Alexandra van Huffelen
Alexandra van Huffelen is the Minister for Digitalisation of the Netherlands, a subject she’s putting a lot of energy into. Up until this January when the new Cabinet was formed, she was State Secretary for Finance. Technological innovations and effective European cooperation, and their positive effects on society and economics are high on her agenda. So are democracy, security and fundamental rights, that all lie at the heart of the Dutch society.

Fredo Schotanus
Fredo Schotanus holds the endowed chair of Public Procurement, Utrecht University's School of Economics and is part of the management team of the Utrecht University Centre for Public Procurement (UUCePP). This is an interdisciplinary research centre in the field of public procurement, both from a legal and economic perspective. For the chair of Public Procurement, he studies sustainable, social, and effective contracting and procurement in the public sector. One of his interests which is relevant for the workshop is open public procurement data.

Elisabetta R. Manunza
Elisabetta R. Manunza is Professor of International and European public procurement law and Co-Founder and co-Head of the Centre for Public Procurement at Utrecht University.

Lucien Claassen
Lucien Claassen, Category manager ICT, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy Experienced and driven by sustainability strategic ICT buyer, with a demonstrated history of working in the government administration industry. Strong information technology skills in Business Process, Coaching, IT Service Management, IT operations, Data management and Strategic Sourcing. Works with sustainability as a starting point. See LinkedIn for more information and details.

Sally Guyer
Sally Guyer is Chief Executive Officer for the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management, a global membership organization enabling global public and private sector organizations and professionals to achieve world-class standards in their contracting and relationship management process and skills. Sally is an experienced and accomplished commercial and contracts management professional, holding senior commercial positions at a range of corporate and multinational organizations. After gaining an Honors degree in Law, Sally spent her time in the corporate sector, where she worked globally in the Telecomms and IT industries, before establishing her own legal and commercial consultancy in 2007. Sally is passionate about enabling business efficiency and growth through contracting and commercial excellence. Whether in contract development, negotiation, training or general communications, Sally has built a reputation for service excellence and responsiveness. Her focus is on the creation of positive and successful business relationships, constantly striving to ensure that businesses realize their true potential and value.

Sascha Haselmayer
is Ashoka fellow creating mechanisms to spread innovation into cities, improve governance, and radically alter the way cities deliver much-needed services. Sascha trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London and delivered a range of global urban strategy projects in the Europe, Latin America and Asia before in 2001 co-founding Interlace-Invent, a consultancy advising on science & technology, socio-economic and development strategies in cities for global cities, universities, investors and international organizations. In 2003 he co-founded Living Labs Global, an organization to promote service innovation in cities. Sascha has lectured widely and co-authored two books on service innovation in cities, markets and new approaches to public procurement. Sascha is recognized as a social innovator and entrepreneur through an Ashoka Fellowship and by being a selected member of the Clinton Global Initiative and the Advisory Board of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme.

Gavin Hayman
Gavin Hayman is the Executive Director of Open Contracting Partnership, a silo-busting collaboration across government, business and civil society to open up and transform public contracting and procurement. Before joining the Open Contracting Partnership, Gavin was Director of Campaigns and then Executive Director of Global Witness. He helped create the international Publish What You Pay campaign and negotiated the intergovernmental Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to improve disclosure and oversight of over trillion dollars of oil and mining money paid around the world. He is also an expert on illicit financial flows, and helped lead global efforts to end the abuse of anonymous shell companies for money laundering and financial crime, including at the G8 and Open Government Partnership. He has a Doctorate from the University of Reading and has worked with Chatham House in London and the United National Environmental Programme in the past on analyzing and investigating global environmental crime.

Eliza Niewiadomska
Eliza Niewiadomska, senior counsel in charge of the public procurement sector at the Legal Transition Programme , EBRD Eliza is responsible for regulatory advice on digital transformation of government commerce and leads technical cooperation activities under the EBRD UNCITRAL Public Procurement Reform Initiative and the EBRD GPA Technical Cooperation Facility. Lawyer and economist, Eliza holds postgraduate degrees from the Warsaw University, Poland and the University College London and King’s College in the United Kingdom. Eliza worked for the Polish government during regulatory reforms of Poland’s accession to the European Union and upon leaving civil service, as a general counsel in the IT industry. Prior to joining the EBRD in 2009, Eliza was head of procurement at power & energy company, PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA in Warsaw.

Jean-François Thibous
Jean-François Thibous is the project director for the digital transformation of public procurement at the French Ministry of Economy and Finance. He is leading a major digital project aimed at interoperating French buyer profiles as well as actions in the field of open data for public procurement. Jean-François began his career in the senior civil service in France and at the European Commission. He was also an advisor for economic and social affairs in the ministerial cabinet for sustainable development. He has also worked in the corporate world as director of an investment fund, managing director of an environmental group and founding president of a management company for large public-private projects. Jean-François is a graduate of the « Ecole Polytechnique » and the « Corps des Ponts, Eaux et Forêts ».

