Advisers network
OMFIF advisory council
Chair
Meghnad Desai
Meghnad Desai is a non-affiliated member of the UK House of Lords and professor emeritus of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a former chairman of the Labour party (which he left in 2020). He chairs Mauritius Investment Corporation and Margin (Art & Media) and is non-executive director of Elara Capital. He chairs Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics, Mumbai, and Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust.
Deputy chairs
Marsha Vande Berg
Marsha Vande Berg is co-chair of the Stanford Distinguished Careers International Advisory Council, a director of the RAND Center for Asia Pacific policy, and independent director at Quantum Advisors. A former chief executive of Pacific Pension Institute, she is a director of Japan Society Northern California and Asia Foundation President’s Leadership Council, and adviser to the India Center Initiative, UC San Diego Global School of Public Policy & Strategy.
Hani Kablawi
Hani Kablawi is senior executive vice president and head of international at Bank of New York Mellon. He is a member of BNY Mellon’s executive committee and serves on its European and UK Bank boards. He oversees the regional management teams across EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America, having held leadership roles in New York, London and the UAE. He previously worked for HSBC in New York.
Philip Middleton
Philip Middleton is deputy chairman at OMFIF. He became a non-executive director at OMFIF in 2018, having been deputy chair of the OMFIF advisory board for the previous four years. He is a commissioner at the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. He was a senior partner and head of central banking at EY and previously held senior positions at KPMG.
Frank Scheidig
Frank Scheidig is global head of senior executive banking at DZ BANK and a member of the German government’s committee for sustainable development. He chairs the Rhein-Main regional committee of the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany. He previously held senior positions at Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Bayerische Vereinsbank and Bayerische Landesbank.
Anne Simpson
Anne Simpson is global head of sustainability at Franklin Templeton, which she joined from CalPERS where she was managing investment director for board governance and sustainability. She is the inaugural chair of Climate Action 100+, a $65tn investor alliance driving a just transition to net zero by 2050. She is a visiting fellow at Oxford University, a lecturer in sustainable and impact finance at UC Berkeley and co-author of The Financial Ecosystem: the role of finance in achieving sustainability.
Other members
Jai Arya
Jai Arya is senior adviser to the dean of the NUS Business School and a former board member of OMFIF. He is  an independent director on the boards of Max Life Insurance Company - India’s largest non-bank owned private insurance company - and Max Financial Services in India, and the Council for Third Age in Singapore. His career in banking includes 27 years with Bank of New York Mellon and 10 years with Bank of America, working in multiple countries.
Mark Burgess
Mark Burgess, chairman of OMFIF Asia and a former board member of OMFIF, is a board and investment committee member at Australian Retirement Trust, a $210bn pension plan, and holds other advisory roles. He is enterprise professor at the University of Melbourne. Previously he was chief executive of the Future Fund, Australia’s sovereign fund, and Treasury Group. He has been chief executive and chief investment officer in London at Credit Suisse Asset Management, American Express AM and Colonial First State.
Otaviano Canuto
Otaviano Canuto is senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings Institution, adjunct assistant professor at SIPA – Columbia University, and principal of the Center for Macroeconomics and Development. He is a former executive director at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and a former InterAmerican Development Bank vice president.
Pat Yim (Baron) Chan
Pat Yim (Baron) Chan is Head of Research & Macroeconomics at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. His career at ADIA includes spells in the Fixed Income and Treasury Department. He holds a teaching role at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Previously he was a strategist at Credit Suisse and lecturer in economics at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Michael Cole-Fontayn
Michael Cole-Fontayn is a non-executive director at JP Morgan Securities in London and a former chairman of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe. His career with Bank of New York Mellon included his role as executive vice president, executive committee member and chairman, Europe, Middle East and Africa. He chairs the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and is a member of the FICC Markets Standards Board.
Patricia Haas Cleveland
Patricia Haas Cleveland is US president of OMFIF. Her career started at the US Treasury, where she helped establish the US-China Joint Economic Committee and served on the yen/dollar negotiating team. She joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London where she headed budget, financial policy and strategic planning. She then joined Lehman Brothers as head of European corporate advisory, and served on Lehman’s boards in Europe and Asia, before establishing Lehman’s global strategic advisory group for hedge funds in New York. She later joined Citigroup as a managing director in the Institutional Clients Group prior to serving as financial adviser to the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank in Beijing.
