Who We Are / Our Team /

Our Board

Cecilia Akintomide is a seasoned expert in Development Finance, Corporate Governance, and Law. She was Vice President Secretary General of the African Development Bank, and served as Head of Public and Private Sector Projects and Policy in the General Counsel and Legal Services Department of the Bank.  She is an Independent Director on the Boards of (i) CcHUB Growth Capital, Nigeria’s first social innovation fund, supporting high potential early-stage businesses; (ii) SWAgCo, an agricultural sector investment company; and (iii) Ondo State Development and Investment Promotion Agency (ONDIPA), a state government agency, focused on promoting development and investments. Cecilia is a member of the Board of Regents of Covenant University, one of Nigeria’s leading universities, and the Board of Trustees of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library. She was also an Independent Non-Executive Director on the Board of FBN Holdings Plc., one of Africa’s leading financial services holding companies, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, and operating in various African countries and the United Kingdom. Cecilia is also a member of the Institute of Directors, Nigeria.  

Cecilia practiced law in Lagos, Washington D.C., and New York, at the law firms of O. Thomas & Co.; Thompson & Co.; and Weil, Gotshal & Manges, with a focus on Business Reorganizations, Corporate Law and Commercial Law.  She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Ife (now OAU); Master of Laws from the University of Miami Law School; Master of Laws from the University of Pennsylvania Law School; and an Executive MBA from TRIUM (a combined program by LSE, NYU and HEC). She was also admitted to the Nigerian Bar and the New York State Bar.

Cecilia is an ardent champion of girls and women’s economic empowerment, and is passionate about corporate governance, sustainable development, as well as innovation and entrepreneurship.  She is a member of WIMBIZ (Women in Management and Business and Public Service), and serves on the WimBoard Committee and the WimBiz Endowment Fund Committee. She mentors, is a deacon, and a member of the church choir. She received gold and bronze medals in swimming, and was accorded the National Award of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in recognition of her contribution to sustainable development.  In addition, in 2019, Cecilia received the African Business Law Icon of the year award. 

Andrew is the Director of the UNOPS office in Geneva. He was previously the Director and Representative for UNOPS in Myanmar. Andrew joined UNOPS in 2011 as the Fund Director for the Livelihoods and Food Security Fund (LIFT), which is now serving nearly half of the rural population of Myanmar.  Andrew brings a record of success leading large and complex multi-donor, multi-stakeholder platforms.

Andrew started working on sanitation and hygiene issues 27 years ago in the slums of Luanda, Angola - and later in villages of northern Burkina Faso. He has over 25 years of experience in international development and humanitarian programming in Asia and Africa, including 20 years in senior leadership positions with the United Nations and NGOs. 

Before joining UNOPS, Andrew worked with Save the Children in a variety of leadership roles in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, the Great Lakes region of Africa, and 6 years as the Country Director in Myanmar. He also worked in India, Namibia and Angola with other NGOs earlier in his career.

Andrew has a background as a professional engineer and development planner. 

Former Assistant Secretary-General and UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director for Resource Management, UN System Coordination, Sustainability and Partnerships. 
Ms. Anita Bhatia served as the Assistant Secretary-General and UN Women’s Deputy Executive  Director. 
Before joining UN Women, Ms. Bhatia has had a distinguished career at the World Bank Group,  serving in various senior leadership and management positions, both at Headquarters and in the field. She brings extensive experience in international development, strategy,  resource mobilization, strategic partnerships and organizational change management. In various positions, she led teams to deliver significant resources for scaled-up impact, including at the country level, and to craft innovative partnerships to advance development agendas and has made significant contributions to the evolving discourse on development finance. She has led diverse teams, including as Global Head of Knowledge Management, Head of Business Process  Improvement and Head of Change Management. In addition to Latin America, she has worked in  Africa, Europe, Central Asia and South and East Asia. 
Ms. Bhatia holds a BA in History from Calcutta University, an MA in Political Science from Yale  University and a Juris Doctor in Law from Georgetown University.

