NRGI’s advisory council consists of:

  • Michael Spence (Co-chair). Michael Spence is professor of economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University, professor emeritus of management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford. He previously served as dean of the Stanford Business School, overseeing finances, organization and educational policies, and as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. Spence received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 and the John Bates Clark Medal in 1982, for work on markets with asymmetrical information. He is the author of the book, The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World. He has served as the chairman of an Independent Commission on Growth in Developing Countries.
  • Joseph Bell (Co-chair). Joseph Bell is senior counsel at law firm Hogan Lovells on natural resource issues—policy and commercial. Working mostly pro-bono in Africa and Asia, he has represented governments in mining and agricultural concession negotiations and has advised regarding tax and royalty policies, stabilization agreements and other economic issues related to large concessions. He has also advised with respect to the establishment of natural resource management funds and general issues of transparency and governance. He was one of the authors of the initial draft of the Natural Resource Charter. He is the former chair of the International Senior Lawyers Project, a founding director of the Polish American Freedom Foundation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and recipient of the American Lawyer Lifetime Achievement Award.
  • Daniel Kaufmann (President Emeritus, NRGI). Daniel served as NRGI’s president and CEO from 2012 until February 2020. An economist, Daniel is a pioneer in governance and anticorruption worldwide. He has held leadership positions in the field, and has, with his teams, devised innovative approaches to measure and analyze governance. He has deep practical experience in providing high-level policy advice and helping countries to formulate and carry out governance reforms in areas such as anticorruption, transparency and natural resources. He was a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) international board from 2013 to 2019. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he remains a nonresident senior fellow. He is frequently associated with jointly authored innovations such as the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) and the Resource Governance Index (RGI). 
  • Karin Lissakers (President Emerita, Revenue Watch Institute). Karin Lissakers is former president of the Revenue Watch Institute and has held senior posts in the U.S. government, academia and several think tanks. At Revenue Watch, she led the promotion of responsible management of oil, gas and minerals for the public good. She was previously United States Executive Director on the Board of the International Monetary Fund, served as deputy director of the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State and was staff director of the economic policy subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Her research and writing have focused on the interplay of international business and U.S. foreign policy. She is author of Banks, Borrowers and the Establishment and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
  • Joe Amoako-Tuffour
  • Alicia Bárcena
  • Jonathan Berman
  • Humberto Campodónico
  • Bob Conrad
  • Philip Daniel
  • Aidan Davy
  • Erica Downs
  • Peter Eigen
  • Gavin Hayman
  • Mark Henstridge
  • Christine Jojarth
  • Tony La Vina
  • Ilgar Mammadov
  • Julie McCarthy
  • Kathryn McPhail
  • Charles McPherson
  • Keith Myers
  • Jose Antonio Ocampo
  • Michael Ross
  • Anya Schiffrin
  • Andres Velasco
  • Tony Venables
  • Albert Zeufack