Sulaiman S. Wasty
Commenced his professional career at the Planning Commission of Pakistan where he served as Special Assistant to the Minister for Finance, and Planning and Development. Subsequently, he worked at the World Bank (Independent Evaluation, and Quality Assurance); and then became a Managing Director and acting CEO of G. William Miller Financial Integrity Services, LLC. Sulaiman’s visiting-teaching positions have included those at Cornell-in-Washington Program, the Johns Hopkins University SAIS, and Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. He is a member of the panel of evaluation experts of UNDP and FAO. Has published extensively on ascertaining development effectiveness of external assistance policies of the international financial institutions in a variety of countries and regions. He was formerly an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. His latest (2012) assignment was Team Leader of a United Nations’ several-member multi-disciplinary team to independently assess the impact of the UN agencies and other partners’ ongoing assistance to Iraq and its Kurdistan Region. Sulaiman holds a B.A. from the University of the Punjab; a B.Sc. Honors in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science; an M.A. in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University SAIS; and a Ph.D. in Economic Development Planning from Cornell University.
Bruce Zagaris
Bruce is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Berliner Corcoran and Rowe. His practice includes, representation of foreign governments, and litigation. Mr. Zagaris was a member of the Law faculty at the University of West Indies and has worked on financial regulatory and enforcement issues with the Government of Barbados. In addition, he has worked with a few international organizations and CARICOM governments–focusing on international tax enforcement, AML due diligence, anti-corruption, financial regulatory matters, and cyber/white collar crimes. Mr. Zagaris is author and editor of the International Enforcement Law Reporter, six books, and over 80 articles on international tax and business law. He is fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Swedish. Mr. Zagaris holds LL.M degrees from Free University (Brussels), Stockholm University, and a J.D. from George Washington University.
Cadman Atta Mills
An economist with almost 45 years of post-PhD professional experience. From 2013 – 2017 was Senior Advisor to the President of Ghana providing strategic advice on economic policy. He is also a Co-Founder of the John Evans Atta Mills Memorial Foundation and a Co-Chair of the Board of Directors. Has considerable experience in leading international negotiation missions and as emissary to several African Heads of States. Continually active in the development debate in Africa, on Structural Adjustment, Trade and Competitiveness, and Socio-Economic Indicators. Specializes in the Political Economy of Policy Reform and in Macroeconomic Policy Analysis. Has authored many publications: seminar reports; articles on trade and industrialization, socio-economic indicators, and social science and economic research; and articles on various economic subjects. Previously, worked in the World Bank for over 20 years on Macroeconomic Policy Analysis, Monetary and Exchange Rate Policies, and International Development issues. Graduated from Brandeis University (B.A. Economics) and attained Ph.D. (economics) from Boston College
Ilir Zherka
lir Zherka is the Founder and President of Civica, a government relations and public affairs consulting firm. Ilir gained policy and political experience working in the U.S. Congress, on presidential campaigns, and as a political appointee. He also served as the executive director of four non-profit organizations. Ilir is a recognized leader having been honored by elected officials and organizations, including a “Ilir Zherka Day” proclamation in Washington, DC. He is the author of Winning the Inside Game: The Handbook of Advocacy Strategies. Ilir is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of Virginia School of Law which is part of The Springer Women in Engineering and Science book series. She has co-authored two books on business ethics, cybersecurity, and global threats. The books, Business Ethics: A Guide to Surviving Storms, Challenges, & Ethical Risksand Ética Empresarial, were made available through the ISACA bookstore and were adopted by the Institute for Supply Management. Sanford also serves on several charitable boards and currently serves as Executive Director of ISSA-Los Angeles and as the incoming Executive Director of The Challenge Initiative at UCLA. Sanford previously served as a delegate to the APEC CEO Summit in Chile and as an advisor to the World Economic Forum.
Kenneth Barden
Kenneth Barden is a financial compliance and integrity professional with over 25 years of experience internationally. He has spent over 14 years working in the Asia-Pacific region, beginning as Legal Counsel for the Ministry of Finance for the Republic of Palau, where he advised on tax and banking policies. He led efforts to institute a modern banking system in Palau and created its first Financial Intelligence Unit.
