The Board

Filippo Veglio has been chairing the Board since October 2020 in an independent capacity, providing strategic guidance to the Platform alongside his Board colleagues. He is Chief of Social & Environmental Sustainability at UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations. Previous to joining UEFA in September 2021, he was a Managing Director at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the global, CEO-led community of the world’s leading sustainable businesses working collectively to accelerate the system transformations needed for a net zero, nature positive, and equitable future. Filippo Veglio holds an M.A. in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and was formerly a professional tennis player and a member of the Swiss Davis Cup team.

Roger Wehrli is the Director of the association of Swiss Chocolate Manufacturers CHOCOSUISSE and BISCOSUISSE. Before, he worked as Deputy Head of General Economic Policy and Education at economiesuisse, the umbrella organisation for the Swiss business sector. During his time at economiesuisse, he has dealt with key issues relevant to the second processing stage of the food industry and has broad experience in Swiss economic policy. He holds a PhD in Economics.

Renzo Verne is the Sustainability Director at Cocoasource, where he leads the development and implementation of ethical sourcing strategies across global food and agriculture supply chains. He previously worked at Earthworm Foundation and Root Capital, where he gathered significant experience in impact investing, particularly in debt financing for agribusinesses in emerging markets. He has deep expertise in implementing sustainable sourcing strategies for the food and agriculture sectors, working extensively with major consumer goods and trading companies across Latin America, West Africa, and Southeast Asia. His work spans key commodities including cocoa, coffee, palm oil, hazelnuts, and gold. He currently serves on the board of ADOM cocoa buying company in Ghana and has a B.A. in Economics from Boston University.

Petra Heid holds a MSc. in geo-ecology and has more than 25 years of work experience mainly in sustainability of cocoa and its entire value chain. She worked in different positions in cocoa-producing and European countries, involved in organic certification, operating with smallholder producer groups, access to markets, and transfer of knowledge in quality and sustainable production systems. Petra leads the sustainability department of the chocolate and snack company HALBA, Switzerland where they cover sustainability topics of the whole HALBA supply chain. Concerning raw materials, Petra has been working with dynamic agroforestry systems in cocoa, cashew, and coconut for the last eight years in South America, West Africa and Madagascar.

Deborah Schmidiger leads programmes and partnerships aimed at preventing child labour and strengthening child protection in global supply chains. She previously worked at the International Labour Organization and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, where she gathered significant experience in international development and responsible supply chains with a focus on human rights, worker well-being, health and safety and gender equality . In this field, she developed and led complex multistakeholder initiatives involving companies, governments, and civil society organisations in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. Her current work focuses on holistic community interventions in the cocoa and coffee sector, supporting sustainable approaches to address the root causes of child labour and promote children's rights in farming communities.