I just signed contracts with CABI () and Agroknow ().  With CABI I will continue my work in the GODAN secretariat (https://www.godan.info). With Agroknow I will work as senior advicer in the eROSA project ().

My tenure with FAO ended on January 31.  On January 11 I was 62 year old and that is mandatory retirement age in the UN system.  I was not unhappy to leave FAO.  I worked with FAO 17 years as staff, and before 3 years as a contractor.   20 years with one institution is simply too much,  except your are the owner or the boss. If you are not the owner or the boss you will always have to measure your own plans and dream against the corporate requirements - and normally they do not fit really.   You make compromises, you work around, you try to express as much as your of your own, but obviously you accumulate frustrations.  This is not because you are always right and the corporate frame is always, they simply do not fit. At the end you get unhappy (and also unjust) with your employer, and it is better to go.

I am excited about the new challenges that I have to meet now and I am looking forward to work with the same community as before, but in a different setting.