20/05/2020

Our team

Agatino Camarda | Director & Co-Founder

Agatino Camarda is a founder of CiFAR and leads our programmes. With a background in international relations and a focus on the Middle East and North Africa, since 2010 Agatino has worked to support civil society worldwide on human rights, anti-corruption, migration and asset recovery.

Jackson Oldfield | Director & Co-Founder

Jackson Oldfield is a founder of CiFAR and leads our research, policy and outreach work. He has a background in international law and has worked for several years in a range of policy and research positions looking at asset recovery and anti-corruption, corporate human rights responsibility and legal reform.

Alexandre Brutelle | Investigations Manager

Alexandre is the Investigations Manager at CiFAR and leads on our work with investigative journalism. He has led our second and third investigative training programme, working with journalists from West Africa, North Africa and Europe. He is also a freelance investigative journalist and reporter, as well as a founder of Politics Watch.

Lucia Cizmaziova | Research & Policy Manager

Lucia is the Research & Policy Manager at CiFAR. Her role focusses on undertaking and overseeing research into asset recovery, including tools at the global and national levels, sanctions as a tool for asset recovery, developing policy and engaging with policy makers.

Clara Czuppon | Project & Administration Officer

Clara Czuppon is the Project & Administration Officer at CiFAR, with a particular focus on investigative journalism. After completing a master’s in social sciences, she invested time and work in various non-profit organizations. Clara has expertise in migration, non-formal education, and civil mobilization against corruption.

Lewis Kundai | Research Officer

Lewis Kundai is the Research Officer at CiFAR. With a background in international relations and project management. He has worked for civil society organisations and has been particularly engaged in initiatives aimed at addressing illicit financial flows.

Andi Shehu | Policy & Network Coordinator

Andi Shehu is CiFAR’s Policy and Network Coordinator. With a background in science, international and economic history, he brings a well-rounded approach to policy development. His commitment to promoting positive change is reflected in his involvement as a political activist and leader, as well as a project manager and capacity building specialist in multi-stakeholder processes.

Our global board

Our global board provides strategic guidance to the leadership of the CiFAR. It helps ensure that we remain true to our mission, helps to promote our work and provides direction for out future development and implementation of our projects.

Laila Martin | Co-Founder & Chair of the Board

Laila Martin is a founder of CiFAR. She has a background in international relations, security, and development. She has worked in the defense of human rights and non-violent movements in the Middle East and North Africa. Laila is currently working on planning strategies of communication and advocacy on the rights of the immigrant and Latino community in the United States. Laila has chaired our board since June 2021.

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Pedro Gomez Pereira | Board Member

Pedro Gomes Pereira brings over 15 years of experience in dealing with anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and asset recovery at the operational and policy levels, both at the national and international levels. During his professional career, he has had the opportunity to work on several high-profile corruption and asset recovery cases in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa and engage with both government and non-government actors on the asset recovery process. He has further interacted and engaged with civil society and other NGOs from different jurisdictions to discuss their participation and engagement in the prevention and combating of corruption in the context of the asset recovery process.

Vaclav Prusa | Board Member

With a track record in the field of development cooperation and good governance reforms, Vaclav Prusa brings over 15 years of professional expertise and experience to CIFAR’s board. He possesses a profound understanding of the complex dynamics involved in supporting institutional and individual partners through development assistance. Having spent many years working in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe, Vaclav has developed a comprehensive understanding of the support to governmental and non-governmental partners and global networks active in the field of addressing illicit financial flows, money laundering and asset recovery. Beyond his professional accomplishments, he demonstrates a dedication to the pursuit of global social responsibility. He supports the importance of holding corrupt individuals accountable for their actions, which aligns perfectly with CIFAR’s mission..

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Dr. Bridget Onochie | Board Member

Dr. Brudget Onochie is the Editor and Bureau Chief of The Guardian Newspaper, Abuja, Nigeria and the Program Coordinator at the Institute of Development and Strategic Communications (ISDEVCOM), Nasarawa State University, where she lectures on development communications. She has two decades of experience in the media, covering beats around the parliament, judiciary and foreign affairs amongst others. She has experience in conducting investigative journalism over this period and has a good knowledge of the African media space.

Our advisors

Our advisors support our work through providing guidance in their areas of speciality and supporting us in specific project areas.

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Dr. Clara Portela | Academia

Dr. Clara Portela is a Faculty Member at the Department of Constitutional Law at the University of Valencia (Spain). She holds a PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute in Florence and an MA from the Free University of Berlin. She is the author of the monograph “European Union Sanctions and Foreign Policy” (2010), for which she received the THESEUS Award for Promising Research on European Integration.

Mouheb Garoui | Civil Society

Mouheb Garoui is the co-founder of I WATCH Organization, the National Chapter of Transparency International in Tunisia and served as its Executive Director from March 2014 to April 2017. He also served as the President of the same NGO from 2011 to 2014. In 2016, he was appointed in the MENA seat of UNCAC Coalition (the global network of over 350 civil society organisations in over 100 countries, committed to promoting the ratification, implementation and monitoring of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).

Rose Wanjiru | Civil Society

Rose Wanjiru is has been supporting CiFAR’s work in Kenya since 2021. She has a background in business administration and international relations. Rose has worked for many years in public policy analysis and advocacy with civil society and with intergovernmental agencies.

Dumitru Alaiba | Politics

Dumitru Alaiba is Deputy Prime Minister of Moldova and Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization. He has dedicated a good part of his career to fighting kleptocracy, investigating financial crimes and recovering the money stolen from the people of Moldova by corrupt officials. As active member of civil society and then as member of parliament, central topics in his work were investigating the massive money laundering schemes, the theft of the billion USD from the Moldovan Central Bank currency reserves, hostile takeovers, fraudulent privatisations, and other corrupt schemes. Dumitru is convinced that corruption, if not fought efficiently, will ultimately lead to the destruction of any democracy, leading to state capture, and Moldova’s recent history is a textbook example. Before being elected to Parliament Dumitru headed CPR Moldova, an anti-corruption NGO he co-founded, established and headed the Prime minister’s Economic Council, and worked in international consultancy.

Lukas Straumann | Civil Society

Lukas Straumann is the Executive Director of the Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss NGO active in the fields of tropical rainforest conservation and anti-corruption. He holds a PhD in History from Zurich University and investigated the Swiss pharmaceutical industry’s wartime conduct on behalf of the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War (ICE). Lukas Straumann is the author of Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia (Bergli Books, 2014). He has recently qualified as a Certified Fraud Examiner.