Team

The Financial Secrecy Index is possible thanks to a dedicated team.  Below are those individuals, listed in alphabetical order, who were closely involved in the design and research for the Financial Secrecy Index 2020. Ultimately, the full Tax Justice Network team feeds into the research process. In addition, a great number of external researchers support the Financial Secrecy Index.

Markus Meinzer, lead coordinator of the Financial Secrecy Index 2020, is a senior analyst and director of the Tax Justice Network and was the lead researcher on the Financial Secrecy Index. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. His thesis assessed the OECD’s policy design between 2008 and 2018 in countering cross-border tax evasion and avoidance. He also authored the book Tax Haven Germany (Steueroase Deutschland), published by C.H. Beck in 2015, and was the Tax Justice Network’s principal investigator on the EU research project Combatting Fiscal Fraud and Empowering Regulator (COFFERS, Horizon 2020), which ended in January 2020. He studied development economics as a component of his political science degree at the Free University of Berlin, and was an exchange student at the University of Sussex (UK). At http://steuergerechtigkeit.blogspot.com and @markusmeinzer.

Moran Harari, deputy coordinator of the Financial Secrecy Index 2020, is a researcher for the Tax Justice Network, and is also the director of the Tax Justice Network Israel which is based at the College Management Academic Studies in Rishon Lezion. Moran completed her LLB at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her LLM in human rights law at the University College London. She worked for several years as a tax lawyer in Tel Aviv, and has worked in the corporate social responsibility field both in London and Israel.

Andres Knobel, deputy coordinator of the Financial Secrecy Index 2020, is a senior analyst for the Tax Justice Network. He studied Law at the University of Buenos Aires and was an exchange student at Columbia University in New York. He has completed his Master’s degree in Law and Economics at Di Tella University, focusing on tax law and public policy. His work focuses on beneficial ownership, automatic exchange of information and trust law.

Michèle Andriamparany Davis is the Tax Justice Network’s Francophone Africa Hub Researcher. She has seven years’ experience in public policy research and analysis on francophone Africa. Before joining the Tax Justice Network, she worked for four years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with a range of international organisations (the African Union, United Nations and International Organisation of La Francophonie) on a number of pan-African policy issues, including illicit financial flows. Prior to this, she worked in the civil service of her native Madagascar, including as a diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as an anti-corruption specialist with the Independent Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Mark Bou Mansour coordinates the Tax Justice Network’s communications and campaigns. He previously worked as Communications Manager at the Family and Childcare Trust and at iguacu. Mark holds a Masters in Social and Political Studies from the University of Sussex.

John Christensen is an economist and forensic auditor. He is currently the chair of the Tax Justice Network, which he co-founded. He is a former economic adviser to government of Jersey. In addition to his work with the Tax Justice Network, he is a board member of Tax Inspectors Without Borders @TIWB_news. He has been described by the Guardian as “the unlikely figurehead of a worldwide campaign against tax avoidance.” His research on offshore finance has been widely published in books and featured in a number of TV and film documentaries.

Alex Cobham is an economist and chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, and a commissioner for the statutory Poverty and Inequality Commission for Scotland. He is also a founding member of the steering group of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation, and of the technical advisory group for the Fair Tax Mark. His work focuses on illicit financial flows, effective taxation for development, and inequality. He has been a researcher at Oxford University, Christian Aid, Save the Children, and the Center for Global Development, and has consulted widely, including for UNCTAD, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, DFID, and the World Bank. Alex has just published two books: The Uncounted, by Polity Press; and Estimating Illicit Financial Flows: A Critical Guide to the Data, Methodologies, and Findings, written with Petr Janský, by Oxford University Press.

Maïmouna Diakité served as a researcher with the Tax Justice Network between 2018 and 2019m, based in Dakar, Senegal. She completed her PhD in Economics at CERDI (University of Clermont Auvergne, France) with a focus on fiscal affairs and applied econometrics. Before joining the Tax Justice Network, she gained experience in domestic revenue mobilisation in developing countries (in the areas of tax harmonisation, efficiency of VAT systems and taxation of extractive industries revenue) at the Commission of West African Economic and Monetary Union, the Tax Policy Division of the International Monetary Fund and more recently as a Consultant Economist for the World Bank.

Rachel Etter-Phoya is a researcher with the Tax Justice Network. Her work focuses on Anglophone Africa and she is based in Lilongwe, Malawi, where she grew up. Rachel holds an LLM in natural resources law (University of Dundee) and an MSc in rural development (Royal Agricultural University). She formerly worked with Malawian human rights organisation Citizens for Justice and the Revenue Development Foundation with a focus on the extractive industries. 

Javier Garcia-Bernardo is a data scientist at the Tax Justice Network. He completed his PhD with the title “tax avoidance by multinational corporations” in the CORPNET group of the University of Amsterdam. Before that, he did his MSc in Computer Science at the University of Vermont, specialising in Complex Systems.

Verónica Grondona is an Economist (University of Buenos Aires) with a postgraduate qualification in Finance (UTDT), and is currently in a PhD programme in Development Economics (UNQ, Argentina). After having worked as an advisor on transfer pricing for multinational companies from PwC and Transfer Pricing Associates based from Buenos Aires, Madrid and Amsterdam between 2002 and 2007, Verónica joined the tax justice movement in 2013, initially on the research side for Centro de Economía y Finanzas para el Desarrollo de la Argentina (CEFID-AR), and from 2016 to 2019 as an advisor for the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament in relation to the Panama Papers Inquiry Committee and the Special Commission on financial crime, tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Layne Hofman is a project manager for the Tax Justice Network’s financial secrecy workstream. Layne studied Political Science and Human Rights at Agnes Scott College in Georgia, USA. She has experience in NGO project management and advocacy from her previous work on the civil society report for the Universal Periodic Review of the United States, as well as from her time spent at Population Services International supporting public health and social marketing programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Shanna Lima is a researcher with the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy and Tax Advocacy in Latin America (FASTLA) project. She holds master’s degrees in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex and in Economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Before joining the Tax Justice Network, Shanna worked for several years as an account manager at the Brazilian Development Bank.

Lucas Millán is a researcher for Tax Justice Network’s financial secrecy team. He studied in France and the United States, completing Bachelors’ degrees at Pierre et Marie Curie and Panthéon-Assas universities, followed by Masters degrees at Paris-Sorbonne and Boston universities. His academic path has taken him from mathematics and law, to international relations, and finally to tax law and policy. During his training, Lucas has also become familiar with the R programming language. In close collaboration with other members of the Tax Justice Network team, he researches technical aspects of corporate tax evasion, breaking the veil of legal complexity to address damaging tax policies promoted around the world.

Miroslav Palanský is a Ph.D. candidate and researcher at the Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague, and a data scientist at the Tax Justice Network. Through his research, he aims to help in the ongoing fight against corruption, tax abuse and financial secrecy. He holds Master’s degrees in Economics from Charles University and in Econometrics from Aix-Marseille University.

Neerali Gajjar is the Financial Secrecy Index Intern. Neerali has worked in the NGO/NPO sector and in digitally-focused companies and has lived and worked in South Korea. She has studied at the University of Witwatersrand, receiving an MA in Political Science and at the University of Cape Town receiving a Hons in International Relations and a BCom in Philosophy, Political Science and Economics.