Introducing the New Open Gov Hub Advisory Council
We are delighted to announce Open Gov Hub's brand new Advisory Council
This group of incredible people will support our unique nonprofit social enterprise to continue to grow both our mission and business at an exciting time. Late 2022 marks our 10 year anniversary, and we continue to adapt to global challenges and opportunities (like the lasting shift to hybrid work, and global democratic backsliding).
This new Advisory Council is a consultative body and a strategic braintrust that will provide guidance on a variety of high-level OGH decisions, from revenue strategies and fundraising for special programs, to organizational development and government, to recruitment for the OGH network and deepening existing connections and collaborations. Each Advisor brings deep expertise in unique areas, and will serve a 2-year term.
UPDATE: Nada Zohdy, the former Open Gov Hub Director who led OGH for 7 years, joined the Advisory Council in July 2022 to continue to foster its growth in a new advisory role. She currently serves as the new Global Network Lead at the Obama Foundation.
Learn more about all of our Advisors below.
Meet the Advisors:
NADA ZOHDY
Title: Global Network Lead at the Obama Foundation (and former OGH Director)
Nada Zohdy is the current Global Network Lead at the Obama Foundation and the former Director of the Open Gov Hub, the world’s first innovation hub dedicated to the theme of open government. She has been a civic engagement consultant for multilateral institutions (like the World Bank and OECD), philanthropic foundations (like the Democracy Fund and Pillars Fund) and NGOs (like the Participatory Budgeting Project and the Open Government Partnership). She was previously the founding program coordinator for civil society partnerships at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), where she created a program that continues today to coach and connect a dozen local watchdogs and think tanks in transitioning Arab countries in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Over the last decade, Nada has worked with over 100 nonprofits in different capacities (one-on-one and through networks, in the US and internationally). These experiences fuel her passion for social innovation, globally and locally. She often writes and speaks publicly about democracy and social entrepreneurship, and has been published by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Carnegie Endowment, Waging Nonviolence, and elsewhere. She is currently an Advisor for the Horizons Project, Accountable Now, and the BudgIT Foundation. Previously, she was Board Chair of Rhize, a nonprofit that coaches people-powered social movements around the world. Zohdy received her Master in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School where she was a Pforzheimer Nonprofit Fellow, received her Bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, and is a 2009 Truman Scholar.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadazohdy/
Jean-Louis Sarbib
Title: Director of Africa and Middle East at Centennial Group
Jean-Louis Sarbib is currently Head of the Africa and Middle East Practice at Centennial Group International, a Distinguished fellow of the Emerging Markets Forum, and chair of the ACET Advisory Panel for the G20 Compact with Africa.
From March 2009 to January 2019, he was Chief Executive Officer of Development Gateway, an international nonprofit social enterprise whose mission is to support the use of data, technology, and evidence to create accountable institutions that listen and respond to the needs of their constituents and are efficient in targeting and delivering services that improve lives.
From 1980 to 2006, Mr. Sarbib was at the World Bank where he occupied a number of senior positions: Vice President for Africa, Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa, and Senior Vice President for human development.
Upon leaving the Bank and before leading Development Gateway, Mr. Sarbib joined Wolfensohn & Company, a private equity firm, as a managing director. He was a non-resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and taught at Georgetown University. He serves on a number of non-profit boards (Partnership for Transparency Fund, Feedback Labs, and Open Data Watch). He is a member of the board of governors of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a non executive director on the boards of the African University of Science and Technology, the Nelson Mandela Institution, and NOI Polls in Nigeria.
Prior to joining the World Bank Mr. Sarbib taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and worked for the French Government.
In 2006, Mr. Sarbib was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and received a Lifetime Award for Diversity and Inclusion from the World Bank. He received numerous honors from the countries where he worked.
Mr. Sarbib is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (now Mines Paris Tech) and holds a Master in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He attended the General Manager course at Harvard Business School.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jls5644/
Dennis Whittle
Title: Co-Founder, Feedback Labs and GlobalGiving
Dennis Whittle is Co-Founder of Normal>Next, Feedback Labs and GlobalGiving. Previously, he was an economist at the World Bank where he worked for many years in Indonesia and Russia. His team there also created the Innovation Marketplace and the Development Marketplace. He has been Visiting Scholar at the NYU Development Research Institute, Robin Richards Donohoe Professor of the Practice and Social Entrepreneur in Residence at UNC-Chapel Hill, Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University and Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denniswhittle/
Lindsay Coates
Title: Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Global Development (CGD)
Lindsay Coates is a nonprofit executive with a legal background in civil rights that brings together her passion for human rights, the social sector, and global development. She is active as a speaker and writer on a range of topics around equity and inclusion.
Until recently, Lindsay Coates was managing director of the BRAC global Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative. At BRAC, Lindsay led the advocacy agenda to leave no one behind through the effective, innovative and multi-dimensional solutions. She was responsible for learning and technical assistance activities worldwide in the 10+ countries in Africa and South Asia. Before joining BRAC, Lindsay served as the president of InterAction, a coalition of NGOs working to address poverty and injustice. Lindsay has also served numerous boards and as part of leadership initiatives to address pressing global challenges. These include the steering committees of the World Bank Global Partnership for Social Accountability and the World Bank Partnership for Economic Inclusion, the Leadership Circle of Foreign Policy for American, the executive committee for the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, and the boards of Episcopal Relief and Development, United States Global Leadership Coalition and Development Gateway. She also served on the Obama administration’s Task Force on Global Poverty.