Ken has worked in Indonesia, where he led several projects with the PPATK, Indonesia’s financial intelligence unit, and the KPK, the anti-corruption commission. Later, Mr. Barden spent three years working in Palestine, helping to establish its Financial Follow-Up Uni. Along with these projects, he has worked in over35 other countries on projects with the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, USAID, the
European Union and others on issues ranging from public financial management to business reform.
From 2011 until 2018, he was Senior Anti-corruption and Good Governance Advisor with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Most recently, from 2018 until early 2021, Mr.
Barden led the Compliance team at the Green Climate Fund, based in South Korea, where he and his colleagues implemented reviews to deter fraud and theft from climate change finance projects. Mr. Barden is a lawyer, admitted in two states in the US and in Palau and is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist.
Laura Van den Eynde
Laura Van den Eynde is a human rights researcher and adjunct professor at the Free University of Brussels (Belgium). She holds a Master of Laws from the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) and then completed a European Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratization, in Venice and at the Danish Institute for Human Rights in Copenhagen. She also holds a degree from Stanford Law School which focused on international socio-legal studies. Her PhD analyzed the relationships between civil society organizations and courts.
Over the last ten years, she gained considerable experience in comparative socio-legal research on fundamental rights issues and published various articles in English and French. She taught Comparative Law and Law and Social Movements and served as coordinator of the Master Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation on behalf of her university. At the heart of her work and volunteering experiences is the idea that civil society actors are critical partners for the effectiveness of fundamental rights and that comparative data furthers the understanding and effectiveness of these rights.
Mansoor A.F. Kazi
Mansoor is Director of Realist Evaluation Inc. and Director of Program Evaluation Center at State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia. Before moving to SUNY Fredonia in September 2017, Mansoor was at the University at Albany School of Social Welfare in 2013-2017, and until 2017 Research Associate Professor and Director of Program Evaluation Center at the School of Social Work, University at Buffalo (SUNY), having come from the UK in September 2005 where he held a similar position at the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield for 14 years. He has extensive experience of evaluation of human services in the USA, UK, and Finland. He is lead evaluator of Chautauqua Tapestry System of Care and received the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services’ Administration (SAMHSA)’s Gold Award for Outstanding Local Evaluation in July 2010. His books include ‘Realist Evaluation in Practice’ (2003, Sage) and ‘International Perspectives on Evidence-based Practice in Social Work’ (with Bruce Thyer, 2004, Venture Press). At present, this realist evaluation approach is used extensively in the evaluation of the SAMHSA System of Care Grant in Chautauqua County ($9 million, 2008-2015; $4 million, 2015-2019) and in Rockland County’s Bridges SAMHSA Offender Re-entry Program, $1, 663,610; 2018-2022). Throughout Chautauqua County with the expansion grants to date, he helps agencies to use the data on ALL service users in a realist evaluation, to inform what works and for whom in a system of care. Data from schools, mental health and other services is analyzed quarterly in each county, and data analysis methods drawn from a combination of epidemiology and effectiveness research are used in naturally occurring quasi-experimental designs (e.g. including all school youth) and logistic regression models to investigate if the comprehensive array of services and supports are working to provide better outcomes for youth and families. He also uses the same approach in the city of Manchester. Mansoor was awarded the honor of joining the inaugural class of Fellows of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) at its 2014 Annual Awards Presentation in January, San Antonio. He was the founder and co-chair of American Evaluation Association (AEA)’s Social Work Topical Interest Group (2001-07; 2011-14; 2015 to date) and is currently the co-chair of Human Services Evaluation TIG. Mansoor’s education includes: (a) a BSc. (Honours) in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science; (b) an MASW from the University of Hull; and (c) a Ph.D. in Social Work and Realist Evaluation in Practice from the University of Huddersfield.
Margaret (Maggie) Buchanan
Maggie graduated from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business with a Master of Business
Administration, 2022, and from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy with a Master of Public
Policy, 2022. She is the CEO and Founder of Residence, inc., which provides a new insurance product
designed to combat housing insecurity across demographics and income brackets.
While living in Washington, DC, Maggie previously worked for Sharakpur on a research project focused
on Cuba’s economic standing. She has also published research on poverty alleviation on Nigeria. She
earned a Bachelor’s of Arts from Bentley University, 2016, with a major in Public Policy, a minor in
Economics, and a minor in Business Studies. She specializes in domestic and international governments’ failure to provide housing security, which includes diagnosis as well as solutions and policy recommendations.
