Collective Action at the Basel Institute on Governance

Vanessa Hans is Director of the Business Integrity team at the Basel Institute on Governance. She has held the position since July 2022, having first joined the Basel Institute in January 2020 as Business Integrity Specialist.

In her role, she leads a team of compliance and Collective Action specialists, taking a dual approach to engaging and strengthening the private-sector response to corruption risks in business transactions: by advancing anti-corruption Collective Action, and through technical assistance to private corporations and state-owned enterprises.

She regularly advises organisations ranging from small and medium enterprises to multinationals, state-owned enterprises and international organisations on topics relating to governance, ethics and compliance. She also leads the Basel Institute’s work on synergies between corruption and business and human rights as well as in the humanitarian sector.

Vanessa is a Board member of the United Nations Global Compact Network Switzerland and Liechtenstein. She also is a member of the Advisory Group of the Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific (ACI) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as well as the Anti-Corruption Leaders Hub of the OECD under the Global Initiative to Galvanize the Private Sector as Partners in Combatting Corruption and the UNCAC Working Group on Human Rights and Corruption. She is part of the Independent Sustainability Sounding Board of Argor-Heraeus, a Switzerland-based gold refiner.

Prior to joining the Institute, Vanessa was the Managing Director of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Philippines where she established the first network-wide code of conduct and was appointed Data Privacy Officer. She initiated multi-stakeholder C-level committees addressing challenges across: gender, youth, infrastructure, agribusiness, and market access. Under her leadership, the Chamber won the French public service delegation contract as the only trade agency in the country under Team France Export.

She previously worked at several non-profit organisations focusing on corporate social responsibility and international development strategies.

She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration with a minor in International Relations from HEC Montreal and a Master of Science in Corporate Social Responsibility from the Nottingham University Business School.

Vanessa is a competitive long-distance cyclist and a certified mountain bike instructor.

Scarlet Wannenwetsch joined the Basel Institute in 2017 and is currently Head of Collective Action. In this role, she is responsible for leading, implementing and expanding the Institute’s Collective Action programme, ensuring its strategic integration across the organisation and advancing its conceptual development and uptake.

She also leads the Collective Action Mentoring Programme and the Institute’s Collective Action activities. These include project managing the implementation of the Siemens Integrity Initiative, as well as leading the Institute’s international policy work on Collective Action, with a particular focus on the Southern African region and ASEAN.

Scarlet also heads the Institute’s engagement with the Business 20 (B20) on corruption and served as Deputy Co-Chair of the Integrity and Compliance Task Force in 2021/22, having previously acted as a network and knowledge partner.

Between 2021 and 2024, she lectured on the Master’s programme in Anti-Corruption Compliance and Collective Action at the International Anti-Corruption Academy.

Prior to joining the Institute, Scarlet gained experience at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Germany) and worked as a legal advisor for an international start-up.

She holds a law degree (LLB) from King’s College London and an LLM in Public International Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution from the Free University of Berlin.

Lucie Jones joined the Basel Institute on Governance as Senior Specialist, Governance and Integrity in September 2022. She is also the Institute’s Compliance Officer, responsible for overseeing and strengthening its internal compliance framework, including the development and implementation of policies and institutional integrity initiatives.

Lucie has extensive experience in governance and compliance, ethics and integrity risk management, working with international organisations, public institutions, state-owned enterprises, and private companies. At the Basel Institute, she leads and advises on mandates to assess and strengthen organisational governance and business integrity systems, including compliance programme development, corruption risk assessments, policy and procedure development, and institutional capacity building. Her work focuses on translating international standards and good practices into risk-based approaches that support organisational resilience and effective governance.

Lucie also contributes to research on business integrity, corporate governance and the effectiveness of compliance systems. Her work explores how organisations can move beyond formal compliance requirements to embed integrity in their organisational cultures and everyday decision-making. She has contributed to international research and guidance, developed practical frameworks and tools, and regularly designs and delivers training and facilitates discussions with business leaders and compliance professionals.

Prior to joining the Basel Institute, Lucie was Chief of Staff and subsequently Head of Governance & Strategy at Cochrane, a leading international evidence-based healthcare organisation. As a member of its senior management team and Company Secretary, she led organisational strategy development, strengthened corporate governance arrangements, developed institutional policies and established approaches to monitoring and evaluating organisational performance and impact. Lucie holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Anthropology from the University of Oxford and has undertaken professional training in leadership, project management and risk management.