The 2018 mentors

The mentors for the 2018 cohort are:

Ajoy Datta (OTT Research associate): Ajoy has 16 years of experience in international development with a focus on improving policy influencing and decision-making practices. He spent nine of those years as a researcher at the Overseas Development Institute’s Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme and remains an ODI associate. His interests include: 1) understanding the political economy of policy making processes at global, national and sub-national levels; 2) supporting government institutions, think tanks, networks and aid organisations to contribute to changes in policy and achieve impact; 3) supporting these organisations to learn and change themselves in the face of complexity and uncertainty and 4) evaluating the extent to which projects, programmes and policy actors contribute to changes in outcomes and impacts. His work has primarily taken him to sub-Saharan Africa (including Ghana, Zambia and Kenya) and South (including India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (including Indonesia and Vietnam). Ajoy leads OTT Consulting project development and implementation.

Enrique Mendizabal (OTT Director): Enrique is an independent policy entrepreneur. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Until December 2010 he worked for the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) where he headed the Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme. At ODI he co-founded the Outcome Mapping Learning Community. Enrique is the co-founder of Politics & Ideas, the Peruvian Alliance for the Use of Evidence, and the Premio PODER al Think Tank Peruano del Año. Since 2016, he organises an annual Evidence Week in Latin America. Enrique worked as adviser to the Multiparty Commission for the Bicentennial of Peru’s Independence at the National Congress. He lives in Lima (Peru) but spends quite some time in London and traveling to visit think tanks across the world. He combines this with travel writing.

Sue MartinSue is a communications strategist with more than twenty years’ experience developing and leading complex communications initiatives in international development and global media. She is an independent consultant, working extensively with governments on organisational reform and change management, often in challenging contexts. Sue’s work with think tanks includes communications leadership for the Overseas Development Institute (ODI); mentoring with the communications team at the European Centre for Development Policy Management; and capacity building and collaborative working with think tanks and research institutions across Asia and Africa. In her earlier career, Sue spent ten years with the BBC, including heading the public relations team for global TV news channel BBC World, and six years working across Asia for BBC World Service.

Orazio BellettiniOrazio is a social entrepreneur, public policy expert, and a think tank manager. After his graduation at the Kennedy School of Government with a Master in Public Administration and Public Policy in 2004, Orazio has advised international agencies, civil society organisations and governments in several countries in policies and strategies to increase knowledge production, enhance education quality and transparency. Orazio has trained graduated students, public servants in local finances, development policies and public reforms in Latin America and Europe.

Orazio is the Co-funder and Executive Director of Grupo FARO, an Ecuadorean think-and-do tank as well as FUEGOS a non profit that promotes capacity building as well as the co-creation of innovative prototypes that add value to the agricultural, fishing and food sector industries, constantly aiming to combine traditional knowledge with the latest technological know-how. He was awarded as an Ashoka and Avina Fellow in 2008. In 2013 he was invited by the Rockefeller Foundation as Resident Fellow at the Bellagio Center.