Experts

Adrian Fozzard is the Coordinator of the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) - a partnership between the World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. StAR seeks to help national authorities detect, deter and recover the proceeds of corruption. Adrian has a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from Durham University, a BA in Earth Sciences from Oxford University and postgraduate qualifications in Public Policy and Management from London University.

Alastair McKechnie is the Director of the Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries Group at the World Bankk. McKechnie was the World Bank Country Director for Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008.

Andrew Burns is Manager of the Global Macroeconomic Trends Team of the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank. He is lead author and task manager of Global Economic Prospects, the Bank's annual report that examines trends in the global economy and how they affect developing countries.

Dr. Ana Bucher is a Climate Change Adaptation Specialist within the Climate Change Team of the Environment Department of the World Bank. Currently, she is working on several aspects of the adaptation to climate change and climate risk management. She has more than nine years of experience in the research, development, and management of international programmatic activities and research projects related to climate change, agriculture, ecosystem assessment, and long-term environmental sustainability. Prior to joining the World Bank, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Environmental Studies of the Mediterranean in Spain working on EU projects related to carbon cycling and climate change on semi-arid lands. She holds a Ph.D. in Soil Science from the Pennsylvania State University and a B.Sc. in Biological Chemistry from the University of Cordoba, Argentina.

Habiba Gitay is a Senior Environmental Specialist within the Environment Department of the World Bank.  Currently her work focuses on the environment, climate change, and development nexus.  Habiba has worked widely in many international arenas on adaptation to climate change, capacity development and environment-related knowledge management. Her experience includes convening as the lead author for chapters in five IPCC reports including leading the chapter on on ecosystem services, impacts of climate change and adaptation options; author in  Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; Vice-Chair of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF); as technical advisor to various environment-related Conventions. 

Timothy Herzog is an Open Data Specialist at the World Bank, where he supports the Bank’s ongoing efforts to expand and improve its portfolio of open data products. Most recently Tim helped to coordinate the launch of the World Bank’s Open Climate Data Initiative in 2011, and is managing the Apps For Climate competition. Prior to joining the World Bank in 2011, Tim served as Director of Online Communications at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank based in Washington, DC. While at WRI he also served as a Climate Policy Specialist and project lead for the Climate Analysis Indicators project. He also worked in the private sector for many years as a technology consultant to several leading U.S. companies. Tim holds a Master’s degree in public policy from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and a bachelor’s degree in communications from Bethel University in Minnesota.

Soong Sup Lee is a Senior Information Officer at the World Bank in Washington D.C. He is a member of the team that provides open access to the World Bank's databases and leads the team that produces the World Development Indicators database and publication. Sup has worked in various roles over 25 years for the World Bank from developing data analysis and presentation applications to supporting the World Bank's first ever global apps competition. His latest focus is improving the access and usefulness of the World Bank's information to a broad audience. Sup has an MBA from George Washington University and a Bachelor's in Engineering from McGill University.

Bert Hofman is the World Bank's Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific Region and Director of the Singapore Office since September 2011. Before moving to Singapore, Bert was the Country Director for the Philippines from 2007 until August 2011 where he was responsible for a growing portfolio of projects and advisory services to the Philippines government.

Bert has 20 years of experience in the World Bank, 14 of which have been in the East Asia region. He was the Lead Economist in China for three years where he headed a team that provided economic policy advice to the government. Prior to that, he spent more than five years in Indonesia as it was recovering from the Asian Crisis. He has also worked on economic policies for Brazil, South Africa, Mongolia, Zambia, and Namibia in his earlier years with the Bank. Prior to joining the World Bank, Bert worked at the Kiel Institute of World Economics in Germany, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, and NMB Bank in the Netherlands (now ING).

Christine Cornelius is the World Bank's Program Coordinator for Agriculture in East Africa. She has worked on community driven development, research and extension projects in Africa and Eastern Europe and Central Asia during her 26 years at the World Bank. Cornelius is currently the Bank team lead on the National Agricultural Advisory Services Project in Uganda helping farmers expand production, increase productivity and access national and regional markets.

Dan Biller is the Lead Economist for the Operations and Policy Unit, in the Sustainable Development Department of the World Bank's East Asia and the Pacific Region. Prior to his appointment, he was the Environment and Natural Resources Program Leader in the World Bank Institute, managing and delivering training on the economic aspects of environment (including urban issues), natural resources and sustainable development in Latin America, Africa, Middle East and Europe. Dan received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his B.S. in Economics with a minor in Geophysics from the University of Kansas.

David Bernstein is a lawyer who worked in private legal practice, for the U.S. State Department and for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development before joining the World Bank in 2003. Upon joining the Bank, David served as a Team Leader for a number of World Bank investment loans in the justice sector and has led teams conducting justice reform research in a number of countries. David currently works in the Integrity Vice Presidency's Preventive Services Unit. He has responsibility for the countries of the East Asia-Pacific region, where his focus is on improving the anti-corruption efforts in Bank projects.

