Jeannette von Wolfersdorff

President of the Ministerial Advisory Commission for Public Expenditure, Ministry of Finance

Location: Chile

I am a German immigrant in Chile, with finance background. 20 years ago, I started as Investment Manager at DEG, the public German investment bank. I arrived to Chile after marrying.

One of my main projects in Chile, in the first decade, was the development and building of a Hotel on Easter Island. As Managing Director I was responsible for design, engineering, permissions and construction; in between, the construction enterprise broke. In 2010 the Hotel opened to receive international visitors during a sun eclipse. The same year it got part of a series of occupies on the Island and closed 6 months. I led conversations to create an agreement with local groups, chilean government, and the investors, regarding interests of all parts. The Hotel opened in 2011.

Then I started to work in civil society. I invented and build up a “transparency index” for political parties, being part of Transparency International. In 2015, I founded the Observatory for Fiscal Spending, an NGO with a small technological team which I led 6 years as Managing Director. The aim: to use data analytics and visualizations to “open” public finance. We started to open public contracting data supported by the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP). We got part of the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) network, and were mentioned by IMF as example for civil engagement. In 2017, I was invited to join the board of the Chilean Stock Exchange, as the first woman in its 123 years of history.