Members & Advisors
PTF Management Team / Officers
Ms. White has twenty years’ experience in Management Consulting and International Development. She spent ten years as an Organizational Development adviser to the British Department for International Development, working primarily in Africa, Pakistan and Nepal. Kathleen joined PTF as a volunteer adviser in 2010. In early 2011, she became the Chief Operating Officer and has been introducing appropriate management practices to support the organization’s rapid growth.
Colby manages information and finances for PTF’s portfolio of programs and contributes analytical assessments on project design, implementation and impact. He also facilitates PTF’s communications and heads the organization’s online presence. He is interested in the design of democratic institutions and the interplay between citizens and their elected officials. Driving his work is a motivation to channel civil society action into policy change.Colby has a background in international development and governance and past experience in program management, communications, human rights and journalism. He holds a Master’s Degree from the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
With a background in gender and community development, Laura currently works within the Citizen Action for Results, Transparency and Accountability (CARTA) Portfolio, which engages civil society organizations to monitor World Bank-financed projects in Nepal and Bangladesh. She is passionate about cultivating behavior change through strengthening grassroots networks and driving institutional change. Laura has also researched extensively around the role of women in UN peacekeeping operations, particularly in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and continues to be dedicated to issues around domestic violence, equality and sustainable livelihood development.
Laura holds a Master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy with specializations in international conflict resolution and humanitarian studies.
Usha Venkatachallam is President & CEO of Appropriate IT (AI), a technology consulting company that harnesses the power and promise of the information age to advance agendas of social justice, equitable access, and inclusive international development. She is a technologist who believes that appropriate information & communication technologies (ICTs) have transformational power, making them effective tools for social change.Based in Washington DC, USA, Usha has more than a decade of experience as senior consultant in the non-profit technology sector, helping organizations creatively apply internet technologies to advance their mission. Her expertise is in international ICT tools and in finding locally-appropriate and culture-specific solutions utilizing existing and emerging technologies. She also specializes in providing capacity building and training for both organizations and individuals.
Members
Chris Hoban retired from the World bank in October 2011. His last position was Operations & Portfolio Manager in Jakarta for the World Bank’s Indonesia country program (2008-2011), and he previously held similar positions in India (2000-2003) and the Philippines (2003-2006). These positions involved supporting the Country Director in ensuring the effectiveness of country programs, and management of the country offices.In 2006-08, he took two years leave from the World Bank to work as Principal Operations Adviser at AusAID in Canberra, focusing on mechanisms, quality and effectiveness of its aid delivery. He was fortunate to make 18 visits to AusAID country programs and work closely with teams on aid effectiveness.Mr. Hoban is Australian, with a PhD in civil engineering and an early career in road research and the Victorian State road authority, VicRoads. He joined the World Bank in Washington in 1992 and initially worked on infrastructure development in many regions of the world, especially roads and transport in South Asia.
Richard Holloway has been a respected practitioner in the field of civil society development and anti-corruption for the last 40 years. He has worked extensively in East and Southern Africa, South and South East Asia, the Pacific and the Eastern Caribbean. His experience ranges from local NGO partnerships around the world, to international NGOs such as OXFAM, CRS, PACT, TI and Aga Khan Foundation, to bilateral and international agencies such as UNDP, DFID, UNICEF and World Bank.His anti-corruption work has focused on Indonesia where he served as the anti-corruption adviser to the Partnership for Governance Reform and wrote and edited a number of books, including “Stealing from the People”, “Participatory Corruption Appraisal”, and “NGOs as Corruption Fighters”. He wrote the first report on Indonesian integrity for the Centre for Global Integrity. He has also worked with TIRI to develop cartoon books for the Aga Khan Foundation as a strategy to encourage integrity in East Africa, Mali, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Barbara Kafka served for over 33 years at the World Bank in a range of posts which involved her in the economic and social development of countries across Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and East and South Asia. Positions held include Director, South Asia, heading a 90 person department across seven offices, responsible for overseeing the quality and fiduciary soundness of lending and country strategies, activities strengthening countries’ public financial management systems, and staff learning programs; Country Director overseeing all World Bank activities in three African countries; and Division Chief of energy, industry and financial sector programs in the Middle East. Barbara also was involved in World Bank corporate policy and strategy development and several Bank-wide corporate committees. Barbara is a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington D.C. non-profit, New Futures, which offers financial and mentoring support to low income D.C. area young people seeking economic self-sufficiency through post- secondary education; and of the East Meets West Foundation, which designs and implements sustainable solutions to high infant mortality and morbidity rates, barriers to education, and lack of access to safe water and sanitation in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, India, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Timor Leste.Barbara holds a B.A. in Economics from Duke University, and received an MBA, with a specialization in Finance and International Business, from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In addition, she completed a Harvard/World Bank Executive Development Program and a certificate in non-profit management at Georgetown University.
