Our Team

Daniel Boyce is the Practice Manager for Europe and Central Asia (ECA) in the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice. His unit covers 11 countries in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia. Previously he managed the financial management unit for Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Boyce also has a leadership role in regional initiatives related to Public Expenditure Management (PEMPAL) and Public Sector Accounting (PULSAR) and manages the World Bank Centre for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR) in Vienna. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds a Masters and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where his graduate studies focused on Comparative Politics, Electoral Systems, and political influences on Fiscal Performance.

Roby Senderowitsch currently serves as the World Bank’s Governance Practice Manager for ECA West. Previously he has held various positions, including Manager for Leadership, Learning & Innovation; Manager of the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA); and Country Manager in the Dominican Republic. His work in the Bank included a strong focus on political economy analysis, building coalitions for change, anti-corruption, and performance-based management of public institutions. He has been a lecturer in Human Resource management in nonprofit organizations, as well as director of educational programs and community development and HR management in the private sector. Roby’s publications include “Building Effective, Accountable, and Inclusive Institutions in Europe and Central Asia,” “Democratic Governance in Mexico: Beyond State Capture and Social Polarization” (with Yasuhiko Matsuda), “Performance Informed Budgeting and Trust in Government” (with Nick Manning and others), and “From the International Financial Crisis to Inclusive Growth in the Dominican Republic.” Senderowitsch holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Buenos Aires and a Masters in Policy Studies, Public Administration/Nonprofit Management from the Johns Hopkins University.

Pedro Arizti is an economist working as the Senior Public Sector Specialist in the Governance Global Practice. He is currently serving as the focal point for public sector reform issues in Croatia and in EU Member States. He has held similar positions in South Asia, based in New Delhi (India) and Latin America as the focal point for Mexico and Colombia based in Bogota.

Previously to joining the Bank, Pedro worked in the private sector focusing on budget and financial management. At the Bank his areas of focus have primarily been on enhancing institutional performance, budget management, strengthening monitoring and evaluation and on overall public administration reforms at national and subnational levels.

Pedro studied economics at the Universidad Comercial de Deusto and has a Master in Development Economics from the University of the Basque Country and a Master in Public Policy from Columbia University.

Simon O’Meally is based in Vienna where he leads the World Bank engagement on a range of public sector and economic governance issues. Simon specializes in public sector reform; digitalization and GovTech; public service delivery; open government; political economy; and fragile contexts. A British-Jamaican citizen, Simon joined the World Bank as a Young Professional in 2011 and has been posted in several field offices including India (2012-2016) and Tunisia (2016-2020).  Prior to joining the Bank, Simon worked for Care International and the Overseas Development Institute.  Simon has a PhD in Political Economy and Development Studies from the University of Manchester.  In his spare time, Simon most enjoys spending time with his daughters and playing sports.

Arman Vatyan is a certified chartered accountant in the UK and Canada. He is currently the focal point for the World Bank’s governance program in Central Asia where he oversees the implementation of the Bank’s governance work program. He is the program leader for Europe and Central Asia’s (ECA) Public Expenditure and Peer Assisted Learning (PEMPAL) program, and the program manager for Public Sector Accounting and Reporting (PULSAR). He has more than 20 years of experience in leading critical financial management initiatives and reforms, including in public sector and corporate accounting and financial reporting, public internal and external audit, financial management information system (FMIS) and public internal control in more than 25 countries in Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and Middle East North Africa regions. He represents the World Bank as an observer in the European Commission EPSAS Working Group. Since 2008 he also leads PEMPAL’s Internal Audit Community of Practice of 23 countries and other successful regional public financial management programs.  Prior to joining the Bank Arman worked in a Big 4 audit firm providing corporate governance, strategic planning, Management Information System (MIS), restructuring, acquisition and privatization advice to governments and large public interest entities. He has more than 20 years of teaching experience as trainer and visiting lecturer at universities, MBA programs and regional programs. He has also organized and been a keynote speaker in more than 50 international and regional conferences. He holds a PhD and MS in MIS. 

A Dominican national, Marielle began her World Bank career in the Dominican Republic Country Office in 2008 and later joined headquarters in 2012. Her work has been focused on portfolio monitoring, providing operational support and guidance to task teams and monitoring work programs among other operational and administrative tasks. Marielle holds degrees in Business Administration and has an MBA from the EAE Business School, Madrid.  

