Gerra Harrigan appointed JNP Coffee director of sales & strategy
Gerra Hannigan, director of sales & strategy, JNP Coffee. Image JNP Coffee
Gerra Harrigan has joined the JNP Coffee team as director of sales & strategy. The Sharon, Massachusetts, US resident comes from Mighty Peace, where she was green coffee director, after a long time as a trader with Interamerican Coffee. She previously served as vice president of sales and marketing for New Harvest Coffee Roasters.
“We are very excited to have Gerra Harrigan join the JNP Coffee family,” said Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian, founder and CEO of JNP Coffee. “She values our mission and brings to us her strategic acumen and depth of knowledge of coffee and its key players. Her contributions will enable our team to boost our growth and do more with the farmers from my home country.”
Harrigan first met Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian in 2012 at a cupping in Providence, where JNP Coffee’s signature Burundi coffees were showcased for roasters seeking new tastes in single-origin coffees from East Africa. She’s followed JNP Coffee’s success ever since.
“Coffee is all about relationships,” Harrigan said, “starting between the farmers and exporters, exporters and importers, and then roasters and customers.” The relationship JNP Coffee has with women farmers in Burundi is one reason she was attracted to the new position. The company’s mission to transform lives and shift social norms, and the outsize impact it continues to have, resonated for her after working with much larger companies.
With operations in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, Berlin, Germany, and Bujumbura, Burundi, JNP Coffee sources specialty coffees grown in the mountains of Burundi that are notable for their sweet fruit and floral characteristics. Founded in 2012, the company strives to improve the lives of Burundian coffee farmers with extra payments for their production of high-quality coffee, coupled with career training and financial literacy education. For more information, visit jnpcoffee.com.
