EXECUTIVE BOARD 137th session Provisional agenda item 8.3
EB137/8 Add.2 21 May 2015
Membership of the Independent Expert Oversight Advisory Committee Report by the Secretariat 1. At its 130th session in January 2012, the Executive Board adopted decision EB130(15), in which it requested the Director-General to propose two candidates for membership of the Committee to replace the two members who had finished their term of office. In line with this request, the Executive Board at its 131st session in May 2012, adopted decision EB131(4), in which it appointed two members, one of whom subsequently declined their appointment. The Committee regained its full complement of members in January 2013 when another member was appointed by the Board in decision EB132(2). The two incumbents appointed following decisions EB131(4) and EB132(2) are Mr Farid Lahoud (Lebanon) and Ms Mary NCube (Zambia). Their terms are non-renewable and both run until May 2016. 2. The Secretariat considered that is was important that in future a candidate whose appointment to the Committee had already been confirmed by the Board could no longer decline the offer of appointment at the last minute, thereby upsetting the Committee’s regular schedule of membership renewal. With this is mind, the Secretariat brought forward the timing of its next search for candidates, beginning in the first quarter of 2015. 3. It was decided to follow the selection procedure that had already proven successful during the previous rounds of selection for the Committee in 2009 and 2012. An advertisement was placed in The Economist, with criteria for selection that had originally been developed by an external specialist for that purpose. A request for proposals was also sent to the Geneva-based missions of the Organization’s Member States. An external consultant was then appointed to carry out the screening of candidates and to establish a recommended shortlist. 4. During this process, 171 applications were considered, including seven nominations proposed by Member States. Top-ranked candidates from the pool of highly-qualified candidates previously constituted in 2009 and 2012, as well as a few recommendations from existing Committee members, were added to this list. An initial screening, focusing primarily on education and qualifications, reduced the number of candidates to 20. The applications of these candidates were then evaluated against the following criteria: education; financial, audit and evaluation qualifications; oversight, strategic and managerial experience at a senior level; relevant oversight committee membership; international and United Nations experience; and change management experience.
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5. For the present selection process, it was also important to give due consideration to the need to retain a satisfactory geographical and gender balance among committee members, and to ensure a balanced and complementary mix of relevant skills between existing and new members. On the strength of this evaluation, the list was further reduced, providing 11 candidates considered to be the best qualified. The candidates concerned were invited to a first round of telephone conversations with the current Secretary of the Committee and the external consultant. 6. These contacts enabled the Secretariat to draw up a short-list of five candidates, who were then further assessed in a second telephone conference with senior management of the Organization, including a Senior Advisor to the Director-General, the Assistant Director-General for General Management, and the Comptroller. 7. Following this multiple screening process, the Director-General identified two candidates to be proposed to the Executive Board. A summary curriculum vitae for each candidate is set out below for the Board’s consideration. In addition, the details of the most promising candidates who were not, ultimately, retained in the present selection process were used to update the roster of candidates to be considered for future such vacancies. Ms Jeya Wilson Gender: Nationality: Region: Female South African and New Zealander African
Education and experience Qualifications: PhD in International Relations from St Anthony’s College, Oxford; Bachelor of Arts, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; Women’s Executive Leadership, Harvard Business School, United States and Financial Times Non–Executive Board Director Diploma, United Kingdom. Member of the ILO Independent Oversight Advisory Committee, and member of the Global Fund’s Audit and Ethics Committee. Recent positions include a nongovernmental organization (Chief Executive Officer, World Heart Federation, Geneva); UNDP (Director, Business Partnerships Division, New York; Chief Executive Officer, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry; and an adjunct professorship at the University of Geneva. Currently Governor at Northumbria University and involved with that University in an innovative project to bring business and research together.
Experience:
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Mr Leonardo P. Gomes Pereira Gender: Nationality: Region: Male Brazilian Americas
Education and experience Qualifications: BSc in Engineering, Federal University of Rio de Janerio, Brazil; MBA, Warwick University, United Kingdom; various executive development programmes with the International Institute for Management Development, Switzerland, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, and Columbia University, Columbia Business School, United States. The current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission, possesses a combination of banking, securities and senior managerial experience in the private sector (former Executive Vice President of a large Brazilian airline; Chief Executive Officer of a teak wood producer; Chief Financial Officer of the largest Brazilian cable Television provider); also on the Board of the Financial Review Committee, a key committee monitoring the work of the International Accounting Standards Board.
Experience:
8. The term of office of the other three members of the Committee ends in January 2018, the members concerned are Mr Mukesh Arya (India), Mr Bob Samels (Canada) and Mr Steve Tinton (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).
ACTION BY THE EXECUTIVE BOARD 9. The Executive Board is invited to take note of this report and to appoint the following two new members for a four-year non-renewable term starting in May 2016: Ms Jeya Wilson (South Africa and New Zealand) and Mr Leonardo P. Gomes Pereira (Brazil). The two new members will replace the two outgoing members, Mr Farid Lahoud and Ms Mary Ncube.
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