Rachel Ort is a U.S. national with over nine years of experience with the World Bank Group.  She has worked throughout the Africa region including on Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Sudan.  She is the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) regional focal person for the Bank’s Political Economy Community of Practice and has expertise in the areas of public employment management, public administration reform, GovTech, and intergovernmental relations.  Before joining the World Bank, Rachel spent a year in Botswana on a U.S. Fulbright grant researching the relationship between civil society and democratization. She has worked with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Solidarity Center in Johannesburg, South Africa and as a community organizer in the U.S.  Rachel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Kenyon College and a Master’s degree in International Development and Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Zoran has over 15 years of tax and legal professional experience. Since 2013, he has been working for the World Bank Group (IBRD and IFC) on various projects related to tax, justice sector, institutional reform, business environment and health. Prior to joining the WBG, he gained significant experience and expertise in tax and legal issues through his work for the American Chamber of Commerce in Serbia, a leading regional commercial law firm, and Deloitte. Zoran holds a law degree from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. 

Ian Hawkesworth is a Senior Governance Specialist in the Governance Global Practice of the World Bank where he leads global knowledge work on infrastructure, technical assistance to client countries and lending operations, mainly in Europe and Central Asia (ECA ). He is the Co-Chair of the World Bank’s Community of Practice on Infrastructure Governance and Public Investment Management and led the development of the Bank’s new InfraGov diagnostic framework, currently being rolled out globally. He advises governments on issues around public and privately financed investments, governance and regulatory arrangements around infrastructure service provision, public finance and fiscal risk management, governance of state-owned enterprises, enhancing public sector integrity and transparency. 

Prior to joining the World Bank in 2017, Ian was Head, Public-Private Partnerships and Capital Budgeting, at the Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, OECD, Paris. At the OECD Ian was responsible for country focused technical assistance and convened the Network of Senior PPP and Infrastructure Officials. In this context he led the work that culminated with the 2016 OECD/G20 Framework for Infrastructure Governance and the 2012 Principles for Public Governance of Public-Private Partnerships. During his time at the OECD he published extensively on PPPs, infrastructure, public finance issues in the OECD Journal on Budgeting and in peer reviewed publications. Prior to joining the OECD in 2006, Ian was Head of Section and Special Advisor in the Budget Department in the Ministry of Finance in Denmark. He holds post graduate degrees in public policy and economics from the London School of Economics and the University of Copenhagen.

Dmitri Gourfinkel is a Senior Financial Management Specialist at the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice. He has 17 years of professional experience in public financial management and fiduciary compliance in a number of countries in Latin America and Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia and Middle East and North Africa regions. Before joining the Bank in 2007, Dmitri held several posts in both national and sub-national governments in Mexico, including Adviser to the Minister of Finance, Chief Adviser to the Deputy Treasurer of the Federation, and Chief Adviser to the Auditor General of Mexico City. He is a Certified Public Accountant by the Mexican Institute of Charter Accountants and holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. 

Samira is a consultant in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Governance team. She is currently working on a project in Azerbaijan to strengthen medium-term budget planning. She holds Masters. in Economics degree from London School of Economics and Bachelors in Economics degree from Baku Engineering University. She was awarded the prestigious Chevening Scholarship to fund her Masters in the UK. Before joining the World Bank Samira worked for one of the largest State-owned Enterprises in Azerbaijan as an economist. Her main areas of interest includes political economy, empirical microeconomics, economic development and governance.

Irina Gordeladze is a governance professional with a legal background and 20 years of experience combining operational, analytical and advisory roles. Her special expertise includes corporate governance of State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) and accounting, reporting and audit reform. She has extensive experience with policy dialogue with governments, international and donor organizations and other stakeholders. Her work focuses mainly on the South Caucasus and Central Asia region.

During 2015-2021, Irina took part in the design and implementation of the accounting, reporting and auditing reform in Georgia, including the establishment of the Service for Accounting, Reporting and Auditing Supervision (SARAS).

She has also consulted for the IFC and the World Bank where she designed corporate governance structures for numerous private companies and SOEs. Irina was part of the teams that drafted Georgia’s Law on Accounting, Reporting and Audit, as well as Georgia’s Corporate Governance Code for Issuers. She has co-authored several impactful studies, including country-level corporate governance assessments. Irina is fluent in multiple languages including, Georgian, English, Russian, French and German.
 

