Victoria Márquez-Mees is the first chief accountability officer of the Independent Project Accountability Mechanism for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. She has recently been renewed for a further four years following a successful first term and is planning to focus on strengthening the mechanism and leaving it with an excellent foundation for the future.

Before joining EBRD in July 2020, she served as the director of the Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism (MICI) of the Inter-American Development Bank from 2015 to 2020. Complementary to her IDB function, she served as the first secretary of the Independent Accountability Mechanisms Network (IAMNet) from 2016 to 2019. In recent years, she has been committed to the task of raising awareness among international financial institutions of the risks of reprisals faced by human rights defenders and promoting capacity building to address these issues in development finance.

With more than 30 years of professional experience, she has dedicated a significant part of her career to international cooperation and the institutional strengthening of civil society organisations in the areas of health and the environment. She has held various positions at the Carlos Slim Health Institute, the Mexican Ministry of Health and the British Council in Mexico and devoting her free time to mentoring young professionals.

Currently she is a member of the supervisory board of the World Benchmarking Alliance and has recently started working as a board trustee with HelpAge International. She is a past board member of the International Association for Impact Assessment, as well as a visiting professor in practice at LSE-LACC and a member of the International Women’s Forum, Mexico chapter.

She graduated with honors in economics from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico and a master’s from the University of Essex, as well as conducting research at the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Chevening Scholar.