Access Info Team

Access Info's is governed by an Executive Board, or Junta Directiva in Spanish, which is constituted in accordance with Spanish law. It consists of the persons who founded Access Info in 2006 and continue to dedicate their time pro bono to overseeing its functioning. Further substantive and strategic guidance comes from the Internatioal Advisory Board, composed of experts in access to information and related issues from across Europe.

The team working on projects day-to-day consists of the staff, consultants, and our much-appreciated volunteers. Here you can see who's who and if you click on the names you get a fuller bio of each person.

Executive Board

President: Daniel Bezares Susín. Daniel is an economist specialising in Corporate Social Responsibility, Human Rights, NGO management, transparency and the right of access to information. He works as a consultant on these themes with the organization Sustentia, and is a member of the Board of the Spanish Humnan Rights Association (APDHE). A lecturer in Corporate Social Responsibility for Spain's Open University (UNED), Daniel has a degree in Economics, Business, International Trade and Development from Madrid's Complutense University and an MBA from Madrid's Instituto de Empresa.

Vice-president: Helen Darbishire
Secretary: Juan José Cordero Sanz
Treasurer: Carlos Cordero Sanz

International Advisory Board

The following persons helped create Access Info by giving advice, guidance and moral support and continue as members of the international advisory board:

David Goldberg, Academic and activist working on issues of freedom of expression and freedom of information
Gergana Jouleva, Executive Director, Access to Information Programme, Bulgaria
Maeve McDonagh, Professor of Law, University College Cork, Ireland.
Ulf Öberg, Öberg & Associés AB & Lecturer Faculty of Law, Stockholm University.
Ivan Szekely, Counsellor of Open Society Archives, Hungary.

Access Info Team

Access Info's multi-disciplinary, multi-lingual team comprises full and part-time staff members, consultants, service providers, and volunteers.

Helen Darbishire, Executive Director
Lydia Medland, Researcher & Project Coordinator
Victoria Anderica Cafferena, Project Coordinator
Pamela Bartlett Quintanilla, Research Assistant
Alvaro Rodriguez Matesanz, IT administrator / Webmaster
David Cabo, Consultant Programmer
Daniel Amoeda, Lawyer
Kersti Wissenbach, Consultant Coordinator

TEAM BIOS

Helen Darbishire, Executive Director

Helen Darbishire is a human rights activist specialising in the public's right of access to information (freedom of information), and the development of open and democratic societies with participatory and accountable governments. Helen is founder and Executive Director of the Madrid-based NGO Access Info Europe, established in 2006 to promote the right of access to information in Europe and globally. Helen has worked for over 20 years as a human rights professional, focusing on issues of freedom of expression and information, media freedom, civil society development, and democratisation.

Prior to setting up Access Info Europe, Helen worked as a campaigner and project manager at Article 19 (1989 to 1998) based in London and Paris, and for the Open Society Institute (1999-2003) where she directed programmes on freedom of expression and freedom of information, based in Budapest and New York. Helen has provided expertise to a wide range of non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations, including UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the World Bank. She is a founder of the global Freedom of Information Advocates Network and served two terms as its chair (2004-2010). She holds a degree in History and Philosophy of Science and Psychology from Durham University, UK. Resident in Madrid, she speaks English, French and Spanish.

Lydia Medland - Research and Campaigns Coordinator

Lydia Medland has been with Access Info Europe since September 2008. She works as a researcher and campaigner and coordinates the Freedom of Information Advocates Network as well as other initiatives and projects.

With Access Info she has researched and published two reports, on aid transparency and the civil liberties; Not Available! Not Accesible! and, The Right to Know: Europe and the Police. Lydia has been involved in Access Info's work with the Coalición pro Acceso, the campaign for an Access to Information law in Spain. She has also developed campaign and outreach strategies for several of Access Info's projects such as Access Info's project for journalists and our work on civil liberties. Lydia’s current areas of research are the relationship between access to information and public participation and decision making as well as the relationship between access to information and anti-corruption mechanisms such as the UN Convention Against Corruption.

Based in Madrid, Lydia has also worked on other civil society campaigns. She coordinated the Spanish premiere of the hit film about climate change, The Age of Stupid, an event that took place in 69 countries worldwide. Lydia has a first class honours degree in International Relations from the University of Sussex in the UK, her native language is English and she is fluent in Spanish.

Victoria Anderica, Legal Researcher and Campaigner

Victoria Anderica has worked with Access info Europe since January 2010. Her work includes analysis of access to information legislation under the Ratification Readiness and the Right to Information Rating projects. Victoria has managed two global transparency monitoring projects, “The 6 Question Campaign” and the “Tell Us What You’ve Done Initiative”.