David Dollar worked for five years as the World Bank’s Country Director for China and Mongolia in the East Asia and Pacific Region. In 2009, after 20 years at the Bank, he started a new position representing the United States Treasury in Beijing.

Dr. David Wilson is the World Bank's Global HIV/AIDS Program Director, charged with guiding and implementing the Bank's global AIDS strategy. A Zimbabwean national, he has published widely on AIDS and has advised numerous national governments and international agencies.

Derek Byerlee, has served as the Bank's Rural Strategy Adviser in the Agricultural and Rural Development Department  and Lead Economist for the Agricultural and Rural Development in the Country Office for Ethiopia and Sudan, based in Addis Ababa. Before joining the Bank he was Director of Economics at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Mexico, and Associate Professor, Michigan State University.

Emanuela di Gropello is a World Bank Lead Economist in the East Asia Region. She has led several regional studies on Education sector issues in Latin America and East Asia, including secondary education, higher education and skills, and published extensively on the governance and financing of education systems. She has extensive operational experience acquired through managing education projects in Latin American and East Asian countries. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford.

Emmanuel Skoufias is a Lead Economist at the Poverty Reduction Group of the World Bank. He specializes in impact evaluation, targeting, poverty measurement, urban and rural labor markets, land tenancy issues, and the role of risk mitigation and insurance in poverty alleviation. Other experience at the Bank includes a senior appointment at the Poverty and Gender Group in the Latin American and Carribean Region. Prior to joining the Bank, Emmanuel worked at the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota (1988) and his B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley (1981).

Join the experts below for a food crisis conversation at the World Bank Open Forum from April 14-15 and help us find solutions to overcome the food crisis and put food first for the world's 1 billion hungry people.

François Bourguignon is a specialist in the economics of development, public policy, economic growth, income distribution and inequality. As the Bank’s former Senior Vice President for Development Economics and Chief Economist, he provided intellectual leadership and direction to the Bank’s overall development strategy and economic research agenda, at global, regional and country levels.

Homi Kharas, is the former Chief Economist of the East Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank and Director of the region's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Department.  He completed his Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University and his undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge. He has published widely in the areas of external debt and developing countries foreign borrowing and fiscal risks and contingent liabilities.

Indermit S. Gill was formerly the sector manager in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) unit in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) Region, and economic adviser to the EAP Chief Economist. During 1997-1999 he worked as a senior country economist in the Brazil country management unit and, upon his return to Washington and between 2000 and 2002, as the lead economist for human development in the Latin America and Caribbean Region. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Ivailo Izvorski is a Lead Economist in the East Asia Region of the World Bank and the Principal Author of the East Asia Pacific Economic Update. Before that, Ivailo worked on central Europe and the countries of the western Balkans in the Europe and Central Asia Region of the World Bank, including as a resident economist in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ivailo’s earlier work experience includes the Institute of International Finance and the International Monetary Fund. Ivailo holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. He is a Bulgarian national.

Jean Pierre Brun worked as a Prosecutor and Investigative Judge in France for 12 years. He prosecuted and investigated corruption,fraud, illegal financing of political campaigns, money laundering and organized crime, and worked as an auditor both in the public and the private sector. He joined the World Bank in 2008 as a Financial Sector Specialist, where he workson Anti Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, providing technical assistance and training to investigators, prosecutors and judges dealing with financial crime. 

Joëlle Chassard manages the Bank's carbon finance funds, which purchase carbon credits from projects in the Bank's client countries, under the flexible mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol--the Clean Development Mechanism in developing countries and Joint Implementation in countries with economies in transition.

Jorge Castañeda was Mexico’s Foreign Minister from 2000 to 2003. He is a renowned public intellectual, political scientist, and prolific writer, with an interest in Mexican and Latin American politics. Before joining New York University in 1997 he taught at Mexico's UNAM, Princeton University, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Jorge Castañeda fue ministro de relaciones exteriores de México en el período 2000-2003. Castañeda es un escritor prolífico en las áreas de política latinoamericana y mexicana. Antes de unirse a la cátedra de la Universidad de Nueva York en 1997 enseñó en la UNAM, en la Universidad de Princeton y en la Universidad de California, Berkeley.

Keith Hansen is the Bank’s Sector Manager for Health, Nutrition, and Population in Latin America and the Caribbean. He is responsible for the Bank’s overall strategy, analysis, and policy advice in this region, and manages a portfolio comprising more than 30 projects in 20 countries. He has also managed the Bank’s response to A/H1N1 influenza outbreaks in Latin America.

He formerly managed the Bank’s HIV/AIDS program for Africa, led the Bank’s health work in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and managed environmental work in Latin America. He earned a Master of Public Affairs degree from Princeton and a law degree from Stanford in 1987.

In June 2008, Leonard McCarthy was appointed by Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank, to serve as Vice President of the World Bank. He heads the Integrity Vice Presidency (INT), whose mandate it is to anticipate, detect, deter and prevent fraud and corruption in Bank Group-supported activities. INT impacts the work of the World Bank by ensuring that funds are used for their intended purposes, thereby contributing to the organization’s core mission of promoting development and reducing poverty.

