As pillar 2 moves to implementation, are developing countries prepared to participate? Have the final rules addressed their concerns? Do tax administrations in these nations still face disadvantages, and do they need additional support? Can the rules be improved to better safeguard developing countries? 

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Cara Griffith
President and CEO, Tax Analysts

As the moderator for our Taxing Issues webinars, Cara objectively analyzes issues and asks probing questions that challenge panelists to explain and defend their positions.

When she’s not moderating Taxing Issues webinars, Cara provides strategic oversight for Tax Analysts. She has led efforts to improve the Tax Notes suite of products and to aggressively pursue transparency in the administration of tax systems. Previously, Cara managed the editorial department, including the flagship daily news publications and weekly magazines. She has written for a broad range of tax policy publications, including Tax Notes State, The Tax Adviser, The Hedge Fund Law Report, and The Hill. She regularly speaks at tax conferences and other events, discussing a variety of technical tax issues as well as the need for transparency in tax administration.

Cara has a BA in political science and a BA in international studies from the University of Evansville and a JD from the George Washington University Law School.

Anarella Calderoni
Advisor on International Cooperation and Taxation Directorate, Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations

Anarella Calderoni is an international tax analyst at the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations. Working within the center’s Directorate of International Cooperation and Taxation, she assists the tax administrations of member countries with international tax issues, particularly transfer pricing and base erosion and profit shifting. She also aids in the planning and execution of events, publications, databases, cooperation projects, and new initiatives. She holds a financial planning certification from the Financial Planning Standards Board of Canada and a master’s degree in international and European tax law from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. 

Abdul Muheet Chowdhary
Senior Programme Officer, South Centre

Mr. Abdul Muheet Chowdhary is Senior Programme Officer and leads the South Centre Tax Initiative (SCTI) of the South Centre, a Geneva-based intergovernmental policy research think-tank of developing countries. He is a Member of the United Nations Tax Committee’s Subcommittee on Wealth and Solidarity Taxes, the Co-Chair of Think20 Brazil’s Subgroup on the Reform of the International Tax Architecture, a member of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Monitoring Group and is on the Steering Group of the Independent Commission for Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT).  

Previously, he served in India’s Ministry of External Affairs where he was in the Policy Planning and Research Division specialising in economic strategy. He was formerly a consultant to the United Nations and also worked as a legislative aide in the Parliament of India, specialising in tax and financial law.

Allison Christians
H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation, McGill University Faculty of Law

Allison Christians (@profchristians on X, formerly known as Twitter; allisonchristians.com) is the H. Heward Stikeman Chair in the Law of Taxation at the McGill University Faculty of Law. Her research and teaching focus on national and international tax law and policy issues, with emphasis on the relationship between taxation and economic development and on the role of government and nongovernment institutions and actors in the creation of tax policy norms. 

Before entering academia, she practiced tax law at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York, where she focused on the taxation of domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, spinoffs, restructurings and associated issues, and transactions involving private and public companies, and at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, where she focused mainly on private equity funds.

She taught at the University of Wisconsin Law School and Northwestern University School of Law before joining the Faculty of Law at McGill University in 2012. 

She has written numerous scholarly articles, essays, and book chapters, as well as editorials, columns, and articles in professional journals, addressing national and international tax law and policy issues. She is the author of The Big Picture, a column for Tax Analysts’ Tax Notes International.   

Thomas Lassourd
Senior Policy Advisor and Technical Assistance Coordinator, International Institute for Sustainable Development

Thomas Lassourd is a Senior Policy Advisor with the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Economic Law and Policy Program. He coordinates technical assistance programs for the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development’s Global Mining Tax Initiative. He is an economist with 15 years of experience analyzing, designing and implementing economic reforms in developing economies. His areas of specialization include public finance and fiscal reforms, with a strong focus on tax policy in extractive industries. Thomas is a member of the UN Subcommittee for Extractive Industries Taxation and has contributed to various publications on natural resource governance and tax policy. Thomas holds a Master’s degree from the Paris School of Economics and a Master in Business Administration from HEC Paris. He speaks French, English and Portuguese. He is based in New York, USA. 

Stephen Shay
Paulus Endowment Senior Tax Fellow and adjunct professor at Boston College Law School and retired partner and consultant to Ropes & Gray

Stephen Shay is the Paulus Endowment Senior Tax Fellow and Adjunct Professor at Boston College Law School. He has also served as Treasury deputy assistant secretary for international tax affairs and a retired partner of Ropes & Gray LLP. He has taught U.S. tax law courses as a professor of practice at Harvard Law School, as an adjunct professor at Boston College Law School, and as a lecturer at Yale Law School, Oxford University, and the Leiden International Tax Center. Mr. Shay was the IBFD professor in residence for 2015. 

Shay consults for international organizations and private parties and has testified as an expert before judicial and arbitral tribunals on behalf of governments and private litigants.  

During his two tours of U.S. government service, Shay participated in the development and enactment of international provisions in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and, in 2010, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, as well as other international tax legislation. He has had principal responsibility for the U.S. tax treaty network and has served as a treaty negotiator. 

Mr. Shay is a 1972 graduate of Wesleyan University, and he earned his JD and his MBA from Columbia University in 1976. He is admitted to practice before the bars of New York and Massachusetts.