Hana Brixi, Global Director, Gender, World Bank

As Global Director for Gender, Hana Brixi leads a global effort to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. She sets the overall direction for the World Bank Group’s Gender knowledge agenda, drives Bank-wide efforts for results in closing gender gaps, and fosters partnerships with public and private sector stakeholders toward innovations at scale. In her career, Ms. Brixi has contributed to advances in human development, public finance, and governance. As Manager of the Human Capital Project, she led a global effort to protect and invest in people with an emphasis on girls and women empowerment. Prior to this, she held managerial and leadership positions in the Social Protection & Jobs and Governance Global Practices and in the Middle East & North Africa, East Asia & Pacific, and Europe & Central Asia regions. Based in China during 2001-10, she also served as World Health Organization’s Manager and UNICEF Chief in China.

Karla Gonzalez Carvajal, Practice Manager, Transport, Europe in ECA, World Bank

Karla Gonzalez Carvajal is the practice manager for the Europe and Central Asia regions in the Transport Global Practice of the World Bank. Before assuming her current position in 2018, she worked as practice manager for the South Asia region for over 7 years in the Transport Global Practice. Ms. Gonzalez Carvajal served in the public sector as Minister of Public Works and Transportation of Costa Rica. She is also the cofounder of the Women’s NGO: Vital Voices (Costa Rica Chapter/Fundacion Unidas para Crecer) dedicated to empowering women through coaching and mentoring. Since 2015 she has been leading the Gender Task Force for the Global Practice with a focus on operationalization of the gender agenda in the transport sector at the World Bank. Ms. Gonzalez Carvajal obtained her MBA title at the National University of San Diego, California.

Cecilia Briceño-Garmendia, Global Lead for Transport Economics, Policy and Innovation, World Bank

Cecilia Briceño-Garmendia is the Global Lead for Transport Economics, Policy and Innovation of the World Bank, role from where she is spearheading the agendas of decarbonization of transport systems, digitalization and transformative technologies in transport and modernization of transport regulations and institutions. As the lead for the Transport Decarbonization agenda, Dr. Briceño is coordinating the preparation of the World Bank’s Flagship Report and guiding operational teams in reassessing the lens through which mobility and logistics are incorporated in country- and regional-specific agenda to make sure the synergies between climate action and development are capitalized. More generally, she advises teams and governments in strategic issues pertaining prioritization and planning of infrastructure investments including aspects related to spending efficiency, green trucking and trucking sector performance, multimodal development corridors, and adaptation of transport networks to climate change.

Magdalena Olczak-Rancitelli, Project Manager, Paris-based International Transport Forum (ITF), OECD

Magdalena Olczak-Rancitelli is a Manager at the Paris-based International Transport Forum (ITF), at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). ITF is an intergovernmental organization of 63 member countries that facilitate global dialogue for better transport policies. With more than 20 years’ experience in international relations and policymaking, Magda is responsible for the ITF annual Summit programme and related institutional relations. She coordinates the ITF’s work on gender and transport, including policy dialogue and consultations with ITF stakeholders. She has been working at the OECD since 2004 on diverse policy portfolios, including gender, consumer and competition policies, corporate social responsibility, and environmental policies. Magda is honored to be a part of the "2020 Remarkable Women in Transport” initiative by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative.

Shomik Raj Mehndiratta, Practice Manager for Transport in South Asia, World Bank

Shomik Raj Mehndiratta is the World Bank’s Practice Manager for Transport in South Asia. He has been at the World Bank since 2002 (except for a short break in 2015) working primarily in East Asia, Latin America, and Africa. He has served in the past as the Transport Sector’s technical lead on urban mobility and climate-informed transport. In the period 2007-2010, he lived and worked in China and is the co-editor and author of an edited book on Low Carbon Urban Development in China. In 2015, he briefly worked with Uber as Director of Policy; and prior to the World Bank, he worked at CRA International, a business and economics consulting firm, based out of Boston MA. Shomik holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and an executive MBA jointly from INSEAD and Tsinghua University

Martha Lawrence, Senior Transport Specialist /Leader of Railway Solutions, World Bank

Martha Lawrence is Co-Lead of the Global Solution Group on Transport Connectivity and Regional Integration and Leader of Railway Solutions at the World Bank. She is currently involved in the Bank’s technical assistance and lending programs in India and Africa. Ms. Lawrence has over 30 years of experience in the railway sector, with extensive knowledge in railway restructuring, railway finance and transport regulation. She led the development of the World Bank’s resource on railway reform: “Railway Reform: A Toolkit for Improving Rail Sector Performance” and has recently published reports on China’s High Speed Rail Development and Modern Railways Services in Africa: Building Traffic, Building Value. Ms Lawrence has prepared business, restructuring and financing plans for railways worldwide and advised private sector investors on over US$8 billion in structured lease financing of transit rolling stock and infrastructure. She worked ten years on regulatory and antitrust issues, during a period of deregulation and commercialization in the US rail industry. She has developed costing and pricing systems for railways in the US, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and Brazil and financial models/business plans for railways worldwide. Ms. Lawrence has a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University and an M.B.A in Finance and Transportation Management from Northwestern University

Nato Kurshitashvili, Gender Specialist for Transport GP- ECA, World Bank Group

Nato works in Europe and Central Asia operations in transport and selected

projects in the Middle East and North Africa, and leads some of the global and regional

analytical work and policy dialogue with the governments related to gender in the sector.

Previously she worked as a principal gender advisor at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) covering projects in a wide range of sectors primarily in infrastructure. Prior to that, she had been part of the Statistical Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe working in a multi-country project to support national statistical offices to improve collection and dissemination of sex-disaggregated data. Nato holds a MSc in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and MA in public policy from the Central European University.