News & Visuals

Panel Welcomes Two New Staff Members

New Panel Staff

The Inspection Panel has welcomed two new members to its staff.

Ayako Kubodera joined the Panel Secretariat in December 2020 as a Junior Professional Officer. 

Prior to joining the Panel, Ayako worked for UN Women’s South Africa Multi-Country Office and the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Thailand), focusing on strategic planning, coordination, monitoring, reporting and evaluation. Most recently at UN Women, she had coordinated the implementation of a regional Asia-Pacific program on COVID-19 prevention and response. Before UN Women, Ayako managed development economics projects in Myanmar for University of Warwick, and also worked for Morgan Stanley’s Equity Research Division in Japan. 

Ayako earned her master’s degree focusing on human security and international political economy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and bachelor’s degree in economics from Wellesley College.

Nicolas Kotschoubey joined the Secretariat in January 2021 as a Senior Environmental Specialist.

Most recently, Nicolas had been as senior environmental specialist for the World Bank based in Dakar, Senegal. Prior to that, from 2015-2017, he consulted for the Bank’s Latin America and the Caribbean region as a senior environmental specialist and before the joining the Bank he was an environmental specialist for the Inter-American Development for three years. Earlier in his career he consulted on environmental issues for a variety of institutions, including the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility and the United Nations Development Programme.

Nicolas has a master’s degree in aquatic resource management from King’s College, University of London, and a bachelor’s degree in agriculture systems from the University of Reading.