Prior to her work in the nonprofit sector, Lindsay practiced civil rights law in various capacities including beginning her law practice in Mississippi. She is a graduate of the University of the South (Sewanee) and the University of Mississippi School of Law.
Maria Baron
Title: Global Executive Director at Fundación Directorio Legislativo
María Baron is the Global Executive Director of Directorio Legislativo in Argentina. She is a journalist, has received a Masters Degree in International Relations from the University of Bologna, Italy, and is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina. She is also a Fulbright-APSA Congressional Fellow and holder of the 2013 NDI’s Civic Innovator Prize.
She has worked for civil society nonprofit organizations in Argentina and abroad with the aim of reducing unethical practices of lawmakers and public officials. María initiated and currently chairs the Latin American Network for Legislative Transparency composed of 24 organizations in 12 countries of the region. She has published nine editions of Directorio Legislativo. Quiénes son nuestros legisladores y cómo nos representan.
With her team at Directorio, María developed a methodology around building consensus across polarized stakeholders on different issues and has managed to bring many of those agreements to Congress where they were signed into laws.
Within Directorio Legislativo she created the Regulatory Alert Service, which by using political analytics they can predict changes in regulation in 19 countries of the Hemisphere.
María served as a civil society member on the OGP Steering Committee from 2016 – 2021. She also was civil society Lead Co-Chair from 2020 – 2021 and is the current Chair of the OGP Board of Directors.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariabaron/
Stephen Commins
Title: Associate Director of the Global Public Affairs program and Urban Planning Lecturer at the Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA
Stephen Commins works in areas of regional and international development, with an emphasis on service delivery and governance in fragile states. Commins was Director of the Development Institute at the UCLA African Studies Center in the 1980s, and then worked as Director of Policy and Planning at World Vision International in the 1990s.
Dr. Commins was Senior Human Development Specialist at the World Bank from 1999 to 2005. Commins was one of the co-authors of the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) 2004, Making Services Work for Poor People. He also managed several initiatives on service delivery and safety nets in post-conflict countries, and the relationships between political reform and improved services. Later on, he served as the consultation manager for several WDR publications, including: Behavior, Mind and Society (2015), Governance and the Law (2017), and Learning to Realize Education's Promise (2018).
Beyond the World Bank, Dr. Commins has conducted studies on health systems strengthening in fragile states for World Vision Canada, as well as on sub-national fragility in India and Pakistan for the HLSP Institute. He is also the thematic lead on ‘Safety and Security’ for the African Cities Research Consortium and recently authored a UNECA background on the ‘quadruple nexus’ in North Africa.
Dr. Commins teaches courses on urbanization, practice and methods in international planning, climate change, and disaster management at the Department of Urban Planning, Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-commins-104a813/
Nadia Sandi
Title: Senior Strategist, Advisor; Social innovation and learning ecosystems
Nadia is social change senior leader who's cocreating with different partners to accelerate the shift towards a world where everyone is a changemaker, thriving and regenerating our planet and all living ecosystems. She recently launched Thriving Children Everywhere within the framework of Presencing Institute’s ulab 2x. Prior to that, Nadia was an advisor at the World Bank’s Innovation Labs, and Youth in Development program, after working on private sector development in the Africa region and overseeing IFC’s Financial markets’ portfolio valuations. Nadia was the director of project management and integration at Ashoka’s Changemakers. Earlier in her career, she also worked at private business consulting, investment banking and in executive education.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadiasandi/
Andrew Hoppin
Title: CIO @ ChainLink Capital; Board @ CoverUSHealth
Andrew is an open source govtech entrepreneur, former government CIO and professional investor passionate about ventures that build a more decentralized, egalitarian and democratic planet.
He currently serves as a Chief Investment Officer at ChainLink Capital Management, a leading blockchain technology investor, and on the Board of CoverUS, a digital health company driving a more efficient and effective US health care system by putting patients in control of their own health data. He also serves as a Global Impact Entrepreneur and Board Member of New Zealand's Edmund Hillary Fellowship, and on the Board of Humanity in Action.
Previously, Andrew founded and built the DKAN open source open data platform, before selling the company to Granicus, and co-founded the NASA CoLab program to increase efficiency and transparency by building new partnerships between NASA and external communities.
As NYSenate CIO, his team created the first government Github repository in the world. Andrew was selected by GovTech as New York State Public Sector CIO of the Year and by Information Week for the "Government CIO 50."
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahoppin/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ahoppin
Saul Ettlin
Title: Senior Advisor, Community Vision
Saul Ettlin is the Senior Advisor to the President at Community Vision and has over 20 years of experience managing and advising nonprofits. He has worked with dozens of organizations to explore and implement sustainable real estate solutions, particularly shared space strategies. He has a strong interest in growing the amount of community controlled real estate as power building, placekeeping and resiliency strategies. Beyond real estate, Saul has significant grassroots electoral experience, especially young voter engagement. He holds a MPA with a concentration in Nonprofit Management and a BS in Political Science and Community Development. Both are from Portland State University.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saulettlin/
