Our people

Keith is an independent adviser and trainer, specialising in supporting the achievement of appropriate and sustainable socio-economic development, good governance and integrity in public life, and public sector reform.

Simon worked as a member of the Diplomatic Service in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), now Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) from 1983 to 2023.

Phil is CEO of HousingAI Ltd, an AI-powered regulatory guidance platform for the UK social housing sector. He has over two decades of experience leading high-performing teams in technology and social housing, including founding and growing SDS Ltd into the UK's leading housing development software company before a successful exit in 2023.

Alan is an independent adviser and trainer specialising in defence corruption risk reduction analysis, remedial measures and attitudinal change delivery, with particular expertise in contract award and implementation. He has nearly 20 years international anti-corruption experience, engaging in over 40 countries (with particular emphasis on fragile states) from Afghanistan to Ukraine at the highest military and political levels, much of which was during his time with Transparency International where he was the Senior Military Advisor. He has developed and led the advocacy, analysis, change management and delivery of training and capacity building anti-corruption programmes and tools currently used by NATO, the UK and many other Governments globally. He has held a range of UK key appointments in major organisations and Ministries including, the Royal Air Force’s Director of Training and the Director of Air Operations in the UK Ministry of Defence.

Rob is the Head of Academic Delivery and Development at David Game Higher Education (DGHE) in London and a transnational crime adviser who provides strategic and policy advice to international organisations on any crime which crosses a border. He is also the Transnational Crime Director at Global Risk Alliance Ltd in London, a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Terrorism Trends and Analysis Centre in the USA, which provides research and analytical capability for the Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism at the US Department of State, and both a member of the Global Advisory Board and Partner (Senior Advisor Compliance) at Strategic Swiss Partners in Zurich. Rob was the former Transnational Crime Analyst for the Australian Institute of Criminology (a statutory agency within the Minister for Justice's portfolio) and is currently a retained expert on ‘anti-corruption and good governance’, ‘anti-money laundering’, ‘combating organized crime’ and ‘combating terrorism and its funding’, respectively, for the Economic Crime and Cooperation Division, Council of Europe, a retained expert on ‘anti-corruption’ for the Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative, European Union and the Principal UK Expert for the International Standard (ISO) 37003 on Fraud Controls.

James Nixey is the former director of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the International Affairs Think Tank Chatham House, a position he held since 2013. Prior to that role he served in various roles for the institute since 2000.

Henry has spent 35 years as a British diplomat, the larger proportion of which has been in the Arab world. Amongst his posts have been those of UK High Commissioner to Namibia, Ambassador to Syria and Governorate Coordinator for Basra in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Since retiring from the foreign service in 2004 he has undertaken some 20 election observation missions, spanning five continents, for the EU, Commonwealth and other organisations. He has also participated in stabilisation training exercises for the UK Government; and is a Senior Consultant with Middle East Consultants (MEC) International Ltd, with whom he has worked on an initiative to protect the rights of religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East. As a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he chairs the UK’s southern region branch.

Eleanor is Director of Monash GPS (Global Peace and Security) and Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations. Her research and practice focus on building security and justice after conflict and inclusive approaches to peacebuilding.

Omar is a development studies and management specialist. He is the Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainable Development and Governance (CeSDAG), a Gambian CSO promoting social justice, central and local government accountability and equity. He is currently serving as a consultant, Project Manager on the Africa Centre of Excellence (ACE) Project funded by the World Bank to transform the Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI) to the University of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology (USET). Previous assignments include as Adviser on Governance and Public Sector Management in the development of the Gambia’s Second National Development Plan, (2023-27); advising the Gambia’s Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) in a review of the 1997 Constitution; advisory assignments for Action Aid, Child Fund and other CSOs, as well as the National Human Rights Commission; and assignments for regional and international agencies including ECOWAS, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), UNICEF and the EU. Omar is bi-lingual (French-English)

