
WHO
Advisory committee
Our Advisory Committee, consisting of leading experts from the public and private sector, academic and civil society, provides high quality advice to the Secretariat and the Governing Board and helps to promote the CONNEX Support Unit.

Karl P. Sauvant
Karl P. Sauvant, PhD, is Resident Senior Fellow, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), Columbia University, Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School and Guest Professor at Nankai University, China. From 2005 to 2012, he was Founding Executive Director of the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, the predecessor of CCSI. Before that, he was Director of UNCTAD’s Investment Division and founded the prestigious annual World Investment Report, being its lead author until 2004. He is a leading advocate for a negotiations aid facility for developing countries. Karl P. Sauvant was awarded his doctorate by the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Natty B. Davis
Natty B. Davis II has more than 15 years of experience in distinguished public service at the highest level of the Liberian Government. He has served, inter alia, as Chairman of the National Investment Commission (NIC), Chair of the Inter-Ministerial Concession Committee, Minister of State without Portfolio and Head of the Liberia Reconstruction and Development Committee (LRDC), Founder and Lead of Liberia’s Philanthropy Secretariat, Deputy Minister of Commerce and Industry, and Acting Minister of Transport and Coordinator of Liberia’s Economic Financial Management Committee (EFMC). Since 2014, he has held the position of senior partner at Devin Corporation, which he co-founded in 1992. He took over as Managing Director of the firm in July 2016. He has also consulted extensively outside Liberia, for example in the United States and in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Jorge Chamot
Jorge Chamot is an energy executive advising governments on policy and business development. He served as Peru’s Minister of Energy and Mines from 1999 to 2000. He has worked for a state-owned company, a Texan independent energy conglomerate and a private European shipping and trading firm. His understanding of the intricacies of policy-making and implementation allows him to adopt a comprehensive approach to national and regional development programs. Jorge Chamot holds Petroleum Engineering and MBA degrees with further studies in Oil Planning and International Development.

Peter Conze
Peter Conze is a co-founder and partner of the Humboldt-Viadrina Governance Platform, where he advises on extractive industries and especially on negotiation support for developing countries. He worked for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH for 35 years, including four years in Somalia and five years in South Africa. Peter Conze was one of the founders of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International (TI). He is a member of its Board of Directors and advises the international TI secretariat on its Africa activities. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Transparency International Germany. Peter Conze studied Law and Political Science. After finishing his legal education in Germany, he continued his studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, graduating with an MA in International Relations.

Boris Dolgonos
Boris Dolgonos has advised on a wide range of mining issues, investment and financing transactions, including initial public offerings, high-yield and investment-grade debt offerings, structured product offerings and privatizations. He has represented public and private corporations, investment banks and other financial institutions. His mining practice has focused on government representation and capacity development, including negotiating mining concessions, drafting model mining agreements and financing transactions. Boris Dolgonos also regularly participates in conferences on providing assistance to governments in negotiating large-scale investment agreements. He serves on the Board of Directors of the International Senior Lawyers Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing legal services for human rights and economic development throughout the world. Boris Dolgonos received a Law degree from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

Dr. Cielo Magno
Dr. Cielo Magno is an Assistant Professor in the University of the Philippines’ School of Economics. She currently represents the civil society in the international board of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) and she previously coordinated Publish What You Pay Philippines and was a founding member of the EITI in the Philippines. Dr. Magno sits as member of the board in a number of organizations including Bantay Kita-PWYP Philippines, Action for Economic Reforms and Center for Energy, Ecology and Development. She is also a member of the Executive Session on Extractives Industries of the Center for Sustainable Investment (CCSI). She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in economics from the University of the Philippines. As a Fulbright scholar, she earned her PhD in Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University in Boston.

Laura Morales
Laura Morales is a financial advisor to small family firms and investors. Until November 2016, she created and headed the Middle East Wholesale Banking efforts for Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA). In 2010, she launched a Private Equity Research Center for INSEAD in Abu Dhabi. Previously, she was a Director at Merrill Lynch, where she led the Structured Products Origination and Distribution teams in Private Banking for Europe and the Middle East. Prior to that, she held various investment and wholesale banking roles at Barclays Capital in London and BankBoston and Banco Wiese in Perú. She holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor’s in Accounting and Finance from Florida International University.

Dr. Helmut Nicolaus
Dr. Helmut Nicolaus has been a Berlin-based attorney specializing in Public and European Law since 1993. He opened his own law firm in 2017 and has authored various publications on aspects of public law, including environmental, mining and electoral law. In 1989/90, he worked as an advisor to the French Minister for the Environment, focusing on Franco-German relations. In 1991/92, he served as Director of the Minister’s Office in the Ministry for Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Women in the German state of Brandenburg. Helmut Nicolaus studied Law and Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, Clare College, Cambridge, Freie Universität Berlin and the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) in Paris. He holds an MA and PhD in Philosophy.

Louis T. Wells
Louis T. Wells is the Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management (Emeritus) at Harvard Business School, where he taught courses and conducted research on international business, largely on investor-host government relations. He advised governments and international organizations on foreign investment policies and negotiations with foreign investors, particularly for mining. He served as an expert in 10 investor-state arbitration processes. Back in 1975, he and David N. Smith of Harvard Law School wrote Negotiating Third World Mineral Agreements: Promises as Prologue.
Secretariat
Made up of a multidisciplinary team with extensive experience in the public and private sector, the CONNEX Secretariat facilitates the negotiation support activities. For further information on individual members, please click below.
