Ms. Laura Pascua is the Undersecretary responsible for policy and reforms at the Department of Budget and Management.  She has risen through the ranks since joining the department in the late 70s.  Her portfolio includes overseeing the conduct of fiscal and expenditure policy research and planning, including the development of fiscal and budgeting frameworks.  She is also responsible in coordination and monitoring of reforms efforts, review of proposed legislation with budgetary impact and monitoring of economic developments. 

Aside from her current position, Ms. Pascua is also the Chairperson of the Executive Technical Board of the Development Budget Coordination Committee and that of the Inter-Agency Working Group of the Government Procurement and Policy Board.  She also represents DBM in various permanent committees and boards.

She has undergone trainings on fiscal and policy analysis, public finance, procurement reforms and corporate governance programs held in and out of the country.

 

Chilean lawyer with a Masters in Public Law from Catholic University of Chile, with 16 years of experience in public procurement matters, both in the Supreme Audit Institution and the Public Procurement and Contracting Bureau, where he currently serves as Chief of the Legal Division and Framework Agreements. In his role of ensuring the proper functioning of government procurement, highlighting participation in new regulations and directives, developing of framework agreements catalogue, and the establishment of procedures in his prior role as Transparency Manager.

Paulo Magina is currently the Head of the Public Procurement Unit at the OECD Public Sector Integrity Division.

With over 10 years’ experience in the public sector, most recently he was a board member and the CFO of the Portuguese Central Government Shared Services Agency, in charge of finance, accounting, HR, IT and public procurement for the public administration. He was also the CEO of the National Public Procurement Agency, where he led the setting up of the central purchasing body and the e-procurement implementation. He also worked lately with the EBRD and UNCITRAL to advise policy and legal reforms, develop action plans and road maps for restructuring public procurement systems in the CIS region. Formerly he was deputy member of the cabinet of the secretary of state for transports in Portugal and also held managerial positions as CFO and Investment Director in the transportation, banking and private equity sectors, for more than 12 years.

Prof. Kakha Demetrashvili has more than 20 years of experience in international public aid and development programs as a senior management team member, team leader, project manager and a consultant to a wide variety of donor, governmental and non-governmental organisations. His experience is worldwide but since 1995 mainly in Central- and Eastern Europe in general, and the South Caucasus area in particular. He has a strong background in Public Management, ICTD, and eGovernance in the context of democratic development and good governance. Since 1997 being as a project manager, team leader and a leading expert/consultant/analyst of UNDP, EU/EC, USAID, CoE, WB, Dr. Demetrashvili was involved in a variety of specialized democratic governance programs including public administration reform, civil service reform, parliamentary strengthening, public finance management reform, government oversight, supreme audit reform, civil registry reform, pilot anti-corruption initiatives, modernization of financial system, decentralization and local governance reform, regional development, reform of electoral administration, eGovernance, ICTD, strengthening of civil society institutions, human rights and national minorities issues, institutional-building and capacity development projects.

Since June, 2014 Dr. Demetrashvili has employed as a Deputy Chairman of the State Procurement Agency of Georgia.

Heidi L. Mendoza is the current Commissioner of the Commission on Audit (COA), an advocate of good governance and a champion of procurement reform. She is recognized as one of the outstanding auditors in the country as she conducted several audits which uncovered procurement fraud and other irregularities, resulting to cases being filed in court. She became the Local Government Procurement Specialist for World Bank in 2006 and has given several lectures on government procurement fraud. She is also the author of the book entitled “A Guide to Investigation & Common Procurement Fraud and Irregularities.” Heidi is a public accountant, UN auditor and Yahoo 2011 Modern Day Hero.

Mr. Walter Poick is a Director in the Procurement Division of the Operations Services and Financial Management Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

As a Director, Mr. Poick oversees procurement for ADB’s Southeast Asia Department, East Asia Department, and the Pacific Department. Mr. Poick has been with ADB for more than 15 years.

Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Poick worked for one of the leading European international plant builders and engineering companies in the iron and steel industry. Before that, he worked for an Austrian commercial bank.

An Austrian national, Mr. Poick holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.

Gloria Ngoma holds a Bachelor of Science in Production Management, Graduate Diploma in Supply Chain Management and Masters in Business Administration. She has twelve (12) years’ experience in public procurement with considerable exposure to various procurement systems in the COMESA region. Gloria is currently working with the Zambia Public Procurement Authority heading the Directorate of Compliance Monitoring and is a part time lecturer at a local University. She is currently heading the procurement reforms, one of the ten reform areas, under the Public Financial Management Reform Program (PFMRP). Her interest is in systems improvement in procurement.

  1. FLORENCIO B. ABAD
  2. STEVEN L. SCHOONER
  3. EVELINE VENANZONI
  4. CRAIG LARDNER
  5. ENZO DE LAURENTIIS
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