Santiago Iturriaga Gazol

Born and raised in Mexico, I grew up on land my family shaped over time. At home, tending the land was never about subsistence or income, but about connection and quality. Water was always central. That mindset, working with systems rather than against them, has stayed with me.

Growing up between a mathematician father and a sociologist mother, I was drawn to the intersection of numbers and society, leading me to study Industrial Economics in Mexico and later specialize in Development Economics in the Netherlands. There, food systems, poverty, and agriculture became central to my focus, and I gravitated toward impact assessment and implementation work, using quantitative and qualitative methods to translate complex realities into clear, defensible insights.
I worked in Uganda on a microfinance impact study within the coffee sector, where theory of change frameworks met field realities and reinforced a simple lesson: evidence only matters if it is usable. Later, through impact and carbon project development work, I learned that carbon can be a powerful tool, but never a shortcut, effective only when grounded in ecological integrity, community realities, and credible methodologies.

At reNature, I work across project development and carbon innovation, designing bankable, agroecologically sound projects, evaluating agroecological performance across regions, supporting implementation, and helping develop carbon products that translate rigorous analysis into tools for real supply-chain decisions. I focus on practical rigor: defensible methods and models that reflect the economic, institutional, and cultural constraints shaping decisions, ensuring climate action and regenerative agriculture deliver measurable and credible livelihood impact.