Aslihan Gedik
Aslihan Gedik is global head of buy-side and sustainable finance at the European Primary Placement Facility and founder and chair of Wild@Life, a German-incorporated non-governmental organisation working on biodiversity, climate, wildlife and natural resources. She is a member of the Finance to accelerate the sustainable transition-infrastructure working group under President Emmanuel Macron’s One Planet Lab. She is a former deputy general manager/division head of treasury and financial institutions, Oyak Anker Bank in Frankfurt, and former head of treasury, Yapi Kredi Bank Nederland.
Ellie Groves
Ellie Groves is head of strategy for the official institutions group at State Street Global Advisors, spearheading partnerships with international sovereign clients. Previously she held posts as managing director of OMFIF’s economic and monetary policy institute and at Royal Institute of International Affairs and UK House of Commons.
Elliot Hentov
Elliot Hentov is head of macro policy research at State Street Global Advisors, Â responsible for research across financial markets and economics and for geopolitical coverage. Â Previously he was a director and lead analyst for sovereigns and government-related entities in central, eastern and Mediterranean Europe at Standard & Poor's sovereign ratings group. He worked on the Middle East and Europe at the United Nations in New York.
Robin Hu
Robin Hu is vice chairman, Asia and operating partner at Temasek. He previously headed Temasek’s international policy and governance and institutional relations functions, and its sustainability and stewardship group. He is chairman of convention company Constellar and of Mandai Nature, a Temasek and Wildlife Reserve Singapore endowment. He is a board member at Business China and Mediacorp. He was chief executive of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and executive vice president of Chinese newspapers at Singapore Press Holdings.
Prakash Kannan
Prakash Kannan is managing director, chief economist and head of total portfolio management at GIC. He is also a member of GIC's investment management committee and currency risk management group. He is chair of the investment committee of the Economic Society of Singapore and previously served on the advisory board of the Centre for Asset Management Research & Investments at the National University of Singapore Business School. Prior to GIC, he worked at the International Monetary Fund and Bank Negara Malaysia.
Yougesh Khatri
Yougesh Khatri is an associate professor and academic director of the Nanyang Fellows MBA programme at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is an associate fellow at Chatham House, senior international advisor to the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Economic Development, and member of the Stewardship Discussion Circle (with the Stewardship Asia Centre). Previously, he was head of economics and capital markets at GIC, an economist at the International Monetary Fund and taught or held academic positions at Birkbeck College, Cambridge University, London School of Economics and Imperial College.
Pawel Kowalewski
Pawel Kowalewski is a senior economist at Narodowy Bank Polski, responsible for research on central banks’ liquidity management and balance sheets. Previously he worked for Deutsche Bundesbank and Oesterreichische National Bank (in co-operation with Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies). Kowalewski had spells at Poland’s Ministry of Finance, working on debt management, Gdansk University and Gdansk Institute for Market Economics.
Norman Lamont
Norman Lamont is a Conservative member of the UK House of Lords and a former chancellor of the exchequer, chief secretary to the Treasury and minister of state in the Ministry of Defence and Department of Trade and Industry. He is a member of the House of Lords EU Committee and the EU Goods Sub-Committee. He chairs the Chelverton UK Dividend Trust and is on the Meinhardt Group global advisory board.
Rudi Lang
Rudi Lang is head of global financial institutions and a member of the group executive board at Mazars, responsible for business development across its global network. A German certified chartered accountant, he has acted in prudential capital assessment reviews and asset quality reviews for international banks and as an adviser for international regulators.
Dennis Lockhart
Dennis Lockhart, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, is professor of practice at Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. He was faculty member at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service,  adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, chairman of the Small Enterprise Assistance Funds, and president of Heller International Group. At the start of his career, Lockhart worked in the US and internationally for Citigroup.
Leslie Maasdorp
Leslie Maasdorp is chief executive of British International Investment, the UK’s development finance institution. Previously he was vice president New Development Bank, the Shanghai-based multilateral development bank. He was managing director and president of Bank of America Merrill Lynch for southern Africa, and vice chairman of Barclays Capital and Absa Capital. He was the first African international advisor to Goldman Sachs International. In the South African government after the transition to democracy, he was special adviser to the minister of labour and deputy director general of the Department of Public Enterprises.
Nicolas Mackel
Nicolas Mackel is Luxembourg’s permanent representative to the EU. He was chief executive of Luxembourg for Finance for nine years and  worked at the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign Affairs on successive EU treaty negotiations as well as in Brussels and Washington. He was consul general in Shanghai and executive director of the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office focusing on trade and investment relations with China.
