Discover everything about us.
Read about our team, our history and discover our world through the stories we tell.
Also find links to various media pieces that we’re particularly proud of.
Core Team
Very different individuals bound by their unwavering resolve to fix coffee trade.
Lennart Clerkx
the Visionary
Lennart founded the company to inspire roasters and growers to create value together so the coffee world can become a more equal, open place. He is in charge of long term planning with farmers, new business and social / environmental project development, recruitment, social media and marketing. He is a coach to his amazing team and safeguards the vision as the company evolves.
Maarten van Keulen
the Matchmaker
Maarten is Lennart’s right hand. Apart from founding the Circular Coffee Collective, since 2016, he naturally gravitated towards coordinating origin relationships with customer needs, effectively making him the “middle” of the company. He is the reason why so many companies continue to rely on This Side Up to facilitate their farmer relationships as they grow.
Mathieu Clerkx
the Numbers Wizard
Mathieu is Lennart’s father and an IT and logistics professional. He provided startup capital for This Side Up and has always been the one making sure the financial bottom line is kept in check. He built the company’s internal “backbone” on which all orders, logistics and finances are coordinated and provides financial oversight on an ongoing basis.
Damian Wijnhoud
the Engineer
An engineer in heart and bones, Damian created our user friendly webshop and customer portal that is still unrivalled in the coffee industry. He coordinates tirelessly with our trusted logistics partners, making sure incoming coffee containers and outgoing orders are handled with the care that our partners deserve.
Madhumeetha Babu Sankara Subramaniam
Impact
Madhu was like the missing piece in a complex puzzle we were trying to solve for some time. With a background in social justice / impact research, web content and coffee, she is helping us out with many aspects of the business, including content creation, impact measurement and sampling.
Renata Hardewijn Quality
Renata first came to us in 2021 when we could not afford her - but she knew that she belonged at This Side Up and has persevered to become our Q Grader and head of our lab. Renata knows our 250+ coffees better than anyone and takes a very TSU approach to quality: solving quality issues with the whole chain and always thinking who could be a great “adoption parent” for any coffee.
Karina Avakyan
Projects
Karina gained much experience in the international community, especially coordinating access to finance projects. While we were struggling with setting up our Child Labour Prevention project with RVO in Congo, she came to the rescue and became its central coordinator. then that of our project with GIZ in Colombia as well.
Fernanda Fabris
Presentation
With a keen eye for greenwashing developed through years in the corporate world, Fernanda is helping us differentiate our message and direct our partners’ stories to the final consumer in a pure but easy to digest way.
Lara Alice Zanda
Sampling
Lara is our new and massively overqualified sampling assistant. She came to us as a former Field Barista at Argote in Colombia, and because she wants to know more about the ins and outs of our business. We hope this is the beginning of a long journey together in the TSUniverse!
Our Local Partners
Our main points of contact in origin, or as we like to see it, our “independent local offices”. The invaluable links between us and the farmers, these people are the secret to This Side Up’s trade model.
Antoine Kagenza
Rushashi | Rwanda
Antoine was This Side Up’s first producer partner. He is in charge of Abakundakawa’s main wet mill, Rushashi, coordinates with the coop’s women empowerment organisations and is the spearhead for one of the country’s most ambitious regenerative agroforestry projects.
Therese Nyirangwabije
Coko | Rwanda
Therese is the president of Twongerekawa Coko and our close partner since 2013. She and her team have guided the coop through better income, crop diversification, significant upgrades to the wet mill and drying station - and is the greatest host should you ever make it to their mill.
Rebecca Trupin
Aranga | Tanzania
Half Tanzanian, half New Yorker, Rebecca was eager to set up direct trade ties for her coffee farmer relatives back in 2014 and managed to create a loyal following for the Aranga group. In 2021, she set up Wanza Traders, through which we expect to reach many more farmer groups in the future.
Juan Pablo Lasso Argote
Argote | Colombia
Juan Pablo is the second son in the Lasso Argote family and the driving force behind the Argote project. He actively promotes specialty coffee as a road to better income in his village Génova, helps out other families in creating, processing and exporting specialty coffee and guides them on their path to agroforestry and organic production.
