Patience Mayaki-van der Horst

Senior Environmental and Social Officer

FMO

Biography

Patience is Senior environmental and social Officer at FMO, one of Europe’s largest bilateral development finance institutions. Since joining the bank more than a decade ago, Patience has worked in several countries across the developing world, notably in Africa and South East Asia, supporting private sector development in the energy, Agribusiness and financial sectors.

In her current role, she advises FMO’s investment committee and the management board on key environmental, social and human rights risks and impacts associated with the bank’s global investments. Over the years, Patience has facilitated several stakeholder dialogues among decision makers in different emerging markets that have inspired collective thinking and enabled local ownership around the sustainability agenda.

Patience has a passion for development and believes that business and politics are avenues for having a voice at the table. She ran in the last EU parliamentary elections as a candidate for the European Parliament, with the goal of putting Africa in the forefront of European Migration and human rights debates.

Patience holds a first class honours degree in Forestry from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is an alumnus of the EU-Erasmus Mundus Joint postgraduate programme in European Forestry. She has a Masters degree in Forest and Nature Conservation from Wageningen University, Netherlands and the University of Joensuu, Finland. Furthermore, Patience holds an MBA degree jointly from Bradford University, England and TiasNimbas Business School, Netherlands. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers Nigeria (CIBN).