Jeff has been a PT Fund member since April, 2011, serves on the PT Fund Governance Committee and is responsible for guiding the strategic planning process. He is an independent consultant on strategy, governance and program evaluation. He had a 25 year career with International Paper and formed his consulting practice after retiring in 2001. At International Paper, he served as a corporate officer in the following positions: Vice President and General Manager Hammermill Papers Division, and Vice President Strategic Planning and Vice President Sales for the printing sector. Jeff has an MBA and a BA in economics.
Knud Kjaer Nielsen has been a member and senior adviser for PTF since its inception.
He served in the Danish Foreign Ministry for almost 30 years as senior adviser on Development. His assignments abroad included heading the Danish Development office (DANIDA) in Tanzania and Bangladesh. Before joining the Foreign Service he served as a lecturer in engineering in Denmark and Tanzania, and managed a reconstruction project in Bangladesh after war of liberation. He is an electrical engineer by profession.
He served in the Danish Foreign Ministry for almost 30 years as senior adviser on Development. His assignments abroad included heading the Danish Development office (DANIDA) in Tanzania and Bangladesh. Before joining the Foreign Service he served as a lecturer in engineering in Denmark and Tanzania, and managed a reconstruction project in Bangladesh after war of liberation. He is an electrical engineer by profession.
Khalid Siraj retired from the World Bank in October 1999 after having served for over 25 years. At the time of his retirement he was Operations Advisor, Financial Sector Vice Presidency. Other senior positions held included: Operations Advisor, Central Operations Department (operational policy work), Chief, Public/Private Sector and Technology Development Division, and Chief, Industry, Trade, and Finance Division. After his retirement he served as a Senior Adviser concurrently to Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan and State Bank of Pakistan (the central bank), for over three years. The assignment involved formulating, advising on and facilitating implementation of financial sector reforms encompassing institutional, legal and policy aspects. His work included restructuring and privatization of commercial banks and capacity building/policy realignment of regulatory institutions.Khalid Siraj’s professional expertise is in the area of financial sector and private sector development. Also, after having worked on a wide variety of developing countries for over forty years, he has acquired an extensive understanding of impact of corruption on economic and social development. Mr. Siraj is a native of Pakistan and has an MBA. He has been associated with PTF since 2003.
Willem Struben is a Dutch economist, who joined the World Bank after a three year government assignment in Suriname. In the WB, he worked on Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia and the Pacific in country operations, social sector development, and quality control (specialization in public administration, rural development, and community participation). This included field assignments in Tokyo and Jakarta. He is now a part-time project development consultant, as well as member/advisor of PTF. In the latter capacity, he has managed or is managing projects in India, Bangladesh, Honduras, Kenya, Ghana and Cameroon.
Pietronella van den Oever is retired from the World Bank and is currently (2011 – 2012) a Visiting Scholar at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC, where she is writing a book about her working experience in Africa. In addition she held positions at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Switzerland, and worked for seven years in field assignments in agricultural development for FAO in West Africa. Her main professional focus is on population and economically and socially sustainable development. She holds a Master’s from Cornell University in International Rural and Agricultural Development, and a PhD from the University of Southern California in Sociology, with a major in Demography and a minor in Development Economics.
Björn Wellenius advises governments, law and consulting firms, and international development organizations on telecommunications policy, regulation, and economics in emerging markets. He has worked in over 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Midle East, and Latin America. Publications include five books on telecommunications and economic development as well as best practice notes and technical papers. Until 1999 Dr Wellenius was the World Bank’s Telecommunications Adviser. Previously he was Professor of Telecommunications at Universidad de Chile. Dr Wellenius has a PhD degree in engineering sciences from the University of Essex, England, and a graduate engineering degree from Universidad de Chile. He is fluent in English and Spanish and has a working knowledge of French.
Michela Wrong has covered the African continent for the last 17 years, working as a reporter for Reuters, the BBC and the Financial Times before becoming a full-time writer. Her first book, “In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz”, traced the rise and fall of Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and won the PEN James Sterne Prize for non-fiction. Her second book, “I didn’t do it for you”, was a portrait of the tiny Red Sea state of Eritrea. Her latest book, “It’s Our Turn to Eat”, tells the story of John Githongo, the Kenyan anti-corruption chief who turned whistleblower. Described as reading “like a cross between Le Carré and Solzhenitsyn” it created a furore in Kenya, where booksellers remain too nervous to sell it. In 2010 she won the James Cameron Prize for journalism ‘combining moral vision and professional integrity’
Africa: Dante de los Angeles
East Asia: Khalid Siraj
South Asia: Vinay Bhargava
Central and Eastern Europe: Richard Stern
Latin America: Steve Ettinger
Adriana De Leva worked for many years with the World Bank in Africa, including a three-year assignment in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). During her career, she covered a wide range of areas from country macroeconomic issues to project management. She has had broad experience in community development operations in West Africa, relying on participatory approaches and building on partnerships with civil society. In keeping with the goal of good governance, she is currently (2005-12) advising on projects dealing with strengthening statistical capacity in developing countries, both with the World Bank and the OECD.
Mr. de Tommaso, is a political scientist and a development specialist with a professional focus on public sector management and governance reforms during his 17 year career at the World Bank. He has advised governments and interacted with civil society on matters of civil service and public administration reform, decentralization, public financial management and institutional reforms aimed at improving the efficiency of public sector institutions. He has also focused on matters relating to transparency and accountability of government institutions, and has assisted governments to design and implement anti-corruption and governance reforms. He has nearly 20 years of experience in international development issues, and has worked in more than 20 countries, including in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
Judy is an independent consultant in social development and governance, having worked in positions of leadership, advocacy and analysis for the World Bank, UNICEF and RTI International in over 30 countries in Africa and Asia. She recently completed an assignment with RTI International in Indonesia where she managed the largest USAID governance project outside Iraq, aimed at strengthening accountability and effectiveness of government in local jurisdictions across Indonesia. Prior to that, she held a variety of management positions at the World Bank over a 25-year period, including as sector manager of the social development department, focusing on participatory and socially inclusive development, and chief of mission of the World Bank office in South Africa. She also served as chief of the Francophone section in UNICEF’s regional office in East Africa. Judy holds a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, specializing in economic development, and an honorary doctorate in humane letters from DePauw University.
Bill, an American and the son of an American foreign service officer and an English mother, grew up in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He has an MBA with a concentration in finance, and he was on the staff of the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 1975 until he retired in 2010. At the SEC Bill worked in the Division of Corporation Finance as a financial analyst, branch chief and senior financial analyst, mostly working with financial companies. Bill joined PTF as a volunteer in the Spring of 2011, and is thrilled to be working with PTA’s Africa group.
Professional Experience: From 2007 – 2012, Member of the Board of Germany’s Südosteuropa Gesellschaft (Southeast Europe Association) (SOG) Since 2011, Speaker of German speaking chapter – Austria, Germany, Switzerland – of World Bank retirees Since 2011, Advisor, Partnership Fund for Transparency (PTF) Retired from World Bank in May 2007 but continues to serve occasionally as World Bank consultant, especially on matters related to cooperation between the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region and European institutions, especially in cooperation with the European Commission July 1, 2004 – May 31, 2007, World Bank Special Representative for Southeast Europe and co-manager of Joint European Commission-World Bank Office for Southeast Europe, as well as World Bank Europe and Central Asia Region (ECA) Senior Partnership Advisor; Brussels, Belgium October 2000 – June 2004, Senior Partnership Advisor, Office of the Vice President Europe and Central Asia, based in Budapest, Hungary. Prime responsibility: overall coordination between the World Bank and the European Commission (EC) concerning the enlargement process of the European Union (EU) as well as the co-called European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) October 1997 – September 2000, Senior Partnership Advisor, Office of the Vice President Europe and Central Asia 1984 – 1997 Several senior assignments in the World Bank’s Africa Region, including serving as Resident Representative in Dakar Senegal (1984-88) 1972 – 1984 Several operational assignments in Central America, Egypt and Yugoslavia 1970 – 1972 World Bank Secretary’s Department 1968 – 1970: Assistant to Member of German Parliament; Bonn/Germany Educational Background: Masters in Law (1964) and Bar Examination (Assessor iur. 1968) Language skills: German (native), English, French (fluent), Spanish (almost fluent), Italian and Portuguese (basic understanding)
Leen Solleveld spent his career at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His main responsibilities covered a wide range of activities and assignments including international organizations, trade issues, development policy, budgetary affairs, Bureau of the Secretary-General and Economic Minister at the Netherlands Embassy in Washington. He also worked for six years at the World Bank Trade Department on strengthening the trade capacity of the least-developed countries. At present he is advising the WTO on this topic during short-term assignments. As PTF advisor he is involved in the Kenya portfolio.
Frederick T. Temple is an American national educated at Yale (BA) and MIT (PhD). After teaching at the University of Nairobi, being a Post-Doctoral Fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies, and working as a consultant at Abt Associates, he joined the World Bank in 1977. He worked on country operations for 26 years, including assignments as Deputy Chief of the Bank’s Regional Mission in Bangkok, Resident Representative in Turkey, and Country Director in Bangladesh, before serving as Ombudsman for the last five years of his career. Since retiring he has worked as a consultant for the African Development Bank, United Nations and World Bank. He manages the Nepal component of the Partnership for Transparency Fund’s Citizen Action for Results, Accountability and Transparency program. Mr. Temple lives in Bangkok, Thailand, and Fairfax, Virginia, USA.