Fuadi Pitsuwan &
Jane Kittarattapanaiboon
Beanspire | Thailand
Fuadi and Jane are the founders of Beanspire Coffee. Over the last years they have proven Thai coffee has a place in the global specialty scene. They work directly with some of the world’s most famous roasters, and advise a growing group of inspiring farmers with the highest diversity in experimental processing we’ve ever seen.
Adri Yahdiyan
Ontosoroh | Indonesia
Adri and his team are the main reason our Flores Robusta project with the ASNIKOM cooperative became possible in 2015 and since then, he has linked and developed projects in Sulawesi and Java with us as well. He is our miller, quality controller, relationship manager and vital link between our regenerative agriculture expert network and the farmer groups.
Tocto Family
Churupampa | Peru
Eber (right) is the founder of Churupampa with his brother Lenin, a business they set up to enhance the Chirinos cooperative’s outreach and professionalism. The whole family and their close friends are trained farm circularity experts and an inspiration to our farmer community worldwide.
Gidhe Berhe & Abiy Ashenafi
Galeh Estate | Ethiopia
Although Galeh Estate is run by Giday Berhe, he does not speak English. We work with Abiy on a daily basis: the passionate representative of Limmu Kossa who so happens to live in The Hague. Given the usual lack of transparency and long value chains in Ethiopia, we’re very lucky to have a partner who lives 45 minutes away.
Luiz Saldanha Rodrigues
Capricornio | Brazil
Luiz and his wife Flavia are the owners of Fazenda California, and Luiz is one of the founders of Capricornio, Next to running these amazing businesses, he supports other producers in processing upgrades. To us, Luiz is proof that a scale as large as that of Capricornio’s and a progressive, empathic mindset can go hand in hand.
Gilbert Makelele
CPNCK Ngula | DR Congo
Gilbert is one of the Kivu region's unsung heroes, bringing hope to the youngest generation of coffee farmers by providing coffee seedlings as a lucrative alternative to taking up arms or illicit trade. He is the driving force behind our partner cooperative CPNCK on the island of Idjwi and is pleased to receive emails and guests to this magical place.
Khun Kyaw Min Hitke
Hopong | Myanmar
Khun is the head of Indigo Mountain Coffee and has been our direct link to the seven villages that make up the Hopong project from the start in 2017. We are touched to see that throughout the autocratic regime change of 2021 he has managed to keep the dream alive for the farmers and continually helps to upgrade and diversify their coffees.
Désiré Zagabe
RAEK Katana | DR Congo
Désiré is the operations manager of RAEK, a cooperative that has been through many tough times. Thanks to his leadership in quality and operations, he and his team have been able to produce high quality coffee throughout scandals and disasters. They have developed a deep relationship with us, especially since 2020 when we started cooperating to combat child labour.
Gilbert Gatali
Intango | Rwanda
Gilbert is one of Rwanda’s specialty coffee veterans. Having seen and guided the country’s speciality coffee development from the very start, in 2018 he decided to fulfil his dream of running a dedicated specialty coffee mill. He has become a stable and growing part of our Rwandan assortment because of his dedication to quality and social and environmental stewardship.
Andy Carlton & Aggrey Chombe
Zombo | Uganda
After more than 30 years running development projects, Andy Carlton (left) and Aggrey Chombe (right) now run of the most ambitious coffee projects we partner with. They tackle challenge after challenge running a farmer-inclusive value chain in one of the toughest areas of the country to work, and we are proud to aid and stand by them as their dream crystallises.
Komal Sable & Akshay Dashrath
SICC | India
Komal and Akshay are not typical farmers. After a career in IT and life abroad, they settled on their family farm and started their coffee adventure. With strong relationships with surrounding farms, ambitious social development plans with neighbouring smallholders and a progressive mindset, we are proud to call them our “Indian arm”.
Gloria Gummerus
Sakami | Kenya
Gloria, in our view, is the charismatic face of the new Kenyan coffee scene, one where professional farmers communicate directly with the world and help their communities thrive. She and her Finnish husband Jarmo are farmers, exporters and our development partners for exciting new community projects.