Leadership Dialogue 3

Attiya Waris is a distinguished law professor in Kenya, notable for being the second woman to achieve this title and the first from a religious, ethnic, and racial minority in the country. She stands as the only known Professor of Fiscal Law in Africa, contributing significantly to the intersection of finance and development, particularly in areas such as taxation, debt, and illicit financial flows.

Professor Waris has held several leadership positions, including Director of Research at her university and acting Deputy Principal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, being the first woman to do so in both roles. Currently, she serves as the UN independent expert on foreign debt and international financial obligations related to human rights. She is also active in various organizations, including the International Tax Taskforce on Climate and Development and the O’Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism and Structural Discrimination.

Her expertise has garnered international recognition, with recent citations in speeches by notable figures, including Ireland's President Higgins and Kenya's Constitutional Court, as well as the Bahamian Minister of Foreign Affairs in discussions on international cooperation. Professor Waris is a founding member of several influential organizations focused on tax justice and fiscal studies in Africa.

Ms. Roman Tayag is the Assistant Governor, and Chief Sustainability Officer of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). She heads Strategy, Innovation, and Sustainability.
She has been with the BSP for over twenty years. Prior to her current role, she was Managing Director in charge of financial inclusion, consumer protection and financial education.
She also served as Chief of Staff of the Governor and as coordinator of the BSP Executive Offices.
For three years, while on secondment from the BSP, she served as the Director at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York where she headed the Office of the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA) from 2020 - 2023. In this role, she led the team that supports the work of Her Majesty Queen Máxima of the Netherlands in her UN role.
Ms. Roman Tayag has been involved in various regional and international bodies. She chaired the ASEAN Working Committee on Financial Inclusion and was a member of the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) Task Force on Financial Inclusion, the Policy Advisory Group of the Innovations for Poverty Action Research Fund, the Better than Cash Alliance Editorial and Publications Committee, and the Smart Campaign Steering Committee. She also serves as Co-Chair of the SBFN Inclusive Sustainable Finance Working Group and as a member of the NGFS Task Force on Adaptation.
Ms. Roman Tayag graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from the University of the Philippines and a master’s degree in International Affairs focused on Economic Development from Columbia University. She is a Fellow in the Fletcher School Leadership Program for Financial Inclusion at Tufts University. She also completed various executive programs on leadership, sustainable finance and AI for strategic impact from the London School of Economics, Oxford University and Stanford University.

Secretary of carbon markets at the Ministry of Finance, Brazil. Licensiated professor of Economics at the Federal University of ABC, master and doctorate degrees in Economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She has several publications in the areas of ​​Development and International Economy, working mainly with global value chains, public investment, production structure, international trade and sustainability. She leads the formulation of sustainable finance policies, such as the regulation of carbon markets and the sustainable taxonomy in Brazil.