience in climate change, water resources management, environmental modeling, satellite monitoring, and international cooperation for sustainable development. He served as Director General of the Water Centre for the Humid Tropics of Latin American and the Caribbean and worked as contractor for NASA, US-EPA, UNDP, IDB, UN-WHO, UNEP, and USAID. Emilio was a member of the Adaptation Fund Board and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the rapporteur of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI)  Currently, is serving as Regional Director with the Coalition for Rainforest Nations.