Dr. Isaac Adewole is a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the University of Ibadan and the former minister of health of Nigeria. He served as part of the Cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari from 2015 to 2019. As minister of health, he took a leading role in the implementation of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund. Prior to his appointment, he served as vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

Scott Guggenheim, the pioneer of the Kecamatan Development Program, began working for the government of Mexico in their Museum of Anthropology. He then decided to further his education, and returned to graduate school where he studied anthropology. During graduate school, he worked at the World Bank, where he focused on the negative impacts of their big investment projects. Guggenheim also spent a few years in Columbia, where he pursued his post-doctorate degree. Following finishing his education, he went to Somalia on behalf of the World Bank to conduct an environmental assessment for their project of building a dam. While working on this undertaking, he discovered that he was very interested in big projects pertaining to development. Therefore, he desired to continue working with the World Bank on such projects, and indiscriminately applied to five different offices around the world. Indonesia was the first to get back to him, so in 1994 he moved to the country and began working in the social capital-working group of the agency.

Guggenheim added Indonesia to a three-country study; consisting of Indonesia, Burkina Faso, and Bolivia; which looked at social capital and development. As part of this study, they found that projects run by communities are more multifunctional, participatory, and longer lasting than those which are done by development agencies. With this fact, and the knowledge of the struggling Indonesia community based development agencies, an example being the corruption of the Inpres Desa Tertingal grant program, Guggenheim knew that a program that worked directly with the villages would eliminate the money being pocketed by the leaders. Therefore, he spearheaded the creation of the Kecamatan Development Program (KDP) in 1998. This program distributes small grants directly to the villages, not going through intermediate people; thus creating greater accountability within the villages and less corruption.

At the time of this interview, Nadim Matta was the President and founding board member of the Rapid Results Institute. Born and raised in Lebanon, he received a degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the American University of Beirut and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He worked at the U.S. Agency of International Development in Beirut where he oversaw relief and rehabilitations programs during the Lebanese civil war. He also worked for Save the Children Federation where he led the implementation of food assistance programs for displaced families in Lebanon. In 1990, he joined Schaffer Consulting and became a managing partner of the firm in 2009. In 2012 he was named as one of the top 100 Global Thinkers by the Foreign Policy Magazine and was selected as a Yale School of Management Donaldson Fellow for 2012 and 2013. 

At the time of this interview, Gord Evans was an examiner of the effectiveness of cabinet offices for the World Bank. He had extensive experience studying and supporting cabinet office effectiveness. He had prior experience, working in the cabinet office in the government of Ontario, Canada. There he had the title of Deputy Clerk of the Executive Council, where he sat in on the cabinet and committee meetings and took the minutes. After doing this for eight years, he thought it would be time for a career switch and believed that it would be interesting to go out and work internationally. He desired to work with cabinet offices around the world; and luckily around this time the World Bank gained interest in studying things like prime minister, cabinets, and cabinet offices. Therefore, Evans was able to work with the World Bank and help them develop an approach to the examination of cabinet offices. Now, 14-15 years later, the program has been successful, and Evans has worked in approximately 30 countries.  

Born in Southern Rhodesia and educated in England, Betrand de Speville served as Solicitor General of Hong Kong before beginning his career in anti-corruption. In 1992, upon becoming the Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong, de Speville commenced his concentration in fighting corruption. Through this position, in which he served from 1992-1996, de Speville witnessed the aspects of anti-corruption agencies that were effective, along with practices that were common mistakes. While leading ICAC, he states that he has few regrets, and that in order for corruption to be fought effectively in the future, although agencies should be tailored to their surroundings, they should have a three-pronged strategy of attack, and warrant public support, while staying away from the common mistakes made while fighting corruption, such as selective investigation. Since then, he has worked with dozens of countries and international organizations on setting up specialized anti-corruption agencies and other aspects of anti-corruption policy. From 1997-2003, he was the advisor to the Council of Europe’s Multidisciplinary Group on Corruption. He detailed the necessities of a successful agency and the pitfalls faced within his book, Overcoming Corruption: The Essentials, which was published in 2010.  De Speville is currently the principal of de Speville and Associates, an international anti-corruption consultancy based in England.