Viorela Voinea is an experienced certified finance professional, with a robust and wide array of technical and operational experience.  She has worked for the World Bank for over 10 years and has contributed to more than 100 lending and capacity building  operations on fiduciary risk assessment and oversight, respectively technical assistance and project management, in several countries in Europe and Central Asia. With significant experience in EU member countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, Viorela supported institutional development initiatives on the public financial management side under various EU-funded reimbursable advisory services. Her most recent contribution was an advisory project to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Romanian Court of Accounts, the country`s Supreme Audit Institution. Viorela’s main areas of interest in governance includes strategic budgeting and planning, internal controls and internal audit, public investment management, GovTech and external auditing.

Oleksii Balabushko has over 18 years of professional experience across four regions (Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific, Africa and Middle East North Africa) and in the Public Expenditure and Financial Accounting (PEFA) Secretariat.  He is a public sector economist with in-depth knowledge and skills in public finance, tax policy and tax administration.  His extensive operational and analytical work includes delivery and implementation support for large operations in multiple regions, and publication of several articles and working papers in international journals.  Oleksii holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Florida State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy of Ukraine. He is currently serving as Co-Chair of the Public Expenditure and Financial Management Community of Practice at the World Bank. 

Oxana Druta is a Chartered Public Finance Accountant with 20 years of experience both in the private and public sector, and at the World Bank. She is currently a Senior Financial Management Specialist in the World Bank Country Office in Moldova providing financial management assurance of the Bank’s portfolio, and contributing to strengthening public financial management and corporate financial reporting as well as corporate governance in State-owned Enterprises. She also covered the Bank’s portfolio in Romania, Tajikistan and Ukraine, and provides cross-support to projects in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, and Uzbekistan.  Prior to joining the Bank, Oxana worked as Financial Specialist in the banking sector and in various sectoral project units implementing World Bank projects.

She holds Bachelors Degree in Economics and Master’s Degree in Bank and Financial Administration from the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova. She is fluent in Romanian, Russian and English.
 

Holly Burduja is a Senior Public Sector Specialist with the World Bank’s Governance Practice, based in Bucharest, Romania. Since joining the Bank in 2016, she has led and contributed to lending and advisory services work across the Europe and Central Asia region, covering various public sector management topics, including justice sector reform, strategic management, GovTech, human resources management, and public investment management. Holly previously served as a project manager and technical advisor to the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice, focusing on cybersecurity policy and compliance, change management, and digital transformation. She has an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and a BA in Government and International Politics from George Mason University. 

Garik Sergeyan is a Senior Financial Management Specialist at the Centre for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR), based in Vienna, Austria, and is a Task Team Leader for the Strengthening Auditing and Reporting in Countries of the Eastern Partnership (STAREP) project. He has over 20 years of experience in financial management in different industries, including 15 years at the World Bank. He was previously Financial Management Coordinator for Central Asia, covering the financial management aspects of World Bank projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. He has also been the Country Financial Management Specialist for Armenia and Georgia at the World Bank. In addition, he has six years of teaching experience in professional accounting courses (Performance Management and Financial Management), and working at non-governmental organizations, small and medium sized enterprises, local government, and a large industrial company. He is a UK Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) fellow and has an MBA degree.

Tessa Cullen has worked as a public servant for three years within the New Zealand government, focusing on economic development policy. She led a project to reform the New Zealand public procurement regulatory framework in order to promote greater environmental and social outcomes through government spending.

In 2019, Tessa was seconded to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for a 12-month period, where she worked as a policy analyst in the Public Governance Directorate. Her areas of focus included infrastructure governance, supply chain due diligence, gender and public procurement, agile procurement practices in ICT purchasing, and public governance at the local government level in Poland.

She holds an economics degree, and a politics degree from Victoria University of Wellington, and a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. 
 