Mr. Dominic O’Neill joined UNOPS in September 2020 to lead with the setup of the new Sanitation and Hygiene Fund (SHF). The SHF was launched by DSG Amina Mohammed in November 2020 and the SHF became operational in July 2021. 

Dominic has a long-standing career over three decades in international development. In his early career he worked for the Ministry of Health in Namibia as an Environmental Health Adviser and later joined Raleigh International as a Country Director in Namibia, Mongolia and Chile.

In 2002 Dominic took up the role of Environmental Health Policy adviser at the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID). Later In 2003 he was tasked with setting up DFID’s first bilateral development programme in Yemen where he led an international effort to raise $5bn of investment and aid funding for Yemen in 2006.

Over the next ten years he was based in Iraq, Sierra Leone and Nepal as DFID’s Country Director. In 2013 he became the UK’s Executive Director on the Board of the African Development Bank representing the Governments of the Netherlands, the UK and Italy, based in Tunis then Abidjan. He played an active role in ensuring innovative ideas like the Africa50 Fund were approved by the Board.

Dominic then returned to DFID and took up the position of Head of United Nations and Commonwealth Department responsible for UK funding to UNICEF, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD).

Prior to joining UNOPS to be the SHF Executive Director, Dominic worked for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF International) as their Chief Operating Officer. He was responsible for the oversight of WWF International’s 40 offices in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as the overall coordination of operations across the WWF network’s 80 offices and 7000 staff.

Dominic graduated in Environmental Health and later completed an MSc in Water Pollution and has had a strong commitment to environmental health throughout his career.

Fayez has over four decades of global experience spanning international development and professional services. He retired as Chief Executive of the International Federation of Accountants in 2018. Prior to that he was with the World Bank for 25 years, his last two assignments being Controller and VP Strategic Planning and Resource Management, and VP Corporate Finance and Risk Management. 

Fayez started his career with Price Waterhouse in London, in audit then consulting, including 3 years developing PW’s consultancy practice in West Africa. Fayez has represented his organisations on the International Public Interest Oversight Board; the Standards Advisory Council for IFRS; the UN’s Iraq Advisory Monitoring Board; and the International Forum for Accountability Development. In a personal capacity he currently Chairs the Audit and Evaluation Oversight Committee of the UNDP; the Oversight Advisory Committee of the FAO; is a member of the Oversight Advisory Committee of the UNFPA; and is a board member and  chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee of Practical Action, an INGO based in the UK. He has previously served on the boards of INGO’s World Learning, and the Partnership for Transparency Fund.

Fayez has an MA (Hons) in Engineering Science and Economics from the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.

Hank has served in many areas of environmental business and policy. His career in the environmental policy world has included leadership positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as COO (Deputy Administrator) under President George H. W. Bush. During his time with the EPA he oversaw the development of innovative air and water programs to prevent pollution, including the development of the Energy Star program and implementation of market based trading programs under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. He has also served at the U.S. Department of Justice as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

In economic development and investing, Hank served as Principal of Global Water 2020 focused on enhancing public-private WASH partnerships and he currently is Co-Founder of the Water Finance Exchange. Hank has served as Senior Vice President in charge of acquisitions and other divisions of Safety-Kleen, a billion-dollar environmental service company. He has also served as Managing Partner of SAIL Capital Partners and Vice President of William D. Ruckelshaus Associates, which co-managed the successful Environmental Venture Fund. As Co-Founder of Capital E, LLC, a strategic consultancy, he advised Fortune 100 and early-stage ventures on sustainable growth strategies. He also previously served as CEO of the Global Environment & Technology Foundation (GETF).

Hank has served as Commissioner of the National Commission on Energy Policy, and on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, and has served on the Advisory Board to the National Renewable Energy Lab and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.  

