The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, Prof. Rick Trainor, has announced that Dr Guy Poulter is now confirmed as NRI Director. Formerly Director of Operations at NRI, Guy was appointed as its Acting Director at the start of 2003. He intends to consolidate and build on the past two years of re-organization of the Institute's structure and business management, in order to ensure that NRI continues to be a significant national and global player in helping to improve the lives of some of the poorest people in the world through the application of its diverse expertise in areas such as social anthropology, land and water management, farming systems, economics, food science, and pest and vector management.
Originally an expert in fisheries, Guy has over 25 years experience of working for – and in – developing countries. With a first degree in Food Science from the University of Strathclyde and a PhD in Food Biochemistry from the University of Nottingham, Guy Poulter joined one of NRI's forerunners, the Tropical Products Institute, in 1976. In the early part of his career he travelled extensively around the world advising poor fisherfolk on the best way to handle, process and preserve their catches, and undertook a two-year assignment in Sri Lanka. He was rapidly promoted, firstly to Head of the Storage Department, concerned with the management of stored grain and other durable food commodities, and then via a range of central administrative posts to the role of Deputy Director for Food Science and Crop Utilization. Taking a career break from NRI in the mid 1990s, Guy was seconded to the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) where he spent three years as a Senior Adviser for Agricultural Research and then a further year working with the European Commission in Brussels. After his return to NRI in 2001, Guy undertook a broad range of senior management tasks in support of substantial changes in the Institute's marketing and operations, culminating in his appointment as Acting Director in January 2003 and now his confirmation as Director in September 2003. In recent years, Guy's special professional interest has been in the developmental agricultural research policies of the UK, the European Commission, and the European Union more widely.