Maria Adriana Sanford (Koeck)
Adriana Sanford’s diverse career encompasses academia, legal practice, and public advocacy. As an international commentator, educator, and humanitarian, she is a prominent voice in the discourse on global threats, security risks, and corporate malfeasance, who regularly appeared as a CNN Español senior analyst to 93 million viewers. Her multifaceted engagement has included serving on the advisory committee for the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative and on the board of directors at Amnesty International USA. She has recently been appointed to the Steering Group of the National Security Committee, International Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA), effective September 2024.
Sanford possesses both senior in-house and international law firm experience, including serving as a Latin American regional counsel for a Fortune 50 company. Her academic achievements include earning a dual Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in international comparative law and taxation
Georgetown University Law Center and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Notre Dame Law School. Her educational journey laid the groundwork for a career dedicated to the nuanced intersections of law, ethics, and global threats.
Sanford co-authored two seminal books on ethics and global threats, adopted by the Institute for Supply Management and distributed to ISACA members worldwide and has held notable positions such as Georgetown Law Dean’s Visiting Scholar, ASU’s Lincoln Professor of Global Corporate Compliance & Ethics, and Senior Fellow at OU’s Center for Intelligence and National Security. Additionally, affiliated with the American Program Bureau, she has presented more than 150 keynote addresses at industry conferences worldwide, spanning technology, IT, cyber, security, legal, audit, and compliance sectors. Sanford is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French, with legal proficiency in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and foundational knowledge of Italian and German.
In addition to her role as an Inspire2Live ambassador for a global health movement based in Amsterdam, Sanford serves as the Head of Cybersecurity Leadership at Telecom4Good. She also holds a remote Of Counsel position with Puga Ortiz Abogados in Chile and serves as Senior Research Faculty at Claremont Graduate University, along with being an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Diego, Knauss School of Business.
Sawsan Gad
Sawsan is a Geospatial Data Scientist with nine years of experience in sectors of Development Data, Disaster Risk Management (DRM), and Monitoring and Supervision for Fragile and Post-conflict Countries at the World Bank Group, UNDP, and the Egyptian Ministry of State for Administrative Development. Sawsan also actively engages with civil society. She is co-founder of HarassMap, an online platform for combatting sexual harassment. Her project was featured in the UNESCO 2020 Best Apps Created by Women for Women. Sawsan holds an M.A. in Demographic and Social Analysis from the University of California, Irvine, and is a current Ph.D. student of Earth Systems and Geoinformation Science at George Mason University
Waqif Shah Shenwari
Waqif Shah Shenwari is an experienced professional with over 15 years of experience across government, international organizations, and private sectors in Afghanistan and abroad. He has held significant roles such as Advisor to the National Security Council in Afghanistan, Country Director at Unit Export Ltd., and Director of the Toyota distribution center in Afghanistan. He holds an MBA from Dunya University and a BBA from the University of Management, Economics, and Finance in Kabul. Fluent in Pashto, Dari, Urdu, and English, Waqif has also founded the STAR Foundation to support refugees in Delaware. He is currently the CEO and director of STAR and also advocates as a Delaware refugees representative in the Refugee Congress.
Zahid Omarzai
Zahid Omarzai brings close to a decade of experience in institution building efforts and
legal practice in Afghanistan. He is from Afghanistan and has completed his undergraduate
studies in law and political science in Afghanistan. He has earned an LL.M. in International and
Comparative Law (cum laude) from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law as a Rule of Law
Scholar from Afghanistan. Zahid has established and developed alternative dispute resolution,
particularly institutional arbitration in addition to modernizing mediation, in Afghanistan as former
Executive Director of Afghanistan Center for Commercial Dispute Resolution (ACCDR). In
addition, he had developed dispute resolution process for Government of Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan’s (GoIRA) domestic procurement contracts and commercial disputes of Afghan
business community through the ACCDR. As part of his volunteer efforts, he is presently often
engaged in advising domestic and foreign organizations operating in Afghanistan on the legal
and regulatory framework of the country for implementing their humanitarian projects. His legal
practice in Afghanistan was focused on commercial and investment dispute resolution,
representing international organizations in financing national infrastructure projects, and
representing GoIRA in national infrastructure projects financed by international financial
institutions.