Executive Office

Jan Mattsson – Executive Director
Mr. Mattsson has been Executive Director of UNOPS since June 2006, having enjoyed a distinguished career with the United Nations over the previous 23 years. Just prior to UNOPS he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Bureau of Management of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where he was a leader of change management and organizational reform.
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Vitaly Vanshelboim – Deputy Executive Director
Mr. Vanshelboim joined UNOPS in July 2006 following ten years serving in various senior roles with UNDP. Before that he worked for four years with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Bosnia and Herzogovina and spent five years with the United Nations Office in Ukraine. Before his UN career Mr. Vanshelboim served in various capacities for the state and in the private sector.
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Regional Directors

Maria-Noel Vaeza – Director of Global Portfolio
Ms. Vaeza joined UNOPS as director of LCO in July 2007 after serving with UNDP for 14 years where, among other accomplishments, she helped develop a strategic partnership with the European Union. She has also been a diplomat for the Uruguay Foreign Ministry and has worked for the World Bank.
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Bruce McCarron – Director of the Asia, Europe and Middle East Regional Office (AEMO)
Mr. McCarron joined UNOPS in 2008 after various UN assignments in Western Sahara, Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has served as General Manager with a provincial Department of Works in Papua New Guinea and as Project Director for major capital works in Australia. His position as a gratis military officer with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in New York steered him toward a career with the UN. A chartered professional engineer, he has degrees in Civil Engineering, Technological Management and Business Administration.
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Fabrizio Feliciani – Director of the Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office (LCO), a.i.
Mr. Feliciani has over 25 years’ experience in sustainable development in Latin America, 15 within UNOPS. At UNOPS, he helped develop an innovative portfolio covering integral development, peacebuilding and human rights field operations. Among these operations were the PRODERE programme and Guatemala Truth Commission, two internationally renowned initiatives that made a significant and positive impact on the development and stability of Central America. Mr. Feliciani is an ecologist, holding a Doctorate in Agricultural Science from the Universitá degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
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Bruce McKerrow - Director of the Africa Regional Office (AFO), a.i.
Mr. McKerrow started working with UNOPS in 2001 in East Timor and served in various capacities and locations including Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Liberia, and Pakistan before becoming UNOPS Global Practice Lead for Infrastructure in 2007. He also has extensive private sector project management and general management experience, including serving as the Project Director on a development project in Dubai in 2008-2009, before returning to UNOPS. He is an Australian citizen, and is a certified PRINCE2 practitioner and Project Management Professional (PMP).
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Management Practices

Ricardo Vargas – Director of the Sustainable Project Management Group and the Integrated Practice Advice and Support (IPAS)
Mr. Vargas is a specialist in project, portfolio and risk management with over 15 years of experience in the energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, information technology and finance sectors. Prior to joining UNOPS, Mr. Vargas led and was involved in a wide range of innovative project management activities. He is also the first Latin American to be elected Chairman of the Board of the Project Management Institute (PMI), the largest project management organization in the world.
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Therese Ballard – Director of Sustainable Procurement Practice Group
Ms. Ballard joined UNOPS in April 2012 after heading the Corporate Procurement Unit at the World Bank. She has extensive experience as a senior manager, adviser and change strategist in the procurement, purchasing and supply chain fields, with over 35 years of experience in the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and in the private sector. Ms. Ballard is a Certified Purchasing Professional (CPP) and holds various professional certifications from Harvard, Oxford and the Wharton Institute.
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Henrik Linders – Director of the Sustainable Infrastructure Practice Group
Mr. Linders has over 15 years’ experience leading and advising sustainability projects. Prior to joining UNOPS, he led the compliance team at the World Bank’s Office of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman, the unit that oversees the sustainability of the bank’s private sector investments. He holds a Master of Science degree in Engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology, and certificates from the MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard Business School.
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Pierre Moreau-Péron – Director of Human Resources
Pierre Moreau-Péron joined UNOPS in January 2010 and has extensive experience in HR, including 20 years in the private sector, mostly in the communications sector in Europe and Africa. Before joining the UN, he was the international HR Director for Wanadoo, the second largest internet provider in Europe. Since 2004, he has led the Learning and Career Management Branch of UNFPA, New York. He is a graduate in Political Studies from Sciences Po Paris, France.
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HQ functions

Karsten Bloch – Director of the Corporate Support Group and Chief Information Officer
Mr. Bloch joined UNOPS in July 2004. He began his United Nations career in 1989 as a Junior Professional Officer after working with a telecommunications company. Mr. Bloch has extensive experience with both field and headquarters assignments for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Secretariat, and the Inter-Agency Procurement Services Organization (IAPSO/UNDP). During his 20+ years with the UN Mr. Bloch has taken on a wide range of responsibilities in the areas of Procurement, HR, Finance and Information Technology.
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Helen Davey – Headquarters Contracts and Property Committee (HQCPC) Chair
Ms. Davey joined UNOPS in April 2007. Qualified as a lawyer in both England and France, Ms. Davey previously worked in private practice as an international project finance lawyer including 8 years with magic circle law-firm Freshfields and 6 with French law-firm Gide Loyrette Nouel. Ms. Davey has advised both public and private sector clients and financial institutions in respect of large-scale infrastructure projects across the world.
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Nicholas George – Head of Communications
Mr. George has worked at UNOPS since November 2008.  Prior to joining UNOPS he was based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, working as a speech writer and adviser to the Country Director of The World Bank. Mr. George has more than 20 years experience in both print and broadcast journalism and has worked for The Financial Times, among others, reporting from Europe, Latin America and Asia.
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Tina Friis Hansen – Director, Corporate Performance and Management Group
Ms. Friis Hansen joined UNOPS in September 2008 following 12 years in various senior roles in UNDP. Ms. Friis Hansen has extensive experience with Change Management and Management Consulting with a focus on Organizational Development and Performance Management. During her career Ms. Friis Hansen has served in different strategic corporate roles to facilitate better management and help set standards for operational capacity across organizational structures both in HQ and the field.
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Paul Lucas – Director of the Internal Audit and Investigations Group
Mr. Lucas began his career with Deloitte (1995 to 2005) providing audit, risk management and forensic investigation services to multinational clients. In 2005, he joined UNFPA’s Division for Oversight Services as an Audit Specialist, before later being recruited as Chief to establish the organization’s Investigations Branch. He holds a Commerce degree from Macquarie University (Sydney) and a Masters from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (Boston). He is a Chartered Accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner, member of the Institute of Internal Auditors and an Associate Member of the American Institute of Certified Practicing Accountants.
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David Mitchels – Ethics Officer
After 18 years in private legal practice, where his speciality was political crime, David Mitchels joined UNRWA in 1988, moving to UN/DPKO in 1999, and UNOPS in 2004, spending most of his years with the UN in Gaza as the Field Legal Officer, and Kosovo as a Senior Legal Officer and then Regional Administrator. At UNOPS he served as Chief, Office for Legal Services and then as General Counsel. Since 1 February 2009, as UNOPS Ethics Officer, he has participated in the UN Ethics Committee, which produced a new draft UN-wide Ethics Code, recently approved by the Secretary-General.
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James Provenzano - General Counsel
Mr. Provenzano joined UNOPS as General Counsel in February 2009 after serving with UNDP as Director, Procurement Support Office, and prior to that, as Director of the UNDP Office of Legal and Procurement Support. He previous worked at UNOPS from 1999 – 2003 as Assistant Director, Office of Legal and Procurement Support.  Mr. Provenzano has also worked for UNDP, FAO and the UN Secretariat during his twenty years-plus within the UN system.
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