Victoria also works on the Access Info’s Open Government Data Project investigating the legal and practical dimensions of new initiatives to publish and re-use government information. She is involved in the “Legal Leaks” project training journalists on how to use access to information laws. In addition, she coordinates campaigns in Spain and France to promote adoption and implementation of the access information laws.

Victoria has a Law degree from the Carlos III University (Madrid) where she specialised in European Law and an MA in Euroculture from the Deusto University (San Sebastian) and Georg-August University (Göttingen, Germany). As part of her MA she spent time studying in Germany, Mexico, Poland and Spain. She has represented Access Info Europe in public fora in a range of countries including Argentina, Brazil, France, Hungary, Tajikistan, Uruguay and the UK.

Based in Madrid, Vicky speaks Spanish, English, French and some German.

Pam Bartlett Quintanilla, Researcher and Campaigner

Pam Bartlett Quintanilla is a researcher and project coordinator who has worked with Access Info team since February 2010. Her specialist interests include transparency of international organisations and business transparency.

Pam works as a coordinator for research, partner networking, and advocacy on the EU Transparency and Civil Liberties projects and also coordinates the Access Info Europe Help Desk. She conducts research on EU transparency issues including through filing information requests and analysing the subsequent behaviour of EU Member States and Institutions. She also works on the promotion of an access to information law in Spain by coordinating the 100 Question Campaign.

Pam has a postgraduate degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain) in Inequality, Cooperation and Development (Desigualdad, Cooperación y Desarrollo) and holds a degree in Politics and Sociology (MA Hons) from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland (UK), which included a year studying in Grenoble, France.

Now based in Madrid, Pam works in English, Spanish and French.

Collaborators and Consultants

Alvaro Rodriguez Matesanz, IT administrator / Webmaster

Alvaro is currently completing a degree in Information Engineering at Madrid’s Autonomous University. His experience includes running the Cíber-Café “Hangar” in Madrid as well as building websites for a range of clients. He has extensive knowledge of computer hardware and of website and programming software.

David Cabo, Consultant Programmer

David Cabo is vice-president of Pro Bono Publico and creator of dondevanmisimpuestos.es, a web for visualizing the annual budgets from Spanish public administrations, developed in collaboration with the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN). David is working with Access Info on a number projects using information and communication technologies to further open government, including the AsktheEU.eu web portal project.

With an M.Sc. in Software Engineering, David has extensive development experience as senior developer and team lead in projects at British Telecom, HM Revenues & Customs, Accenture, Sainsburys and BVA Global Markets. He has lived in the UK, France, and Germany. Currently based in Madrid, David is a native Spanish speaker who is fluent in English as well as speaking some French and Portuguese.

Daniel Amoeda, Lawyer

Daniel is lawyer specialising in Human Rights and Personal Data Protection who collaborates with various NGOs. With Access Info Europe, Daniel is conducting reseach and analysis into the legal framework for access to  information in Europe and Latin America.

Daniel has a law degree from the Complutense University (Madrid) and a postgraduate degree from the Instituto Universitario Ortega y Gasset (Spain) in International Cooperation for Development and Project Management (Cooperación internacional al desarrollo y Gestión de proyectos). Based in Madrid, Daniel is a native Spanish speaker from Argentina who also speaks fluent English.

Interns & Volunteers

Access Info volunteers are professionals working or studying in fields related to access to information, they give their time and we are grateful for their assistance. Access Info has a in-house seminar programme which it offers to volunteers to give them an on-the-job learning experience. For more information on becoming a volunteer click here.

Andreas Pavlou, Research Intern 2011-2012

Andreas is responsible for management of AsktheEU.org, updating the Access Info and FOIAnet websites as well as translations into Spanish and French. He has undertaken research and writing reports and analyses with Access Info on Aid Transparency, the Open Cyprus Project and AsktheEU.org.  Andreas graduated from the University of Birmingham in July 2009 with a BA Modern Languages and European Studies (Politics) with Honours degree. After teaching English for a year in Concepción, Chile, as part of the British Council Language Assistant Programme he is now studying MA Contemporary European Studies at the Universidad de Carlos III in Getafe. He has also studied in the Czech Republic and France. His interests lie in participatory democracy and will be writing his final masters thesis on participatory and deliberative democracy in Spain and Greece. Currently in Madrid, Andreas speaks and works in English and Spanish, and knows French and Greek.