Timothy Massad
Timothy Massad is research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, non-resident scholar at the Brookings Institution and consultant on financial regulatory and fintech issues. Massad served as chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2014-17. Previously, he was assistant secretary for financial stability at the US Treasury, and partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he managed the law firm’s Hong Kong office from 1999-2002.
Â
Sheila M’Mbijjewe
Sheila M’Mbijjewe was deputy governor of the Central Bank of Kenya from 2015-23. In her accounting and audit career, she was the first female executive director of a publicly quoted Kenyan commercial bank. She has been a board member at the Capital Markets Authority, Nairobi Stock Exchange, Old Mutual Insurance Company Kenya, Financial Reporting Centre of Kenya, Pricewaterhouse Kenya and Deloitte Touche Kenya. She was a founding member of Kenya’s monetary policy committee and crime and anti-money laundering act advisory committee.
Â
Kingsley Moghalu
Kingsley Moghalu, president, African School of Governance, a pan-African professional graduate-school university of public policy and governance in Kigali, is a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. He was professor of international business & public policy at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, chairman of Nigeria’s Export-Import Bank and a board member of the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission. He previously worked for the United Nations.
Rakesh Mohan
Rakesh Mohan is president and distinguished fellow of the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, formerly Brookings India. He is also a member of the economic advisory council to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. He was senior fellow in the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University. He is a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, secretary, economic affairs, and chief economic adviser of the Indian Ministry of Finance.
Célestin Monga
Célestin Monga is visiting professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, fellow at Harvard’s Center for African Studies, professor at University of Paris 1Panthéon-Sorbonne and research professor at Peking University’s Institute of New Structural Economics. He was vice president and chief economist of the African Development Bank and managing director of United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
Nora Müller
Nora Müller is head of the international affairs department and head of the Berlin office of the Hamburg-headquartered Körber Foundation. Among other duties she leads the Körber Middle East dialogue. She is vice president of Forum de Paris sur la Paix. She previously worked on Middle East issues at the German Foreign Affairs Ministry and at the Goethe Institute. She is a member of the advisory board of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Øystein Olsen
Øystein Olsen is a former governor of Norges Bank, which he headed from 2011-22, having previously been managing director of Statistics Norway (SSB). His 45 years in public service included spells as research director and head of the oil and energy group at SSB and as deputy secretary in the economics department of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. In 1993-98 Olsen was a professor at Norwegian School of Management.
John Orchard
John Orchard is Chairman, Digital Monetary Institute and a former chief executive officer of OMFIF, which he led between January 2020 and October 2024 before handing over to David Marsh. John worked with the board to oversee a transformation of OMFIF into separate institutes with specific business structures and worldwide array of clients, building particular expertise in digital money  and payments systems. Previously he was a member of Euromoney’s management board, having started with the global information business in 1994.
Ila Patnaik
Ila Patnaik is a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi. She is a former principal economic adviser to the government of India, non-resident senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She served on working groups of the Ministry of Finance including on taxation of financial products and on creating agencies, including the Public Debt Management Agency and Resolution Corporation.
Stephen Phillips
Stephen Phillips is senior adviser at BDO Unibank in the Philippines. He co-founded a Hong Kong-based group of companies providing IT, financial and consultancy services. His past experience includes roles as chief executive of the China Britain Business Council, as well as chairman of the EU China Business Association and Director-General of Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong. He has held non-executive and adviser roles in China, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
John Plender
John Plender is a Financial Times columnist, for which he has written for 44 years, and former chairman of OMFIF. He has been financial editor of The Economist, board member and chairman of the Quintain property group and member of the World Bank/OECD Private Sector Advisory Group on Corporate Governance. He served on the steering group of the UK Company Law Review which provided the basis of the Companies Act 2006. He has held broadcasting roles at the BBC and Channel Four and is a trustee of the £4bn Pearson pension fund. A chartered accountant, he started his career at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Danny Quah
Danny Quah is dean and Li Ka Shing professor in economics at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He was assistant professor of economics at MIT, and professor of economics and international development and director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a former member of Malaysia’s National Economic Advisory Council.
