We’re thrilled to welcome Oluwaseun Adekugbe to the YPARD Steering Committee!

Oluwaseun is the Manager of Institutional Partnerships at Thousand Currents, where she advances trust-based philanthropy and cross-sector collaboration to drive transformative, community-led solutions. Born and raised in Nigeria, she is deeply committed to promoting intergenerational equity and uplifting grassroots leadership in the climate and development sectors.

With over seven years of experience in the youth climate and nature space, Oluwaseun has held several leadership roles. She previously served as the Managing Director of Youth4Nature, an international nonprofit that educates, equips, and empowers youth to lead system-wide solutions to the nature and climate crises. During her five-years, she led a global team that successfully raised over $2 million to advance youth-led climate-nature solutions.

Her contributions also include serving as Head of the CIFOR Commission for the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA) and being a member of the steering committee of Youth for Our Planet, the Youth in Landscapes Initiative, the Generation Restoration Youth Hub, and Nature4Climate. Through these platforms, she has helped shape global discourse on nature-climate, ecosystem restoration, and youth engagement in climate action.

A double master’s degree holder from the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Programme, specializing in Conservation and Land Management at Bangor University (UK) and Forest Ecosystems, Nature, and Society at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Oluwasuen also has earned a BSc (Honours) in Forestry from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria.

She envisions YPARD becoming the leading global platform for young professionals in agriculture and food systems—a dynamic space where youth not only gather to learn and connect but are resourced and equipped to lead. Her commitment is to help strengthen YPARD’s organisation as an inclusive, action-oriented network that reaches deep into underrepresented and hard-to-reach communities. She sees YPARD becoming the go-to organization for peer-to-peer learning, youth solidarity, and collective action, particularly in championing agroecology as a core pathway for sustainable food system transformation.

As a Steering Committee member, she aims to contribute to YPARD to continue to deepen its roots in agroecological leadership by enabling young people to access resources, lead cutting-edge research, and shape policy conversations that affect their futures. For Oluwaseun, being part of the YPARD Steering Committee is not just an opportunity to contribute to strategy, but a chance to help shape the next phase of YPARD’s identity and influence. She hopes to nurture a bold and unified movement together, one that ensures young professionals are not just participants but key architects of the future of food and agriculture.

We warmly congratulate Oluwaseun on this well-deserved appointment and look forward to the transformative impact she will bring to YPARD and the wider agricultural community.

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