The Tax Justice Network announced today the election of a new chair to its board of directors. The new chair, Dr. Lyla Latif, succeeds Hon. Irene Ovonji-Odida, who served as the board’s chair for five years. The board directors are elected by the organisation’s members, reflecting its cooperative ethos.
Dr. Lyla Latif said:
“I’m honoured to be guiding the Tax Justice Network in this critical moment in history as global negotiations of a world-first UN tax convention enter the home stretch. Getting here has taken decades of campaigning, research and tireless work from a worldwide movement, which the Tax Justice Network has had the privilege of being a part of. I take the chair from Irene Ovonji-Odida, my African titan, whose leadership helped make this convention possible and I am deeply grateful for the foundation she has laid. We are eager to continue our work in this area, and the board will have an important role to play in steering our strategic efforts and supporting the organisation’s staff to do what they do best.”
Hon. Irene Ovonji-Odida, who is staying on as a board director, said:
“We adopted major board reforms four years ago, to bring a powerful range of international expertise into our board that is rooted in a feminist, rights-based perspective. It’s been great to see these changes in action and their positive impact in recent years, including today with the election of our new chair. I’m delighted to be remaining on the board to support Lyla as she takes on this important role. Dr Latif is such an innovative and brilliant tax lawyer, a pioneer and specialist in emerging critical fields of AI, digitalization and taxation.”
Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said:
“It has been an honour to work with Irene Ovonji-Odida over the last four years, in which she has led the strengthening of our international board, just as she has played such a key role in global processes to drive forward the tax justice agenda over the last decade including through her work as a member of the Mbeki Panel, the FACTI Panel and ICRICT. The Tax Justice Network is privileged to be able to draw upon such an exceptional pool of non-executives, and to see one leading figure in international tax succeeded by another as chair. Having valued Dr Latif as a board member over the last four years, I’m looking forward to working with her now as she takes up the chair.”
About Dr. Lyla Latif
Dr Lyla Latif is a global tax and technology governance specialist whose work sits at the front edge of how states tax, regulate, and reckon with the digital economy particularly across the Global South. She is Managing Partner of Lai’Latif & Co Advocates, a faculty member at the University of Nairobi School of Law, co-founder of the Committee on Fiscal Studies which is the African research group she established to centre African voices in international fiscal policy and director at the House of Fiscal Wisdom. She has helped governments draft income tax legislation, design digital tax strategies, and build the domestic revenue systems that development financing demands, having worked across jurisdictions from Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Lebanon and Uzbekistan to Egypt and Eswatini. As a UNDP Technical Expert (2023-2025) she has shaped national tax policies with direct consequences for how developing countries fund public goods. She serves as expert counsel to Eswatini’s Revenue Appeals Tribunal and was appointed by gazette notice to Kenya’s government taskforce on emerging technologies and data governance to develop a regulatory framework and advise on legislation relating to AI, IoT and public data. Dr Latif co-developed the first anti-illicit financial flows policy tracker for Tax Justice Network Africa, was the first to seat an African academic research committee within the UNFCITC forum to engage on the tax negotiations. She has collaborated with two Nobel Laureates to bring public attention to the scale of global revenue losses, and her published works: Governing Public Money and The Islamic Wealth Tax have established her as a leading scholarly voice on the unfinished work of decolonising public finance.
About Hon. Irene Ovonji-Odida
Hon. Irene Ovonji-Odida is a human rights lawyer with over 35 years’ experience in policy making, advocacy and law reform, in government, civil society, the women’s movement and as a regional legislator. A committed pan-Africanist, Hon. Ovonji-Odida is a Member of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa (Mbeki High Level Panel) and a commissioner of the Independent Commission for Reform of International Corporate Tax (ICRICT). She is also a member of the South Center Tax Initiative and co-chair of the Pan African Lawyers Union Committee on IFFs, and was a member of the High Level UN FACTI Panel. She previously served in the East African Legislative Assembly, and was International Board Chair for ActionAid International and Chief Executive Officer of the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers.
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