Other positions include serving as Board Member of the US Water Alliance, Managing Director of the US Water Partnership, Chairman of the Board of WaterHealth International, Co-Founder of the American Council on Renewable Energy and Member of the Board of the Global Water Challenge. In 1991 the EPA awarded him with the Total Quality Leadership Award and in 2009 he received the national Richard Mellon Award for Environmental Stewardship. Hank holds a Bachelors degree with High Honors from Princeton University   and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.

Jennifer Blanke is an expert on economic development and development finance who serves as a non-executive board member in not-for-profit and development-focused entities. She is former Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development of the African Development Bank Group, based in Cote d’Ivoire, where she was responsible for overseeing the Bank’s strategy, lending and programming for a significant share of the Bank’s activities including agriculture and agroindustry; water management and sanitation; and education and healthcare, as well as the cross-cutting themes of job creation and gender empowerment. Prior to that she was Chief Economist at the World Economic Forum, in Geneva, overseeing economic research activities and analysis and represented the World Economic Forum externally on key global economic issues, and with a particular focus on economic development and inclusive growth. Before joining the World Economic Forum, she worked as a management consultant in the banking and financial sector for Eurogroup Consulting (Mazars Group) in Paris. Jennifer was until 2019 a member of the Canadian Government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth. She holds a BA in International Relations from Hamilton College; a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University; and a PhD in International Economics from the Graduate Institute, Geneva.

Jingdong Hua is currently the Vice-Chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Mr. Hua was Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank, and also served as the Pension Finance Administrator of the World Bank Group.

As Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank, he was responsible for the capital markets operations and oversaw an annual funding program of US$60 to 70 billion through debt issuances of IBRD and IDA. He led a global team of capital markets professionals in the prudent management of US$200 billion debt portfolio; US$170 billion asset portfolio managed for the World Bank Group and over 70 clients. He headed the World Bank Treasury’s capacity building, advisory and capital market intermediation services in financial analytics, asset management, and financial solutions for its clients.

As Pension Finance Administrator of the World Bank Group, he supervised the investment and administration of the World Bank Groups pension plans—with US$30 billion assets under management invested in a diverse pool of asset classes including fixed income, public and private equities, real estate and alternatives.

Mr. Hua was previously Vice President and Treasurer of IFC, where he established a global treasury and focused on the development of local currency debt capital markets and innovative financial products and solutions. During his tenure, IFC has significantly increased its local currency financing capacity to benefit private sector clients. He led market-opening and innovative bond issuances and structured financial products in emerging markets including Rwanda, Nigeria, Indonesia, Colombia, Uzbekistan, and India. He also significantly enhanced IFC’s loan syndications and co-investment program which has mobilised over US$60 billion for private sector development.

Prior to IFC, Mr. Hua served as Deputy Treasurer at the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) in Manila. He previously held various positions in the treasury departments of AsDB, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York, and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Abidjan.

A Chinese national, he started his career in 1983 with China National Chemical Construction Corporation. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Qingdao University of Science and Technology, an MBA Finance from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Columbia University. 

Joanna Yeo is the CEO and founder of Arukah, a venture-backed technology platform for scaling impact-linked credit in emerging markets. Arukah bridges validated data on credit and sustainability to global capital markets, and is partnering with segment-leading technology platforms for small businesses and farmers in fast-growing Asian emerging markets.

Joanna is currently an independent non-executive board director for Collectius AG, the World Bank/International Financial Corporation’s partner for distressed asset recovery in Southeast Asia, and an advisor to Figure Technologies, a San Francisco-based regulated fintech that is backed by MUFG, Apollo Global Management and Ribbit Capital, and has run US$12 billion in financial services transactions on blockchain among regulated institutions, including Apollo and Jefferies.

Joanna's career as an investor and entrepreneur has spanned building new businesses across traditional and digital capital markets and financial services, including a new US$2 billion AUM pan-Asian, open-end fund strategy at Morgan Stanley. Since 2012, she has also been involved in first-time environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting, investing and product development initiatives, including GRESB reporting for real estate, materiality weighted ESG big data for public equities, and blockchain for green loans and Shariah finance, across the US and Asia. 

Joanna began her career in international economic policy research at Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge. She received her BA summa cum laude from Harvard, and masters degrees from Stanford and Cambridge.

United Nations Assistant Secretary-General (IFAD) and IFAD Associate Vice-President and General Counsel (2017 – current) as well as former Acting Chief Financial Officer (May 2022-April 2023), Katherine (Katie) Meighan has 25+ years of international development experience. 

As part of the IFAD senior management team, Katie sets the IFAD’s strategy to double its impact for the rural poor while scaling up climate adaptation, private sector lending, and IT for development. She leads complex initiatives including amending IFAD’s Articles to enable private sector lending, lending to sub-national entities, creating a unique impact investment fund for small farmers, and attaining IFAD’s historic AA+ credit rating (as the first UN fund to be rated). 

Katie is a strong champion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, having co-created the strategy at IFAD, one of the first UN organizations to do so.

Before joining IFAD, Katie was Assistant General Counsel at IFC (2012-2017), leading the legal teams on Financial Institutions, Treasury, and global restructurings as well as focusing on women empowerment by co-leading the establishment of the IFC Women’s Network and IFC Diversity & Inclusion Council; during her 17 years’ tenure at IFC, Katie held assignments in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, and Washington, working on investments in emerging markets, restructuring/workout transactions as well as designing and teaching legal courses to banking and legal Staff.

Before joining the IFI arena, she practised law with a global firm in Washington and Paris focusing on international transactions and capital markets work for financial institutions.

Monish Mahurkar is currently Head of Climate Transition at ARGA Investment Management LP, a global value manager serving institutional clients with demonstrated ESG leadership. In this role, he leads a team focused on building sector and technology frameworks to help analyse portfolio companies’ decarbonization strategies.  

Prior to joining ARGA, Monish served as Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Resources at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group (WBG) till June 2021. In this position Monish led the alignment of IFC’s corporate strategy leveraging critical enabling resources with oversight of departments responsible for Strategy and Stakeholder Engagement, Human Resources, Budget, and Administration as well as Information Technology.

Since 2015, he was actively involved as IFC’s lead on a series of strategic WBG initiatives, including Financing for Development, IDA18 Private Sector Window, Voice Reform, Forward Look and Capital Increase. He played a key role in shaping IFC’s 3.0 strategy and the Capital Increase Policy Package.   

As a member of IFC’s management team, Monish provided active leadership to the institution’s strategic and people related programs and deliverables including as a member of IFC’s Upstream Steering Committee and the Blended Finance Committee, as well as Chair of the Information Technology Steering Group and the HR Sounding Board. He also represented IFC on WBG corporate committees including as Co-Chair of the Committee on Diversity & Inclusion and member of the Global Crisis Response Platform, the Real Estate Council, Corporate Procurement, Internal Justice and Corporate Responsibility committees. 

Previously Monish was IFC’s Director of Treasury Market Operations (2014-17) with oversight of IFC’s substantial funding program and its liquid assets and cash portfolios. Prior to that, as Director of Treasury Client Solutions (2012-14) he led a team focused on local-currency financing and capital markets development through innovative transactions in various countries. Monish has extensive experience in emerging markets including Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa with application of a range of financial instruments including bonds, derivatives, and structured products from both an issuer and investor perspective. He has managed substantial risk, revenues and balance sheets at Citibank Tokyo, Citigroup New York and IFC in Washington DC. 

With over 35 years of international banking and development finance experience at technical, managerial, and senior leadership levels – across the private sector as well as at multilateral institutions – Monish has successfully led businesses and teams of high calibre professionals in different cultural environments across Mumbai, London, Tokyo, New York, Manila and Washington DC holding senior positions at Citibank, Merrill Lynch, ADB and IFC. He has demonstrated leadership and commitment to internal and external clients, stakeholders, regulators, and policy makers with significant engagement in strategic initiatives including at IFC and World Bank Group. 