Kirsi Koivusaari
Kirsi Koivusaari is the Chief Financial Officer in Hansel LTD with years of experience in public procurement, financing and accounting, HR, business strategy, risk management, and sustainability. Hansel LTD is a non-profit limited company and acts as a central purchasing body for the public administration in Finland. Hansel's aim is to create saving for society by tendering and maintaining the joint procurement agreements for services and products that bring significant savings in the form of prices, quality, and process costs. Hansel also offers procurement tendering and development services. Kirsi will be talking about Hansel's online service on Finnish public spending by name: Tutkihankintoja.fi (Openprocurement.fi).

Adriana Homolová
Adriana Homolová is a investigative data journalism, focusing on European journalistic cross-border cooperation. Currently she is working with the Dutch investigative newsroom Follow The Money, an cross-border cooperation for investigating migration Lost in Europe, and an organization for developing journalism Arena for Journalism in Europe, where she helps to organize Dataharvest: the largest conference for investigative journalism in Europe. Public procurement is her special interest field. She co-led the Elvis (map me tender) project, currently available for defense spending at defence.tenders.exposed.

André Weimar
As director Procurement, Facilities and Housing Policies André Weimar is responsible for the Procurement infrastructure of the Central Government. From ballpoints to computers, cars to energy and to catering. Impact is key. Environment, people and society have to profit of it! Now the Chief Procurement Officer is curious to find out in which way more openness could lead to more impactful orders.

Do you want to know more about the procurement strategy of the Dutch central government? Take a look at it: Procurement with Impact

Thom Townsend
Thom Townsend is Executive Director of Open Ownership which supports Governments around the world to implement open information about who ultimately controls and benefits from companies registered in their jurisdictions. This data supports the ending of the abuse of anonymous companies, enhances the business environment and provides essential information for better understanding who ultimately benefits from trade. Prior to joining Open Ownership Thom was Head of Data Policy for the UK Government.

Jonaid Myzyri
Jonaid Myzyri, after completing his studies and being honored with a Gold Medal at the Faculty of Law, University of Tirana, built his career in the procurement field. He joined Albania's Public Procurement Commission and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy in 2015 and was elected by the Assembly of the Republic of Albania as chairman of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC). As chairman of PPC, he undertook the most important reform of the last 10 years in the procurement review body: digitalization of services (e-appeals). Also, by using the new standards of publication based on OECD principles, he intends to promote transparency and openness as tools to further improve the procurement system in Albania. This ongoing reform of digitalization has been praised by SIGMA-OECD, by ranking Albania and the Public Procurement Commission in first place in the Western Balkan region.

Elena Calistru
Elena Calistru is the chair and founder of Funky Citizens, a Romanian-based NGO. Funky Citizens builds research-based, data-driven advocacy tools. Funky Citizens’ tools aim to be educational and actionable, encouraging citizens to engage in accountability and government responsibility initiatives in which they can see an impact. Elena has more than 10 years of experience in civil society projects, both at national and international level. Her expertise is mainly in the area of good governance, transparency, public finance and advocacy. She strongly believes that data and online tools can empower citizens to influence public sector reform.

Sandor Lederer
Sandor Lederer is one of the founders and Director of K-Monitor, a non-profit public funds watchdog based in Budapest, Hungary. It was founded to improve the levels of transparency, accountability and the rule of law in Hungary. Civic participation and technology-driven solutions are among the organization’s key instruments. Sandor is a European Young Leader at Friends of Europe, a German Marshall Fund alumni and a Barack Obama Fellow. He has been a member of the International Advisory Board of the ePanstwo Foundation (Poland) since April 2017. Currently, he acts as a Members of IAB support ad hoc and strategic activities of the ePF in Poland and in the CEE region. He represents K-Monitor in the board of the TransparenCEE Network.

Giovanni Paolo Sellitto
Giovanni Paolo Sellitto works for the International Relations Unit at Italy's National Anticorruption Authority. He is an ICT engineer and since 2006 has been leading on e-government projects for the digitalization and cross-border interoperability of public procurement at national and EU level. He was involved in the set up of the National Database of Public Contracts and related digital services, ANAC's Public Procurement Open Data Portal and in various projects for the standardization and the digitalization of public procurement at Italian and EU level, like CEN BII, eSENS, H2020 TOOP, the eProcurement Ontology, and an e-procurement dataspace BDTI pilot.

Krzysztof Izdebski
Krzysztof Izdebski is an expert at the Open Spending EU Coalition and the Stefan Batory Foundation. He is a member of the Osiatyński Archive Advisory Board, the Marshall Memorial, Marcin Król and Recharging Advocacy Rights in Europe Fellow. He is a lawyer specialized in Freedom of Information, re-use of public sector information and technologies which impact democracy. He has wide expertise in relations between public administration and citizens. He is the author of publications on freedom of information, technology, public administration, corruption, and public participation.

Paul Maasen
Paul Maassen started working with the Open Government Partnership in June 2012. He is currently the Chief, Country Support (CCS). The CCS leads on the implementation of the strategy for OGPs engagement with and strategic support of all OGP stakeholders at the national and local level. His team with staff in over 10 locations supports global efforts of open government champions, primarily of government and civil society, in using Open Government Partnership to further their objectives on transparency, accountability and participation. Before assuming this role Paul was responsible for overseeing the OGP support to civil society across the globe. Paul has a long track record in the role technology and media can play in changing people’s lives and the societies they live in. Prior to joining OGP Paul worked as Head of Finance and Partnerships for WWF International’ Global Climate & Energy Initiative, working primarily with WWF offices in emerging economies to strengthen the design and sustainability of their programs. Before joining WWF Paul worked for 7 years with Dutch development organisation Hivos, as program manager for the global ICT & Media program. This is where he learned the ropes of being a funder and got a deep understanding of the complexities of realizing change in developing and repressive countries. Paul strongly believes in the potential of individuals to make a difference if they set their mind to it and get the tools – including technology – to realize their potential. He was also involved in the establishment of the East African citizen agency initiative Twaweza. Paul attained private sector experience with Dutch telecom company KPN. He holds an MSC in industrial engineering and management. Paul is based in Brussels.

Manuela Cruz
Manuela Cruz is in charge of the TED and EU Procurement Unit at the Publications Office of the European Union. She joined the European Commission in 1992 and worked in areas ranging from the Structural Funds, Administration, Communication, Public Health and publication of EU Law. Manuela graduated in Law in 1990 at the Portuguese Catholic University in Porto, Portugal, and has post-graduations in European Studies and in Public Administration.

Rachel Hanna
Rachel Hanna joined the Access Info team in 2019 as Legal Researcher and Campaigner and uses her position to advocate for the universal enjoyment of the right to information. In this role, Rachel runs Access Info’s human rights based research and legal analysis projects, using final results to hold government accountable and campaign for change. As Director of the Northern Ireland Open Government Network, Rachel provides strategic leadership to the organisation and ensures its effective management, aiding it to set the foundations for building a more public-focused, participatory, open, and accountable government in Northern Ireland. Rachel has a degree in Civil and Common Law with Spanish studies from Queen’s University of Belfast, and a master in International Human Rights Law, specialising in the rights of unaccompanied foreign minors.

Serv Wiemers
Serv Wiemers is Executive Director of Open State Foundation, the Amsterdam based NGO focussing on a transparent society by opening up government data and promoting the reuse of these data. Serv’s drivers are a strong democracy and open communication. Before, he has led other NGO’s such as Transparency International Netherlands and The Hague Institute for Global Justice. Serv has extensive international experience, e.g. as his country’s diplomat in China and as election observer in numerous OSCE missions. Also he is the author of articles and books on human rights and international affairs.

Jesse Renema
Jesse Renema is Senior Project Lead at the Open State Foundation, an NGO focussing on a transparent society by opening up government data and promoting the reuse of this data. Jesse leads projects on open procurement, company and beneficial ownership transparency and open spending. Jesse believes public participation and open data are key in creating democratic, societal impact. Jesse will be facilitating the workshops and plenary sessions of this event.

Ieva Dunčikaitė
Ieva Dunčikaitė joined Transparency International’s Lithuanian Chapter in 2018, leading various open data and political integrity initiatives. Currently she works with the topics of public procurement, open data and participatory budgeting. She has also been working with political integrity and nudging Lithuanian politicians to take on more accountable and transparent habits in state politics. Ieva holds a Master’s of European Politics and a double Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and French from University of Exeter, UK. She also studied in Sciences Po Paris, France and Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

Karolis Granickas
Karolis Granickas is Head of Europe working with the European institutions, country governments and civil society to improve public spending in the region. He focuses on strengthening institutions and their public spending using openness principles. He is interested in how open contracting can help power sustainable transition in Europe. Karolis is a member of the European Commission Multi-Stakeholder Expert Group on eProcurement (EXEP) and he also co-leads the Open Spending EU Coalition - a community of open spending champions in the EU. Before joining the Open Contracting Partnership, Karolis worked with Transparency International Lithuania, focusing on citizen engagement using ICT. He also contributed to global open data advocacy efforts, together with the Epsi platform, Open Knowledge International, Open Data Institute and others. From 2014 to 2016, he was a national researcher within the Open Government Partnership Independent Review Mechanism.