Prior to joining the World Bank Group, Mr. McCarthy headed the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) in South Africa, specializing in crime analysis, investigation, prosecution, forensic accounting, asset forfeiture, and civil litigation. During his tenure, the DSO successfully prosecuted many entities involved in financial crime, organized criminal enterprises, grand corruption, urban terror and money rackets. In addition, the DSO generated millions of rands destined for criminal restraint, and interdicted drugs and other contraband worth billions.

Since joining the World Bank Group, Mr. McCarthy has spearheaded significant operational and organizational changes within INT that have increased its capacity to address fraud and corruption in a more concerted manner. Under his leadership, INT focuses on promoting creative solutions in investigations, integrity due-diligence, litigation, forensic audits and settlements, to solidify the lending environment and provide assurance to World Bank shareholders.

INT’s newly-created Preventive Services Unit analyzes insights gained from investigations, and disseminates good practices to other Bank staff and governments in the form of structural precautions, fiduciary mechanisms, detection tools and sound advice. The recent increase in cooperation efforts with international stakeholders, facilitates information sharing and joint action with other investigating institutions.

Previously, Mr. McCarthy held the position of Director of Public Prosecutions in South Africa, to which he was appointed by then President, Nelson Mandela.
He is a lawyer by profession and holds the following degrees: Baccalaureus Artium (BA), Bachelor of Law (B.Juris), and LLB (Bachelor of Laws).

Livia has spent the past several years helping companies and organizations increase audience reach and awareness about their products and services through online channels.

Livia works on digital strategy and online marketing for the World Bank's corporate communications department.  Some of her work includes managing World Bank Live, sparking relationships with companies like Google, developing content for social media, and working on multi-channel advocacy campaigns.

Prior to joining the World Bank, Livia worked for advertising agencies Hill Holliday and Overdrive Interactive managing the online marketing campaigns for large brands including Harley Davidson, Dunkin' Donuts, RSA Security, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Mike Stefanovic is INT’s Manager of External Investigations, with prior experience as Chief Resident Investigator for the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services in Africa and as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.

Pamela Cox became the World Bank Group's Vice President for the Latin America and the Caribbean region in 2005. She is a development economist and has held management positions in various countries and regions since joining the Bank in 1980.

Ms. Cox holds masters' degrees in Law and Diplomacy, and Development Economics/International Economics as well as a Ph.D. in Development Economics and Policy, from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

As Vice President of Sustainable Development, Rachel leads the Bank’s global work in agriculture, environment, energy, infrastructure, urban, and social development, as well as global public goods issues in those areas. Before assuming this post in September 2011, she was the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) Vice President for Business Advisory Services, where she focused on delivering more measurable impact for the world’s poorest people and in the most challenging environments, including countries affected by conflict. As IFC’s Director for Environmental and Social Development, Rachel led efforts to develop new sustainability performance standards, which – through the Equator Principles - are now a global benchmark.

Prior to joining the World Bank Group Rachel worked for IUCN and The World Conservation Union. She has worked within the environment, women's, human rights and health movements, and has held elected positions in Europe and formed and led NGOs. Rachel has served as an advisor, and on the boards of a number of companies, philanthropies, and governments.

Follow Rachel Kyte on Twitter @RKyte365

Simon Robertson has worked in law enforcement for over 30 years and holds an MA in Criminal Intelligence Analysis from Manchester University, England. Since November 2002, he has been the Senior Forensic Data Officer within INT. Simon currently leads the intake section of the Research and Analysis Unit, a role that involves dealing with all allegations that come to INT. He is also responsible for the development of the VPU’s new information and case management system.

Suzanne Rich Folsom served as Director of the World Bank's Department of Institutional Integrity, the Bank's anti-corruption investigative unit as well as Counselor to the President of the World Bank Group. She graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and Duke University.

Tariq Khokhar joined the World Bank in June 2011 as our Open Data Evangelist. His interests lie where technology, transparency, poverty and data meet. Prior to joining the Bank , Tariq led innovation and community engagement work at Aidinfo and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). He was formerly a director of Bond UK and the Chief Development Officer of Aptivate, where he delivered technology policy, strategy and implementation projects for governments, NGOs and international organisations across the developing world. Tariq is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and he lives in Washington DC with his wife.

Follow Tariq on Twitter @TKB

Tim Steele has been involved in corruption and asset recovery work for 20 years. His policy work includes acting as an embedded adviser to the Zambian and Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commissions, heading the Anti-Corruption Team for the UK Department for International Development and most recently as a Senior Governance Expert in the Joint World Bank/United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative.

Will Martin is a Lead Economist in the Trade Research Team. He obtained his first degrees from the University of Queensland and the Australian National University, and Masters and PhD degrees from Iowa State University. Before joining the World Bank, he worked as a researcher and manager at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University.