Roberto O, Panzardi is a Senior Public Sector Specialist and is the Program Manager for the Strengthening Accountability and the Fiduciary Environment (SAFE) and Public Finance Management (PFM) Europe and Central Asia Trust Fund. He has held several Tasks Team Leader positions in Latin America and Africa, including the design and implementation of projects in Argentina, Angola, Bolivia, Guinea Bissau, Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Kenya, Liberia Nicaragua, México, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. His work focuses on PFM, judicial reform, and e-governance.  He has participated in the design and implementation of 64 lending operations and 43 non-lending activities and has published the “Information and Communicant Technology for Governance: Promise and Practice in Africa” (2013). A lawyer by training, Roberto graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and holds master’s degrees (LLM.) in International Law Banking Law from Morris Center for Banking Law Studies, School Law, Boston University (BU) and (LL.M). in International Trade and Banking from the Washington College of Law, the American University..

Adrienne joined the Bank in 2012.  Since then, she has worked across the project cycle on governance issues in the Latin America and Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia Regions, with a focus on decentralization, digital government and the application of data-centric approaches to public sector development questions.  Prior to joining the Bank, she worked in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she focused on topics in international economics and finance. She holds Masters Degrees in Economics and Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and a Bachelors Degree from Wellesley College.

Shomikho Raha joined the World Bank in 2007 within the South Asia HD team.  Prior to joining the ECA region last year, he served as Senior Public Sector Specialist in the Africa region for several years, including being Governance Focal Point at the country-level and for the AFR-Regional Human Capital Plan.  He chairs the Community of Practice on Governance in Sectors and was an EFI Coordinator and a technical lead engaged in supporting IDA-19 and IDA-20 preparation.  His extensive operations and analytical work covered core technical areas within public sector management (institutional reform of public administration, subnational governance, data transparency, and accountability), core public financial management operations and expenditure management diagnostics, political economy work, and digital governance. He has published peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and policy reports, including World Bank flagships - co-authoring the book on Contextual Drivers of Social Accountability (2015) and as a governance co-lead for the WASH Country Diagnostics (2018). He holds a PhD, MPhil and MA from Trinity College, Cambridge University with a focus on public administration and political economy.            

Wouter’s main expertise is in the field of public administration reform. He specialized in wage bill and pay system reform, recruitment practices and performance management issues. Besides this he is engaged in projects focused on public investment management, GovTech and institutional analysis. As a member of the Good Governance and Investment Climate Reform (GGICR) Trust Fund secretariat, he helps oversee close to a dozen Trust Funded projects in the Western Balkans, Armenia and Georgia. Finally, as a member of the Bureaucracy Lab, he is involved in the creation of many global knowledge products, focusing on topics ranging from creating green bureaucracies, to attracting more digitally skilled personnel into the civil and public service.

Wouter is a Dutch national, based at HQ, and holds two master’s degrees and a PhD in public management from the KU Leuven.
 

Davide Zucchini has worked in international development for over 15 years in Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and East Asia Pacific working on budgeting, public investment management, GovTech and political economy of reforms. In Turkey, Davide is working on institutional innovation while in Bulgaria he is leading an innovative agenda that includes green public investment management and cutting edge GovTech. Prior to joining the World Bank, Davide has worked on local development and innovation in Spain and consulting for several International Development Organizations in the Dominican Republic. Davide’s areas of research include Problem-Driven Political Economy, performance management and GovTech. He has a dual Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Pompeu Fabra and Johns Hopkins University. In his free time, Davide likes to spend time outdoors in nature and collecting vinyl records. 

Andrei Busuioc assumed the role as Central Asia Financial Management Coordinator since July 2020 at the World Bank Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Governance unit. He is responsible for leading the Financial Management function in Central Asia, while continuing to lead and support Corporate Financial Reporting (CFR) and State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) governance activities.  Andrei has over 24 years of experience in the accounting and auditing in the public and private sectors, as well as in lecturing on accounting and auditing in university. He has worked at the World Bank Centre for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR) in Vienna, Austria from 2008-2020 and has led activities supporting country-level financial reporting and SOE governance reforms.  He has contributed significantly to and led several Accounting and Auditing Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (A&A ROSCs) and has expertise in the thematic areas of audit regulation and SOE governance. Andrei has a PhD in Economics, is a fellow member of the UK Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and holds a postgraduate diploma in Public Financial Management from SOAS, the University of London. 

Anita Sobjak is a Public Sector Specialist working in the Governance Global Practice of the World Bank. She is passionate about driving institutional change in governments with a special focus on public administration reform, infrastructure governance, service delivery and GovTech. Her analytical and operational work at the Bank focuses primarily on Europe and Central Asia. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked with the United Nations in East Africa and with the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw. She holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Oxford.