Irena Radović
Irena Radović is governor of the Central Bank of Montenegro, leading efforts in financial stability, regulatory alignment with the EU, and the modernisation of payment systems, including integration into the Single European Payments Area. She chairs the National Financial Stability Council and plays an important role advancing EU accession across nine negotiation chapters. Previously she was executive director of the Investment and Development Fund. As deputy governor, she oversaw banking supervision and financial consumer protection. Earlier, she was Montenegro’s ambassador to France and Unesco, deputy minister of foreign affairs, and head of the British Office, representing the UK government in Montenegro before independence.
Edoardo Reviglio
Edoardo Reviglio is a professor at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, president and member of the faculty at the International University College of Turin and a senior research scholar at Yale University Law School. He served as chief economist of the CDP Group for many years and has been a longstanding member of the Council of Economic Advisors to the Italian Treasury, advising numerous Italian finance ministers.
Ivan Rogers
Ivan Rogers is a former UK permanent representative to the European Union, adviser on Europe and global issues for David Cameron and principal private secretary to Tony Blair during their premierships. He had spells as head of public sector business at Barclays Capital and Citicorp. He was awarded a knighthood in 2016 for services to British, European and international policy.
Ludger Schuknecht
Ludger Schuknecht, vice president and corporate secretary at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, was previously visiting professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He is a former deputy secretary general at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and chief economist at the German Ministry of Finance. He has worked at the European Central Bank, World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund. He is the author of Public Spending and the Role of the State.
Wolfram Seidemann
Wolfram Seidemann is chief executive of Giesecke+Devrient Currency Technology, overseeing the company's global banknote and digital currency business. Previously, he was executive chairman of G+D subsidiary Louisenthal, and group executive for banknotes. He chaired the International Currency Association (ICA). Since joining G+D in 1999, he has held various senior management positions in Singapore, Taiwan and India. Before 1999, Seidemann focused on R&D and innovation management within the economics department at the Technical University of Munich and as an industry consultant.
Ben Shenglin
Ben Shenglin is co-director of the International Monetary Institute at Renmin University, Beijing. He is a professor and founding dean of Academy of Internet Finance and International Business School at Zhejiang University. He is a former chief executive at JP Morgan Chase Bank (China) and worked previously at ABN AMRO and HSBC. He is counsellor to the Zhejiang provincial government and vice chairman of the Economic Commission of Zhejiang.
Christopher Smart
Christopher Smart is managing partner, Arbroath Group, having been previously chief global strategist and head of the Barings Investment Institute and a  senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was special assistant to the president at the US National Economic Council and the National Security Council, and deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury. He started his investment career at Pioneer Investments.
Marc-Olivier Strauss-Kahn
Marc-Olivier Strauss-Kahn is honorary director general of the Banque de France. He is a teacher in economics, senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and board member at Citéco ‘city of economics’ in Paris. He was the BdF’s chief economist and represented France in organisations such as the G7 and G20. He worked at the International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Bank for International Settlements and Inter-American Development Bank.
Silvana Tenreyro
Silvana Tenreyro is professor of economics at the London School of Economics and was an external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from 2017-23. With British, Italian and Argentine citizenship, she was president of the European Economic Association and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and  Bank of Mauritius.
Niels Thygesen
Niels Thygesen, professor emeritus of international economics at the University of Copenhagen, chairs the European Fiscal Board. He worked for the Danish government, Harvard’s Development Advisory Service and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Former adviser to Denmark’s Nationalbank and chair of the Danish Economic Council, he was a member of the Delors Committee on economic and monetary union.
Natacha Valla
Natacha Valla is dean of the Sciences Po School of Management and Innovation in Paris. Formerly deputy director-general of monetary policy at the European Central Bank, she headed the European Investment Bank’s political and strategy division and directed Goldman Sachs’ international economic research. She has been a board member at LVMH, Accor, Tikehau Capital and ASF/Cofiroute. She is the author (with Michel Aglietta) of Le Futur de la monnaie.
William White
William White is a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto. He is a former chairman of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Economic and Development Review Committee. He was a member of the Issing Committee, advising the German chancellor, economic adviser and head of the monetary and economic department at the Bank for International Settlements, deputy governor of the Bank of Canada and an economist at the Bank of England.
Janine von Wolfersdorff
Janine von Wolfersdorff is a Berlin-based tax adviser, focused on environmental, social anf governance and true cost accounting. She is a policy fellow at Hamburg-based The New Institute and a former director of the Cologne Institute of Finance and Taxation, associate at Value Balancing Alliance and editor of Handelsblatt publication Der Betrieb. She was a leader in OMFIF’s 2021 German ESG corporate survey ‘Tackling corporates’ ESG challenges’.
