Meet our team

Ludwig Liagre is a Development Cooperation professional, specialist in Rio conventions (UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD) implementation.

Between 2009 and 2014 Ludwig operated as forest policy and finance advisor for the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) in Middle East North Africa and Latin America, implementing impactful projects at the interface of the three Rio conventions.

From 2014 to 2017 he advised public and private organizations as international consultant. Ludwig worked with development cooperation agencies such as GIZ, UNDP and FAO. More recently he operated as Climate Change Specialist at the European Investment Bank (EIB) and as Programme Officer at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), where he supervised work on Land Degradation Neutrality Transformative Projects and Programmes.

He holds MScs in Agricultural Sciences & Environmental Economics from AgroParisTech, France and a MBA from Le Collège des Ingénieurs, France-Germany.

He is currently enrolled as PhD candidate on National Forest Funds at the University of Padova, Italy.

Ludwig speaks: French (mother tongue), English, Spanish, German.

Nirina Ratovonjanahary supports the mobilization of funding dedicated to biodiversity and climate resilience. At Rio Impact, she helps organizations identify the right financial levers, structure sustainable approaches, and transform environmental challenges into opportunities for action, investment, and impact across the Indian Ocean region.

She explores innovative financing mechanisms, including international climate and biodiversity funds, public-private partnerships, and emerging forms of finance, such as biodiversity credits, tailored to the Indian Ocean context.

Her past experiences have enabled her to develop strong expertise in sustainability frameworks, alongside operational experience in the monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of performance and impacts. She has supported corporations, development agencies, and public organizations in designing sustainability strategies, integrating biodiversity challenges, and implementing concrete action plans.

Based in Mauritius, Nirina now leverages her expertise to deliver solutions that bridge sustainable finance, conservation, and value creation for territories, organizations, and communities.

Nirina speaks: French, English, Malagasy

Niavo Ratsimbazafy has joined RIO Impact as a carbon finance expert and will contribute to the development of carbon projects as well as MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification) processes.

Niavo brings extensive experience in certification and auditing. She previously served as a certification manager for various sustainability and carbon credit standards, notably Socialcarbon. Her carbon finance expertise covers methodologies from the GHG Protocol, ISO 14064, Verra’s VCS, and the Gold Standard.

Niavo has demonstrated her expertise in drafting Project Design Documents (PDD) and has led monitoring and reporting initiatives for nature-based projects. She will support the development of carbon projects, helping our partners mobilize additional funding to benefit local communities.

Niavo speaks: French, English, Malagasy

Manda Raharijaona leads digital communications and webmarketing at Rio Impact from Mauritius. She has over five years of experience with multichannel campaigns and platform management for international clients, in Europe and Canada.

Her work covers webmarketing, conversion funnels, email automation, community management, and analytics. She’s used to running several channels at once and tracking what actually works, with the numbers to back it. At Rio Impact, she builds the communication plans behind the advisory and training activities, making sure the work on biodiversity, land and climate finance reaches the right people.

Manda holds a Master’s degree in Law, Economics and Management, specialized in Finance, from Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, and is completing the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce certificate.

Manda speaks: French, English, Malagasy

Eléonore Dal supports the development of nature-based carbon projects, from origination through to credit issuance. At Rio Impact, she helps project developers and their partners structure robust projects, secure validation, and turn ecosystem conservation into tangible funding for local territories.

She operates across the entire carbon project lifecycle: project design and drafting of Project Design Documents (PDD), carbon estimations, due diligence, financial analysis, agreement structuring, and coordination with standards, developers, and buyers. She leads Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) processes with local communities and negotiates benefit-sharing mechanisms.

Her previous experience has provided her with comprehensive expertise in voluntary carbon markets and nature-based solutions across forestry and wetland ecosystems, including jurisdictional REDD+ initiatives. She has managed multi-year project portfolios, coordinated remote multidisciplinary teams, and supported governments in implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by leveraging climate finance tools.

Based in France and trilingual, Eléonore now applies this experience to support projects that connect carbon finance, conservation, and direct benefits for local communities.

Eléonore French, English, Spanish.

Eva Lafont is an agronomist (AgroParisTech) specialized in the fields of environmental and biodiversity management, and holds a Master 2 in Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development (Master EEET, Paris Saclay University).

After graduating, Eva quickly engaged in the development of strategic solutions and financing to combat climate change.

Indeed, as a Consultant in Adaptation to Climate Change as part of her end-of-study internship, she had the opportunity to accompany public and private actors at the different stages of their action in the field of climate policies and climate change adaptation strategies (diagnosis of the impacts of climate change, definition of strategies and action plans).

In addition, Eva contributed to the feasibility study of a national climate fund with Rio Impact, and she now supports more particularly the development of national financing strategies for forests, among other missions on financing mechanisms for nature-based solutions.

Eva speaks: French (mother tongue), English, Spanish

Laura Atondeh joined Rio Impact as a climate finance advisor. She supports the design of national strategies and mechanisms to increase financing resources for climate action.

Laura is currently pursuing an “Advanced Master” (one-year course leading to a post-Master’s degree) in Environmental Public Policies and Strategies at AgroParisTech (Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Sciences).

After graduating from Kedge Business School’s Master in Management with a specialisation in Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility, she worked as a Responsible Investment Analyst for a private asset manager, from 2016 to 2020.

She could analyse the environmental, social and governance impacts of several companies belonging to the extractive industries and the banking and financial sectors. She also worked more specifically on climate change issues.

In 2020, to completement her environmental expertise in the private sector and in sustainable finance, she decided to further her education at AgroParisTech to acquire knowledge and skills in environmental public policies at both the national and international levels.

Laura speaks: French (mother tongue), English

Pilar Valbuena holds a MSc in Forestry Engineering and has more than 18 years of experience in the field of forestry.

In the last ten years she has specialized in knowledge management and communications. She works as an International Forest Communications consultant and event photographer for international entities such as FAO, CIFOR, GIZ, IUCN, UNDP, INIA (Spain), iuFOR (Spain), etc.

Pilar supports its partners on communications strategy development and implementation and can address all communications dimensions related to an initiative or project. For example she has been working on the development of the communications strategy for the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol in Algeria in the framework of a UNDP/GEF project in partnership with the General Directorate of Forests of Algeria.

She works on governance and landscape approaches, including in the context of Model Forests, from implementation to evaluation.

She has participated on the development of several Model Forests in the Mediterranean Region and has been evaluator of forest initiatives in Europe and North Africa.

She is conducting her PhD on forest governance and landscape level approaches in collaboration with the Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Gestión Forestal Sostenible (iuFOR) at the University of Valladolid.

Pilar speaks: Spanish (mother tongue), English, French.

In development…