Our Team

As a consultancy business, we provide specialist advice in technical areas and help build up your team so you can manage complex programmes. The co-founders of DevLearn, Adam, and Nayeem, bring experience in multiple programmes and countries. We work with a carefully selected network of Associate Consultants, internationally renowned experts in the sectors we work in.

Adam Kessler

Adam Kessler

Managing Partner

Adam is a monitoring and evaluation specialist with experience developing simple, practical results measurement systems for private sector development programs. He has worked on industrial development, agriculture, market systems, and challenge funds.

Adam lives in Bristol with his wife, two gerbils, and three chickens. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking in the hills around Bristol and watching stand-up comedy.

Nayeem Kashem

Nayeem Kashem

Managing Partner

Nayeem is a market systems specialist, with experience planning and implementing pro-poor business growth in industrial, agricultural, and financial sectors.

He is also experienced in developing communication strategies for internal and external audiences. Nayeem, with his wife, lives in Bangladesh, enjoying the hustle and bustle of Dhaka city. In his spare time, he enjoys watching football, playing cricket, and hanging out with friends playing board games.

Victoria Carter

Victoria Carter

Consultant

Victoria Carter is a private sector development specialist with a background in large-scale engineering project management and commercial law.

She has spent the last 15 years working in private and development sector programs across Asia, the Pacific, and Europe across a wide range of sectors, including construction, water, finance, agriculture, and tourism. She is particularly experienced at running complex multi-country market systems development programs

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Rahaf Saad

Rahaf Saad

Finance and Operation

Rahaf is experienced in designing and implementing women empowerment programmes. Rahaf participated in the establishment and growth of a women’s social enterprise in Istanbul. Alongside that, Rahaf worked on various projects aimed to support women artisans and entrepreneurs from the MENA region in different cities in Turkey.

Rahaf is based in Istanbul. In her free time, she does yoga, cycling, or goes on street photography tours.

Stephen Berson

Stephen Berson

Consultant

Stephen Berson has over a decade of experience in international development cooperation, having worked in sectors including humanitarian relief, education, elections, civil society, and rule of law. The organizations with which he has worked have been equally diverse, including international NGOs, grassroots local NGOs, and international organizations. In his free time, he keeps himself busy with home improvement projects, travel, and experimenting with food.

Deepa Manichan

Deepa Manichan

Consultant

Deepa is a MEL specialist, focusing on the use of MEL for systemic change programmes. She worked as the MEL Advisor for the Market Development Facility in Timor Leste, developing processes to assess systemic change across a broad portfolio of projects in the tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing markets.She has worked on results programmes and led research design and analysis for large-scale assessments in India in the education sector. In her free time she enjoys gardening. She dreams of owning a farm one day.

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Yuni Chairani

Yuni Chairani

Consultant

Yuni has more than seven years of experience in implementing MEL systems and frameworks in various programs. She previously worked as a result measurement focal for an MSD program in Indonesia and continued working as an individual consultant in supporting organizations and programs in implementing the monitoring and evaluation process. She has worked in many sectors, from education, agriculture, access to finance, and women’s economic empowerment. She has a passion for research, teaching, and women empowerment.

Naomi Falkenburg

Naomi Falkenburg

Consultant

Naomi is a monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) specialist with a cross-cutting focus on social inclusion. She has worked with development and humanitarian actors around the world to design, manage and learn from their interventions.

Her experience spans a range of thematic areas, including education, employment, entrepreneurship, digital inclusion, migration, and trade. Naomi is based in France and Greece. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, dancing, photography, and training her cat.

Baphiwe Roji

Baphiwe Roji

Junior Consultant

Baphiwe first joined our team through the Young professional program before beginning her junior consultancy. She completed a B.Com. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at the University of Cape Town, as well as an honours degree in Economic Analysis of Financial Markets. Baphiwe supports our consultants’ work on communication products, online training programs, and project management.She is based in South Africa. In her free time, she enjoys reading, taking walks, and watching sitcoms.

Catie Crowley

Catie Crowley

Consultant

Catie specialises in MEL, having supported both programmes and donors to build monitoring systems. She has also designed and implemented impact evaluations various sectors, including WASH, education, and private sector development. She is particularly interested in assessing humanitarian action or programmes that take place in fragile contexts. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, painting, and concerts.

Muhammad Bilal

Muhammad Bilal

Consultant

Bilal is an experienced market system development and monitoring, evaluation and learning expert with over nine years of progressive experience in the sector. Bilal has worked extensively on market systems analysis, strategy development, program implementation and developing and implementing monitoring and evaluation framework. Bilal provides technical advisory and implementation support in the application of systems approach. He has worked in agriculture, manufacturing, BPO and finance sectors across South Asia and East Africa.

Ramisa Tasnuma

Ramisa Tasnuma

Junior Consultant

Ramisa works as a MEL Analyst in Bangladesh. She has previous experience working in data-centric roles in the education sector. She enjoys learning more about project implementation and creating simple MEL systems to keep track of project progress. Ramisa likes delving into data analysis, uncovering insights, and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape.. In her free time, she likes to read, cook for her friends and family, and hang out with friends over coffee.