CGIAR Consortium, c/o AGROPOLIS INTERNATIONAL, Avenue Agropolis, F-34394, Montpellier, Cedex 5 - France

t (+33 4) 67 04 75 75 www.cgiar.org

To whom it may concern:

I am writing this letter of recommendation for Ruth Malan upon her request, as she was employed by

CGIAR as Senior Secretary supporting me in my position of Consortium Board Chair from March 2010 to

December 2014. I hereby strongly recommend Ruth as a candidate for employment. It is worth to note

that CGIAR Consortium comprised fifteen Center Members located all over the world and their work was

assembled under the guidance of Consortium Research Programs. When faced with a new and complex

environment such as the hitherto described, Ruth learned very quickly the intricacy of this organization,

and managed to support my work on this respect when needed on a variety of aspects and realities.

Over the time that I have known Ruth, she has performed her duties with competence, efficiency and

conviction. She prioritized work and managed multiple tasks simultaneously in a dynamic and changing

environment. Her position saw her share of competing demands on her time as she was responsible for

managing the day-to-day operational and administrative activities of the CGIAR office in Montevideo, as

well as coordinating logistics (both on a national and international level), managing my local and global

agenda, compiling and providing information and briefing materials, following up corporate documentation

on strategy, policies and procedures, etc. She also arranged and maintained an electronic filing system of

Consortium matters in Montevideo that allowed a prompt recovery of needed documents, maintained and

recorded documents of the Consortium Board, prepared draft replies (in English, Spanish and French) for

my review, and when appropriate, composed correspondence for my signature, besides assembling and

summarizing the necessary information for preparing replies, among a huge variety of other tasks too long

to enumerate in this letter.

Ruth has very good communication skills. In addition, she is organized, reliable and computer literate. She

can work independently and is able to follow through to ensure that the job gets done. I’ve received many

compliments on her work from people that have interacted with her, both in person and remotely.

Ruth is trustworthy, efficient, and has always dealt in an excellent manner with sensitive and confidential

issues that required tact and discretion. In sum, Ruth has a set of highly developed skills that have been of

great support in facing the challenges of a complex CGIAR institutional reform that I, as Chair of the

Consortium, had to lead during these five years. I am convinced she will be an asset for your company and

has my firm personal recommendation.

Sincerely,

Carlos Pérez del Castillo CGIAR Consortium Board Chair