I am a Data and Evaluation expert, former journalist, with 18 years of professional experience, currently working as Evaluation, data and knowledge expert, in the core team of MELDEA project, providing help desk evaluation support DG INTPA and DG NEAR. Following an education at the European School of Brussels II, he graduated in Journalism at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL, École de Journalisme de Louvain), and worked for 4 years as a journalist in Brussels covering EU News. This was followed by 7 years working in the management of International Development projects for consulting companies, and 7 years working as an expert in evaluation, data analysis, communication and knowledge management for the evaluation helpdesk technical assistances with DG INTPA, DG NEAR and FPI, which is his current assignment.
In the past 7 years, he has applied his data analysis skills and knowledge of EU Project Cycle Management to the field of developmental evaluation, with the objective to improve evaluation practices and learning from evaluations in the EC institutions. He has an excellent knowledge of EU Policies and guiding principles of Team Europe initiative, Strategic Planning and Programming Cycle (SPP), Financial Guidelines and EU funding mechanisms, and an excellent knowledge EC financial and contracting procedures (PRAG, INTPA Companion), Intervention Cycle Management guidelines, internal reporting and monitoring.

Amedeo Rizzo is a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Law at the University of Oxford, Exeter College, and Academic Tutor at St Catherine's College (Oxford). He is undertaking research activities on international corporate taxation and tax policy, under the supervision of Professor Tsilly Dagan.

He is an Academic Fellow at Bocconi University and SDA Bocconi School of Management, where he coordinates the Accounting & Tax Policy Observatory (OFC) and the Transfer Pricing Forum. He is a Transatlantic Technology Law Forum Fellow at the University of Stanford, doing research in Law and Technology. He is the Director of the Innovation Policy Network and a member of the Group of Experts on anti-corruption for Transparency International Italy, advising on corporate and tax law. He works as financial advisor for several companies and is one of the founding partners of the Italian audit company Imperium Audit SpA.

Previously, he worked for the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) of the European Commission as an external advisor on budget and tax policy, and for the International Tax and Transfer Pricing Team of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Milan. He also collaborated with the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), India, on financial transparency issues in Asia-Pacific countries.

As concerns his research activities, he is the author of papers published in national and international academic journals, such as International Tax Studies, International Transfer Pricing Journal, Fiscalità e Commercio Internazionale (Italian), and Novità Fiscali (Swiss), and technical newspapers such as We Wealth, which selected him for the top 300 wealth management influencers’ club. He participated in the publication of the book “Brexit: Scenari fiscali e opportunità per i professionisti italiani” published by IPSOA – Wolters Kluwer Italy and presented at the Camera dei Deputati, the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Amedeo obtained a Master of Science in Taxation (with distinction) from the University of Oxford, a Master of Science in Law and Business Administration (summa cum laude) from Bocconi University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. He received the Bocconi - Boroli scholarship for being one of the best Bocconi graduates of 2017.

Economist

Johan van Geijn has a unique track record as a specialist in international corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the world of sports, particularly in football and international development cooperation. With more than 25 years of experience – heading the international programs at the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) since 1998 to build local capacity through football in developing countries and low-income countries. More than 20,000 young volunteer coaches have been able to improve themselves in their local environment through programs developed by Johan.
As founder of the WorldCoaches program, Johan has proven many times how sport can serve as a means for social development. Using football as a catalyst for social cohesion, for the position of girls and women in society, for awareness of communicable diseases, drugs and addictions or clean water.
With the international challenges surrounding migration and refugees, using football as an initiator for programs to tackle youth unemployment in these countries. A range of thematic social challenges where Johan has been able to let football contribute to the approach and often to the solution.

I am Chief of Cabinet at SESRIC, a subsidiary organ of the OIC.

Armen Melkumyan has had over 25 years of work experience, of which 20 timewise (since May 2003) – in monitoring, evaluation, programming, mainly for the EU, and occasionally for other international development partners, such as DANIDA, SDC/SECO, UN family organisations, DFID and USAID. He has had over 15 years of cumulative experience in EU Results-Oriented Monitoring, strategic evaluations and as a technical cooperation consultant for coordination and capacity building. Overall, Armen has assessed and evaluated 205projects in 16 sectors and 22 countries, all management modes and aid modalities (TA/TC, Twinning, TAIEX, SIGMA, indirect management with pillar assessed organisations, Blending, Budget Support, joint programmes, TEI). Since 2014 Armen has been working as an expert to the SQ2M, DG INTPA D04 (DEVCO Unit 06 in 2014), where he, first, piloted the EU Results Framework in 2014, and then worked as QC expert for annual results data collection (over 200 country, regional, thematic results reports) and as an expert for QA of intervention logics and logframes of 221 Commission decision-level Action Documents. Armen led and authored evaluation reports on Twinning instrument in Armenia, Georgia an EU-funded Accelerate Prosperity intervention in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan; and participated in other 5 country, regional programme and funding instrument-based evaluations, by undertaking and authoring specific components. He also worked as a programming and design expert for formulation of Action Documents and Twinning Fiches.