Guest Contributors

Matt is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Faculty Director at Harvard’s Building State Capability Program. His research focuses on public sector reform, particularly budgeting and financial management reform, and participatory governance in developing and transitional governments.

Shaida is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Open Data Watch. She directs the strategic planning, partnership, and fund-raising work of ODW. She is a Senior Advisor to Data2X focused on gender data, co-chairs the SDSN TReNDS group, is part of Technical Advisory Group for GPSDD, and is a member of the PARIS21 board and a number of others. Before co-founding ODW in 2013, she worked at the World Bank for 36 years and was the Director of the Development Data Group for many years. She holds an MS degree in Engineering, specialized in information management.

Mayra is an internationally recognized expert on gender and development and social development, is a senior fellow emeritus at the Center for Global Development and a senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation. Previously, she was Director for Gender and Development at the World Bank. She also worked at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) where she headed the Social Development Division and was founding member and President of the International Center for Research on Women. She has a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Lea Giménez is the Division Chief of the Innovation in Citizen Services program at the Inter-American Development Bank. Prior to that, she was the first woman to be appointed Minister of Finance in Paraguay in June 2017 and was also the youngest finance minister in Latin America. Until then, she joined the Ministry of Finance as Vice Minister of Economy in 2016 and worked as an Economist in the World Bank’s Poverty and Macro-Fiscal Global Practices.

Mariano is a Lead Public Management Specialist in the IDB’s Innovation for Citizen Services Division. He specializes in human resource management in the public sector, center of government reforms, and performance management. Previously, he was a Public Management Specialist for the Latin American and Caribbean region at the World Bank. He has a degree in political science from Argentina’s Catholic University and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Edgardo is the Public Sector Management Cluster Coordinator at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Prior to joining the IDB, he was a Lead Specialist in the World Bank's Public Sector Management and Governance Global Practice. Previously, he served as Minister of State in Peru. Edgardo has a Law Degree and a Master's Degree in International Public Policy from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

Megan s a policy fellow and assistant director for gender at the Center for Global Development. She works on issues related to women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion, gender data and measurement, and development effectiveness. Prior to CGD, O’Donnell worked at the ONE Campaign, an international advocacy organization focused on sub–Saharan Africa, where she led the development of ONE’s gender and inclusive growth-focused policy recommendations to donors and country governments. Before joining ONE, she coordinated CGD’s gender research program and has also worked with the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Center for Research on Women, CARE USA, Banyan Global, and the Middle East Institute. She has a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford and a bachelor’s degree in Politics and French from the University of Virginia.

Carlos Santiso is the Director of the Digital Innovation in Government Directorate of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF). He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the World Economic Forum’s Future of Trust and Integrity Project, part of the Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI). He previously led the Innovation for Citizen Services Division of the Inter-American Development (IDB), served as Sector Manager for Governance at the African Development Bank (ADB), as a governance adviser to the Department for international Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, and as a senior program officer at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).

Thea is the Director of the Centre for Public Impact, a BCG Foundation, for Australia and New Zealand. With a strong theoretical and practical grounding in public policy, Thea has been recognized as a thought-leader in her field. In 2019, Thea was named as one of Apolitical's most influential public sector innovators. Thea spent nine years working across various strategic policy roles in the Victorian Public Service, including at the Executive levels. She was also part of Nesta's Government Innovation team.

Graham is the leader of Abt Associates’ Global Governance practice. Graham focuses on the governance aspects of international development. He is one of the one of the world-leading experts in the field with extensive experience in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the World Bank and the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID).

Michael Woolcock is Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Lead Social Development Specialist with the World Bank‘s Development Research Group. Michael’s work focuses on the social dimensions of economic development, in particularly the role of informal institutions in shaping the survival and mobility strategies of marginalized groups.

Wei Neng is the Executive Director of the Chandler Institute of Governance, a non-profit based in Singapore that supports government leaders and public officers through training, research, advisory services, and resourcing. He has nearly two decades of experience in governance and public policy and has worked with the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Defence. He has taught courses for over 3,500 government leaders and policymakers and has authored books and research papers on topics such as economic policy, urban development, land policy, public housing, climate change, and state-market relations. Wei Neng is a Humanities Scholar and a Public Service Commission Overseas Merit Scholar of the Singapore Government and has degrees from Oxford University and the London School of Economics and Political Science.