Monish holds a BA (Hon) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Naomi Tulay-Solanke is a Feminist, a human rights activist, a humanitarian and the Founder Executive Director of Community Healthcare Initiative (CHI), a local non-governmental organization that is providing healthcare and social services to women and children in underserved and hard to reach communities in Liberia since 2014. Naomi has nurtured a career in female advocacy with a humble interest in working with underprivileged youths and slum dwellers through the provision of advocacy, empowerment, awareness and basic health and social services especially to women and girls. She is passionate about amplifying the voices and roles of local actors in development processes at all levels. She holds a Master Degree in Public Health with an emphasis in Community Health. As a Social Entrepreneur, Naomi launches the PAD4GIRLS project, a local solution to menstrual health management, by training women and girls how to locally produce reusable sanitary pads, making it more available and accessible to girls of school going age, which promote girl’s retention in school during their period and help them live, learn and lead. Ensuring women and girls have control over their bodies, Naomi and her team opened the first SRHR clinic on wheels in Liberia promoting access to family planning contraceptives, condoms and access to safe and legal abortion. Naomi is a Dr. Fritz Raleigh, Humanitarian Award Recipient from Harvard University 2017. She is also an ASPEN New Voice Fellow and as a Change Maker, Naomi is also an ASHOKA Fellow. Naomi dreams of living in a world free of all forms of violence, with gender equity and peace.

Mr. Rakesh Nangia has more than 30 years of development experience serving at both the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank. He has lived in 9 countries and has experience of managing development programs in four regions (Africa, East Asia, Eastern Europe, South Asia) across more than 40 countries and multiple sectors.

Rakesh served as the Evaluator General at the African Development Bank from 2012-2018 where he led the transformation and revitalization of the evaluation function. Overseeing the preparation of more than 50 high-level evaluations, he helped AfDB reform institutional structures, policies and procedures to strengthen development outcomes.

Prior to this, he spent more than 25 years at the World Bank, where he held several senior positions. As Director of Strategy and Operations (Deputy Vice President) for the global Human Development Network he was responsible for guiding the World Bank’s global program in health, education, and social protection. He also served as Director of Operations and Ag Vice-President for the World Bank Institute, where he led more than 300 staff in reinventing the business model to better deliver on individual and institutional capacity across the world. While living in Hanoi, he was responsible for managing the World Bank Portfolio in Vietnam, where he grew the lending five-fold in six years to US$1.5 billion per year through innovative programming. In Tanzania, he was responsible for leading the preparation of several strategy documents and country/economic analysis as well as reforming the World Bank lending and knowledge portfolio.

He is currently a Partner and Chief Operating Officer at the Centennial Group, a global strategic, policy advisory and international development firm that provides actionable advice and support on a wide range of development and institutional issues. He also serves on a five member UNDP Audit and Evaluation Committee.

Sarah Djari is an accomplished impact investor bringing 2 decades of private investment experience in emerging markets, focusing on channeling public & private capital in Financial Inclusion, Agri & Climate Finance.

Sarah started her career with the global strategy consulting firm Bain & company, where she specialized in manufacturing operational efficiency, Tech & Telecom and Private Equity. While in India with the largest commercial bank ICICI, she co-led the Center for Microfinance, building the microfinance ecosystem in partnership with commercial banks, NGOs and regulatory bodies.

As Investment Director with Bamboo Capital Partners and ResponsAbility Investments AG, Sarah has deployed and managed private capital in developing countries to support the economic growth of local communities. She has steered such growth through her contribution in numerous Advisory boards and shareholders groups.

As VP of the Gender Lens Initiative for Switzerland (GLIS), Sarah engages with the Swiss & global financial community to develop investment strategies & solutions financing SDG5 through public-private partnerships, research, products development and awareness-building.  She has also worked as a volunteer on several development initiatives in Chad, India, Nepal, Mongolia and France.

Sarah has an MSc of Astrophysics & Nuclear Physics from Saclay University & Imperial College as well as an MSc of Engineering from Centrale-Supelec. She is also a 2x Gender Lens Investing fellow and an alumni of The Australian Institute of Company Directors.