Michael Woolcock is Lead Social Scientist in the World Bank's Development Research Group, where he was worked since 1998. For twelve years he has also been a (part-time) Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. His current research focuses on strategies for enhancing state capability for implementation, on crafting more effective interaction between informal and formal justice systems, and on using mixed methods to assess the effectiveness of 'complex' development interventions. In addition to more than 75 journal articles and book chapters, he is the co-author or co-editor of ten books, including Contesting Development: Participatory Projects and Local Conflict Dynamics in Indonesia (with Patrick Barron and Rachael Diprose; Yale University Press 2011), which was a co-recipient of the 2012 best book prize by the American Sociological Association's section on international development, and, most recently, Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action (with Matt Andrews and Lant Pritchett; Oxford University Press 2017). He has recently returned from 18 months in Malaysia, where he helped establish the World Bank’s first Global Knowledge and Research Hub. An Australian national, he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Queensland, and has an MA and PhD in sociology from Brown University.

Jos Vaessen (Ph.D. Maastricht University) is adviser on evaluation methods at the Independent Evaluation Group, World Bank Group. Since 1998 he has been involved in evaluation research activities, first as an academic and consultant to bilateral and multilateral development organizations and from 2011 to 2015 as an evaluation manager at UNESCO. Jos firmly believes in a strong link between research and practice. His ongoing involvement in some evaluation-related research and teaching activities as honorary lecturer at Maastricht University contributes to the necessary cross-fertilization between these two domains. Jos has been author of several internationally peer-reviewed publications, including three books. He regularly serves on reference groups of evaluations for different institutions and is a member of the Board of the European Evaluation Society.

Jyotsna Puri, or Jo is currently the Head of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Green Climate Fund. Previously, she was the Deputy Executive Director and Head of Evaluation at the International Initiative of Impact Evaluation (3ie). Dr. Puri is also adjunct associate professor at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University, New York where she teaches development evaluation. Jo has more than 22 years of experience in policy research and development evaluation and has worked in several organizations including the World Bank, Columbia University and the UN. Jo’s academic qualifications include a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Resource Economics and a Masters in Development Economics. She is a reviewer for the Journal of Environment and Development, and for the Journal of Environment.

Indran Naidoo is currently the Director of the Indpendent Evaluation Office of UNDP. He has overseen a significant reform of the evaluation function at UNDP moving it towards full independence, enhanced credibility and an expansion in the scope and coverage of UNDP work. Through the professional model under his tenure the unit has seen IEO takes the lead and full responsibility for its work at the global and country level, with changes evident in the methodologies and approaches towards country level and corporate assessments, quality assessment of decentralized evaluaitons and national evaluation capacity. The establishment of an Audit and Evaluaiton Advisory Committee and an International Evaluation Advisory Panel helps attest to the credibility and utility of IEO work. His career to date spans 30 years in the education and development sector, with the past 22 as head of independent evaluation units in national departments and oversight units, starting as first Director of the M&E unit in Land Affairs in 1995 to assess the effect of transformation policies, and ending as Deputy Director General: M&E at the constitutional oversight body of South Affrica; the Pubic Service Commission. In these roles he occupied leadership and managerial functions, advancing thought leadership in the areas of evaluation systems design, building evaluation capacity, and promoting evaluation as a tool for transformation for public sector accountability. He has been a founding Board member of the South African M&E Associaiton, former Board member of the IDEAS, and conference co-chair for the 3rd African Evaluation Association Conference. He is currently a United Nations Evaluation Group Vice-Chair.

Fredrik is an international development finance, banking and evaluation professional with 45 years of experience gained in commercial banks, development finance corporations and multilateral development banks. His more than 20 years of evaluation experience has been gained since 1996 through leading the Evaluation Department of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. After retirement in January 2011 he did mainly private sector-related evaluation consultancy assignments for the UNDP, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Belgian Government, the Asian Development Bank, the Dutch Government and IFAD. In a volunteering capacity, he leads the thematic working group on private-sector evaluation of the European Evaluation Society. Fredrik holds a BA equivalent of business administration from Nijenrode University (former NOIB), Breukelen, The Netherlands, and a Master of Economics from the Erasmus University (former NEH) in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Caroline Heider is currently the Director General of the Independent Evaluation Group at the World Bank (IEG), a position she has held since 2011. Ms. Heider has dedicated the last 30 years of her career to evaluating the work of development and humanitarian organizations, transforming findings into lessons and promoting innovative ways for institutions to apply the knowledge derived from evaluations towards accelerating development effectiveness. As a senior leader, Ms. Heider has a proven track record in leading change, strengthening institutions, and building evaluation capacity through testing and trying new methods to get to better evidence and greater insights. She has first-hand experience evaluating policies and programs in over 30 countries around the world.
Ms. Heider is a leading voice in the international evaluation community. She is a life-time member of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) and a member of the American Evaluation Association. She chaired the Global Evaluation Advisory Committee of UN Women for the first years of its existence. In the past, she has been a member of the Australasian Evaluation Society and served a 2-year term as vice-chair of the UN Evaluation Group.
Before IEG, Ms. Heider headed the Office of Evaluation at the World Food Program. She has also held leading positions in the evaluation offices of the Asian Development Bank and several UN agencies, including the International Fund for Agriculture Development, the UN Development Program, and UN Industrial Development Organization.

Susanne has some 30 years of work experience with seven different UN entities combining operational and management experience with hands-on evaluation, results-based management and strategic planning expertise. Following work in consulting and programme management during her earlier career, she has worked at senior leadership level in the evaluation functions of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF),1996 - 1999, the World Food Programme (WFP), 1999-2002 and the UN Office for Humanitarian Coordination (UNOCHA), 2002-2007. Between 2009 and 2014 she was the executive secretary of the Joint Inspection Unit, a subsidiary body to the United Nations General Assembly with system-wide mandate for evaluation, inspection and investigations.
In July 2014 Susanne took up her current position as the director of the internal oversight service of UNESCO in Paris. In this function she directs the internal audit, evaluation and investigations functions of UNESCO and is a member of UNESCO's Senior Management Team.
In 2011, Susanne was nominated by the Secretary-General to be a member of the Interim Coordination Mechanism for system-wide evaluation responsible for developing and negotiating a new UN policy on independent system-wide evaluation. She also served as an Advisory Board member of the mid-term review on the Hyogo Framework for Action (2011-12) and as a peer panelist or peer advisor on the evaluation functions/policies of FAO (2004, 2016), WFP (2007,2013/14), IFAD (2015), the UN Office for Internal Oversight Services (2012) and UNRWA (2015). Susanne holds a number of professional credentials such as memberships in the American and European Evaluation Associations (AEA, EEA), member of the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) since 1996, serving on its then Executive Committee for two years, an Advisory Board member of the German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEVAL) since 2013.. She is the holder of an M.Sc. in Geography from the University of South Carolina (USA), obtained in 1986 and two bachelor-level certificates in Geography (with minors in Political Science and Sociology) and American Studies obtained in 1983 and 1984 from the Justus-Liebig Universitaet, Giessen (Germany). Her Master's Thesis evaluated the social, economic and evironmental impact of mass tourism on CanCun, Mexico.