Staff

Carmen K. Iezzi

Executive Director

 

Carmen K. Iezzi has served as the Executive Director of the Fair Trade Federation since October 2006. Among her responsibilities, Carmen manages the strategic, administrative, and programmatic aspects of Federation.

 

Previously, she oversaw the education and outreach programs for the Atlantic Council of the United States and directed the alumni relations program for the School of International Service (SIS) at American University (AU). While at the Atlantic Council, she acted as primary point of contact for the 2004 Pan-Atlantic Student Summit, held in conjunction with the NATO summit in Istanbul, and represented the Council before prime ministers, presidents, government officials, non-governmental organization representatives, educators, students, and many others. During her time at AU, she managed events on five continents and participated in the launch of the largest fundraising campaign in the University's history.

 

Graduating Phi Beta Kappa from SIS, Carmen stayed to complete her master's degree in International Politics with a focus on the impact of regional integration on good governance. In the course of her studies, Carmen provided analyses for NATO's Partnership for Peace in Mons, Belgium and worked in the United Nations Development Program Washington Office.

 

Presently, she writes and conducts research on a freelance basis, acts as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for Ten Thousand Villages of Alexandria, is a director for the Abyssinian Fund, and chairs the Millennium Development Goals Task Force for the UN Association of the National Capital Area, and served on the editorial board of the Journal of Fair Trade Studies. Born and raised outside of Pittsburgh, PA, Carmen has lived and studied in Brussels, Belgium, Havana, Cuba, and Washington DC. She received the 2008 Rising Star Alumni Award from American University.

Mary Rose Parrish
Membership Coordinator

Mary Rose Parrish has served as the Membership Coordinator of the Fair Trade Federation since January 2009. Her duties include processing applicants for membership in the Federation, liaising with applicants and members, overseeing events and outreach efforts, and supporting the fulfillment of the FTF Strategic Plan.  

Mary recently returned from Nicaragua, where she was a Rural Agriculture Development and Food Security Extension Agent for Peace Corps.  There, she worked with sustainable development, food security, promoting Agroecology techniques, integrated patio management, crop diversification, community garden development, market organization, and resource development.  It was in Nicaragua when Mary first saw the positive effects of Fair Trade, in particular with coffee cooperatives.    

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Mary double majored in International Political Economy and Latin American Studies with a concentration in Latin American Agricultural Economics.  Fluent in Spanish, she spent a semester as a Foreign Investment Intern for the Secretary of Economic Development in Nuevo Leon, Mexico.  

Raised in Raleigh, NC, Mary has lived and studied in Switzerland, Mexico, California, Nicaragua, and Washington, D.C.  Mary has worked in the Community Affairs Department at the Consulate of Mexico in North Carolina, as a Researcher for the UC Berkeley Department of Economics and FAO looking at International Poultry Trade affected by Avian Flu, as a Development Consultant for the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco, and as a Legislative Intern in U.S. Representative David Price's Washington, D.C. Office.  She also spent four years as the Campaigns and Parents Fund Assistant at Annual Programs, UREL, UC Berkeley.

Rachel Bradburd
Conference Coordinator

Rachel joined the Fair Trade Federation in January 2010 as the Fair Trade Futures Conference Coordinator.  Rachel’s responsibilities include recruiting for the September conference in Boston, coordinating logistics for the event, and promoting the conference.

Rachel graduated from Dickinson College with a BA in American Studies and Sociology and a minor in Spanish. She recently worked as the Fair Trade Intern at Green America and has coordinated a number of events for community groups, at her university, and with a local middle school. She studied abroad for a semester in Chile, traveled to Honduras with Habitat for Humanity, and spent a summer studying anthropology in Tanzania, where she was first introduced to Fair Trade coffee and saw the positive effects Fair Trade can have on communities worldwide.

Megan Mize
Program Associate

Meghan Mize is an undergraduate at the University of California Berkeley majoring in Development Studies.  Her areas of interest include trade and economic policies that impact development, particularly in Africa, as well as international aid and the environment. At UC Berkeley, Meghan is an active member of the campus community through her involvement in Delta Phi Epsilon, a co-ed professional foreign service fraternity.

Prior to interning with the Fair Trade Federation, Meghan gained experience working with nonprofits through her internship with One Million Lights, an Palo Alto based nonprofit that distributes solar LED lights to impoverished third world communities around the world.

After graduating, she plans work abroad before pursuing either a masters in international relations or an MBA after she graduates from UC Berkeley.

Sophie Wilmot
Program Associate, Small Business Development

In 2005, Sophie was given her shocking introduction to the harsh realities of extreme poverty by the internationally held Live 8 concerts.  Within months, it became apparent that she had discovered her calling and upon graduation from high school she joined American University in Washington DC as part of the School of International Service (SIS), later also joining the Kogod School of Business with a double-major in International Relations and Business Administration.   She intends to study abroad somewhere in Africa next year.  After earning her BA, she hopes work towards starting her own international development nonprofit.

Sophie was born in England but has lived in Maryland for most of her life, where she served two terms on the board of a newly created nonprofit small animal rescue called Small Angels Rescue, Inc. and was an active member of the Episcopalian church, through which she traveled to Honduras in 2007.  She has done numerous presentations to her high school and church on poverty-related issues such as HIV/AIDS and the Millennium Development Goals.  She is very proud to be a part of the Fair Trade Federation team especially because fair trade is her favorite facet of international development.

Diana Kühl
Program Associate, Marketing

Diana Kühl is an undergraduate at the University of Passau, Germany, majoring in International Cultural and Business Studies with focus on American Studies.

After graduating from high school in 2006, she studied one year at the University of Nebraska where she played for the women’s tennis team and got her first insights into academic life. In 2007 she decided to continue studying in Passau where she will obtain her bachelor’s degree in September of 2010. One year later, she spent another year abroad at the University of Seville, Spain. There she especially focused on business studies and was able to improve her language skills.

After returning from Spain, she was elected head of marketing of the kuwi netzwerk international e.V., one of Germany’s biggest alumni organizations. Since then she was able to gain some very valuable experience that only confirmed her future plans of taking a master’s degree in marketing and/or work in the marketing department of an international company.