Avgustina’s expertise lies in the geo-politics of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, regional cooperation and Euro-Atlantic integration. Until her recent retirement she held (from 2016) the position of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Bulgaria to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prior to that she served as a defence and security adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria, as political adviser to the Minister of Defence, and as Deputy Defence Minister with a portfolio encompassing strategic planning and defence policy, bilateral consultations, relations with NATO and the EU, and anti-corruption policies. She has served as a Vice President of the Atlantic Treaty Association, chaired the Euro-Atlantic Education Initiative Foundation, and served as a subject matter expert for NATO’s Building Integrity (BI) programme and as senior adviser at Transparency International (TI)-UK Defence and Security Programme. She has lectured internationally at major centres including the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany; the National Defence University, Shrivenham, UK; the National Defence University of Ukraine; the International Anti-corruption Academy, Vienna, and the European Centre for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. She has participated as a speaker at major international conferences including the UN Anti-corruption Convention in Panama and the Sixth Global Conference of Parliamentarians Against Corruption in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Maciej is an independent adviser and trainer specialising in governance and anti-corruption, and currently a visiting lecturer at Poland’s National School for Public Administration and Warsaw’s Military University of Technology. He has advised at the highest levels across Poland’s public service and in its Defence Sector. His appointments include those of Special Representative for Governance and Anti-Corruption, and Senior Counsellor with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Senior International Adviser and Director of the Anti-Corruption Procedures Bureau with the Ministry of Defence. He has been instrumental in the development of Codes of Conduct for both civilian and military personnel; advised the Anti-Corruption Panel of the EU Eastern Partnership, NATO Building Defence Establishments Programme; and has been a member of Peer Review Teams evaluating integrity self-assessments in Bosnia Herzegovina, Ukraine, Croatia and Latvia. Formerly a Board Member of Transparency International Poland, he is the author of many reports and publications on anti-corruption, including “Basics of Anti-corruption for Public and Private Entities”, Forum Media, Polska, Poznań, 2017.

Peter is a development economist, specialising in economic management systems development, and financial, economic and social analysis of public sector technical support programmes. Presently he is the manager of a small, specialist development management consultancy. Previously he held senior advisory positions on technical cooperation at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. For 17 years he was a Senior Interregional Adviser with the Department of Technical Cooperation for Development (DTCD), backstopping and providing technical support for UNDP funded country- based projects and programmes in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Subsequently, he was a Senior Technical Cooperation Adviser in the Office of the Under-Secretary General, UNDESA (the Department of Economic and Social Affairs), where amongst other activities he became member of the UN Development Group (UNDG) and advised the Humanitarian Trust Fund for Human Security. Prior to joining the UN in New York, he held the positions of Chief Technical Adviser and Team Leader of a UNDP/World Bank team supporting economic management in the Ministry of Finance and Planning in Uganda; and, financed by the UK's Overseas Development Administration, Economic Adviser to the Economic Planning unit in Sabah Malaysia under the Colombo Plan. Previous positions included as economic management consultant with Coopers and Lybrand Associates (now Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC)); economic adviser attached to the Secretariat of the Royal Commission on the Press under the auspices of the Civil Service Commission, UK Government; and as Nuffield Fellow with the Overseas Development Institute where he advised as regional economist in Uganda. He is the author of numerous project reports and papers.

Dr Mark Charlton is Associate Director of Sustainable Development Goal Impact and Net Zero Research Theme Director at De Montfort University (DMU), UK. He also teaches public policy in the Department of Politics. Since 2014, Mark has worked closely with the United Nations (UN) on a number of campaigns that engage university staff and students in global issues. Since 2016 Mark has led the United Nations Academic Impact Global Hub for Sustainable Development Goal 16, based at DMU, working across the university to develop research and teaching outputs that seek to impact and promote indicators of the SDGs. Following a recent programme of change to chairing responsibilities for all SDG hubs, instigated by the UN, Mark now heads the SDG 11 Hub at DMU.

Dr Lennon Chang is Associate Professor, Cyber Risk and Policy, in Deakin Cyber Research and Innovation Centre and School of Information Technology, at Deakin University, Australia. He is also the Vice Chairman of the Asia Pacific Association of Technology and Society which he co-founded in 2012 and the founder of Cyberbaykin: Myanmar Cyber Security Awareness campaign. Previous appointments include as Assistant Professor of criminology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong, and as researcher and project manager at the Science and Technology Law Centre, Institute for Information Industry, Taiwan. He is particularly interested in the regulation and governance of cyberspace in the Asia-Pacific region. His book ‘Cybercrime in the Greater China Region: Regulatory Responses and Crime Prevention’ (Edward Elgar, 2012) is about the nature and range of responses to cybercrime between China and Taiwan.

Nadja has extensive experience in multilateral diplomacy, international affairs, and security and defence, both within a national and multilateral context. She has dedicated the last 15 years of her career to promoting security sector governance and building integrity in the defence sector as part of the Ministry of Defence of Bulgaria and at present, at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as deputy team leader of the organisation’s Governance and Institutions Team. In this capacity, Nadja has contributed to the development of the NATO Building Integrity Policy and is in charge of Building Integrity in NATO and partner countries providing strategic advice and capacity building on good governance in the defence and security sector.

Dr Ahmet Erdi Öztürk is a Reader in Politics and International Relations at London Metropolitan University and a Non-Resident Fellow at ELIAMEP, the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy. He is currently Chair of the Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA-ENMISA), co-editor of the Edinburgh University Press book series on Modern Turkey, and an editor of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Richard is a senior consulting and national security leader with more than two decades’ experience helping governments and public institutions operate with greater integrity, resilience and impact. His career spans frontline international law enforcement, complex security environments, and senior consulting roles across defence, cyber, resilience, and public sector transformation.