We are delighted to welcome An Ha, who started on August 18th as our new Managing Director. To get to know her better, she shares a bit about the path that brought her to Progreso, her vision for working with farmer cooperatives, and what excites her most about stepping into this role.
When An looks back at the path that led her to Progreso, she describes it as a journey that has always circled back to the same place: close to the farmer. After studying development economics, her career began at Rabo Foundation, continued at Rabobank and later took her to Solidaridad. While these roles gave her valuable insights into development finance and sustainability, she felt a strong pull to work more directly with farmers and their cooperatives.
Through Iris van der Velden, a member of Progreso’s Supervisory Board, An was introduced to the role of Managing Director. The moment she learned about the position, it felt like a natural fit. Stepping into this role, she explains, felt like a welcome home, being closer to farmer cooperatives than ever before, and at the very heart of the challenges and opportunities they face.
For An, supporting farmer cooperatives is both a professional challenge and a source of deep fulfillment. Cooperatives are complex organizations; their success depends on many intertwined factors. Yet it is precisely this complexity that motivates her. The opportunity to contribute to their growth and resilience in a way that has a direct impact on farmers’ lives is what excites her most about Progreso.
She brings with her a unique mix of experiences: a background in banking and technical assistance, with financing gradually becoming an important part of her professional toolkit. She sees her role as one of bridging Progreso’s technical assistance programs with the Progreso Fund, helping cooperatives move more smoothly along the path toward independence. Finance, she admits, is a challenging part of the equation, but it is also where she sees great potential.
Making finance accessible and understandable is something An values deeply. She knows how transformative it can be for a cooperative to truly grasp its own financial health and to build the capacity to grow stronger on that foundation. This, she says, is one of Progreso’s distinctive strengths: the emphasis on both the quality of cooperatives’ financial management and the people behind it. It is something she wants to highlight more in the future.
Outside of her professional journey, An recently started her own garden. Only now, with her hands in the soil, has she come to fully appreciate the time, patience, and dedication farming requires. It has given her a renewed respect for the farmers at the center of Progreso’s mission and makes her even more committed to supporting their cooperatives as the new Managing Director.
