Ms Elsa Pilichowski, as Director of Public Affairs and Communications (ad interim), is leading the transformation of the OECD’s communications function.

As ongoing Director for Public Governance at the OECD, she also spearheads the Organisation’s efforts to support governments in building citizen trust and the OECD Reinforcing Democracy Initiative. She also leads the Directorate’s policy work on key governance issues such as budgeting, digital and open government, public procurement and infrastructure governance, better regulation, public sector integrity, public employment and furthering access to justice and achievement of the SDGs through the empowerment of youth, women and vulnerable groups.

Prior to taking up the Directorship, she held different positions within the Organisation including Acting Director of the Council and Executive Committee Secretariat, Advisor and then Counsellor in the Office of the Secretary-General, Deputy Head of the Eurasia Programme, and policy analyst in the Public Governance Directorate leading work in a range of governance areas.

Before joining the OECD in 2000, Ms Pilichowski held positions in the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific Region Vice President’s Office and at the World Bank Institute.

A French and Canadian national, Ms Pilichowski holds a Master degree in Public Administration from Sciences Po in Paris (1994) and a Master degree in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. (1997).

journalist, blogger, writer

Dr. Selçuk Yusuf Arslan is a computer science teacher at Ataturk Vocational and Technical High School in Ankara, Turkey. Due to his interest in STEM and SDGs, he has been carrying out outstanding projects on these issues. He was selected as finalists of Global Teacher Prize in 2021. In addition, thanks to his projects related with coding and environment, he was one of the winner of ETF Green Skills Award. Likewise, he was awarded the Global Teacher Award by AKS Education in 2018. In 2019, he was selected as the Most Outstanding Young Person of the World Top 20 honoree by JCI in the category of Humanitarian and Voluntary Leadership. In the same year, he participated in the CERN International High School Teacher Programme. He was selected as the winner of STEM Alliance - Dell PolicyHack™ Competition. Moreover he was one of the lead teachers of Aerospace in Class Project which was funded by the Airbus Foundation and coordinated by European Schoolnet.

Dr. Margarita Pavlova, PhD is the Director of the UNEVOC Centre (Hong Kong), which is a member of the global UNESCO-UNEVOC network, and an Associate Professor at the Department of International Education, the Education University of Hong Kong. Her research focus is on policy, planning and curriculum development in vocational education at both national and international levels, with a particular emphasis on education for sustainable development, green skills development and greening of the vocational education sector. Dr Pavlova’s regional research and development projects in Asia have been funded by different agencies including the Asian Development Bank, The World Bank, UNESCO and the European Training Foundation (ETF). Recently she has been a consultant for The SkillsFuture Singapore Agency on Training and Adult Education Landscape in Singapore study. Dr Pavlova has published widely in the fields of her expertise. She currently serves on the editorial advisory boards of two book series published by Springer: Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, and Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects.