Open Ownership is recruiting a new International Advisory Board

Part of the Open Ownership team at the 2024 International Anti-Corruption Conference in Vilnius, Lithuania

Open Ownership is nearing the end of our current 2022-25 strategy, which had three broad goals:

1. More beneficial ownership (BO) data is available to those that need it, inside and outside of government;
2. There is more and more relevant and contextually specific guidance about how to deliver these reforms and;
3. More governments, businesses and citizens use BO information to achieve their goals.

How have we done?

1. More data
   There is undoubtedly more data out there because many countries, with our support, have implemented these reforms. With our team’s support, over 35 countries have advanced their beneficial ownership reforms, and now over 90 jurisdictions worldwide have live beneficial ownership registers. The speed of this progress shouldn’t be underestimated; wind the clock back to 2016 when Open Ownership was founded, and it was just a handful.
   
2. More guidance
   On our second goal, since Open Ownership was founded in 2017, we have become the leading global organisation working on beneficial ownership reform. We have done that by publishing a steady stream of detailed guidance on effective implementation and how countries can approach it. Over this strategy period, we have worked closely with 30 or so countries to inform this work and build the evidence base for doing things well.
   
3. More use of data
   Finally, are more governments, businesses, and citizens using this data to achieve their goals? From our research, we know they are, but that barriers remain. We need to gather much more evidence around this, showcase progress, and understand what these use cases mean for how beneficial ownership reform will change in the future.

Our new strategy

Demand for globally linkable BO data is rapidly increasing – to fight illicit financial flows, tackle transnational corruption, and prevent tax evasion. As we prepare our new strategy, we will seek to expand our work driving forward policy, technology, and data changes at the global and regional levels that will deliver on this demand, as well as increasing our bespoke technical support to countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

This strategy is crucial for us to best focus the organisation's expertise - our people, our knowledge and our tech - to achieving a bold goal: that by the end of this decade, everyone, inside and outside of government, who needs beneficial ownership information, has it and can use it to benefit everyone in society.

We also see opportunities to broaden how policy actors see the benefits of using BO data - and how expanding our lens to focus on a range of uses - including anti-corruption, the energy transition, and tax - can help advance and embed beneficial ownership transparency reforms globally.

Join us to shape our next steps

We are recruiting members for a new International Advisory Board as part of the organisation's growth. Read the vacancy notice here. This Board will supercede the Steering Group that has overseen Open Ownership’s work since its inception and will support us in finalising and delivering our new 2025 to 2030 strategy.

Our new International Advisory Board will play a critical role in shaping Open Ownership’s next period of growth and provide support and scrutiny to me and my senior team as we deliver our new strategy.

It should also play a crucial public-facing role, supporting us to advocate for these reforms at the highest levels within national governments and on the international stage. And, we need to ensure that our work remains well-resourced, so we are seeking expertise and energy to support our relationships with existing and potential funders.

It is my great pleasure to lead Open Ownership. We have an exceptional team of the world’s leading experts on delivering these reforms, and I hope that you consider joining us to help shape the future of this vital work.

Read the vacancy notice and apply here.