Blanca Moreno-Dodson
Governments and companies are operating in an economic order where capital, tax bases and trade flows no longer behave the way the old policy models assumed. Boards face exposure to fiscal instability, regional fragmentation and a tax architecture that is being rewritten in real time. Most leadership teams lack a credible interpreter who has worked inside the multilateral system and can translate macro shifts into operating decisions.
Blanca Moreno-Dodson is a senior international economist who helps leaders read fiscal policy, international taxation and regional integration as live commercial and geopolitical variables, drawing on more than three decades inside the World Bank and the United Nations.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Blanca Moreno-Dodson
- Direct line of sight into how the World Bank, UNOPS and European institutions actually think about fiscal stability, tax cooperation and development finance, from someone who held senior operating roles in all three.
- Published authority on the rewriting of international tax rules, co-author of Winning the Tax Wars (Wolters Kluwer, 2017), which sits at the centre of how governments and multinationals are reorganising around BEPS and global minimum tax.
- A working interpreter of Mediterranean and MENA integration, with operational experience of regional dialogue on trade, climate and migration as Manager of the Center for Mediterranean Integration.
- Field-tested across more than four regions, with policy assignments in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and East Asia, which lets her speak credibly to boards with exposure across emerging markets.
- Bilingual fluency across English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, which makes her unusually effective in mixed-language executive rooms in Europe, Latin America and Francophone Africa.
Biography highlights
- Lead Economist, World Bank Group, with senior roles on the Global Tax Team, West Africa Region, the Investment Climate Department and the Office of the Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management.
- Manager, Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI), the World Bank and UNOPS-hosted partnership based in Marseille.
- Director, United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), 2021 to 2023.
- Co-author, Winning the Tax Wars: Tax Competition and Cooperation (Wolters Kluwer, 2017); author/co-author of four other books on fiscal policy and public finance published by the World Bank and CMI.
- Ph.D. in International Economics and Finance, Aix-Marseille University; executive education at Harvard Kennedy School.
- Affiliated economist with the Economic Research Forum, the Policy Center for the New South and the Navarra Center for International Development.
Biography
The architecture of international taxation is being rewritten while most boards are still operating on the version that preceded BEPS. Trade rules, fiscal transfers and regional integration agreements are moving with it. Leadership teams that treat these shifts as background noise are routinely the ones surprised by them.
Winning the Tax Wars, co-authored with Brigitte Alepin and Louise Otis and published by Wolters Kluwer in 2017, sits inside that argument. It maps how globalisation of trade, digitisation of the economy and tax competition between states have exposed the limits of legacy tax systems, and what governments are now constructing in their place. Earlier work, including Is Fiscal Policy the Answer? (World Bank, 2013) and Public Finance for Poverty Reduction (World Bank, 2006), gives the policy spine that runs through her thinking.
The credibility comes from inside the system. Twenty-six years at the World Bank Group, including Lead Economist positions on the Global Tax Team, the West Africa Region and the Office of the Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. Then Manager of the Center for Mediterranean Integration in Marseille, the partnership hosted by UNOPS that convenes governments, financial institutions and civil society across the Mediterranean basin. From 2021 to 2023, Director at UNOPS itself.
For senior audiences this matters in a specific way. She does not theorise about how multilateral institutions and tax authorities behave; she has run programmes inside them. That makes her unusually effective with boards in extractives, infrastructure, financial services and any business whose tax exposure or regional footprint is being reshaped by the new fiscal order.
Key speaking topics
- International taxation and the post-BEPS order
- Fiscal policy and inclusive growth
- Mediterranean and MENA regional integration
- Public-private sector dynamics in development finance
- Poverty reduction and macroeconomic policy
- Climate, migration and regional dialogue
- Globalisation, inequality and the development trajectory
Ideal for
- Boards and executive teams with material tax, trade or regulatory exposure across MENA, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America
- CFOs and Heads of Tax navigating the global minimum tax and shifting international tax cooperation
- Government, development finance and multilateral audiences working on fiscal reform, regional integration and public finance
- Investor and policy forums where macroeconomic, fiscal and geo-economic context shapes capital decisions
Audience outcomes
- A clear read of where international tax cooperation is heading and what that means for cross-border business
- A more accurate map of fiscal policy as a driver of growth, stability and political risk in emerging economies
- A working understanding of how Mediterranean and MENA integration shapes trade, migration and climate exposure
- An informed view of how multilateral institutions actually operate, and where their decisions land on corporate strategy
- Sharper questions to ask of internal tax, treasury and public affairs teams about exposure to the new fiscal order
Talks
A reading of globalisation and inequality through the lens of three decades inside the World Bank and the UN system.
Key takeaways:
- How widening inequality is reshaping fiscal and political risk for business
- Where current development trajectories are converging and where they are not
- What governments and companies can credibly do about it
What fiscal policy can and cannot deliver as a lever for growth and poverty reduction, drawn from the 2013 World Bank book of the same name.
Key takeaways:
- The conditions under which fiscal policy actually drives inclusive growth
- Where developing economies have used fiscal tools well and badly
- Implications for investors, lenders and operators in emerging markets
A guided tour of how international tax competition is being rewritten, drawing on Winning the Tax Wars (Wolters Kluwer, 2017).
Key takeaways:
- How BEPS and global minimum tax are changing corporate exposure
- Why tax cooperation now sits inside geopolitical strategy
- What multinationals should be watching over the next policy cycle
The Mediterranean as a working test case for regional cooperation under climate, migration and trade pressure.
Key takeaways:
- How CMI convenes governments, IFIs and civil society around shared exposure
- Where Mediterranean integration is making operational progress
- What boards with MENA footprint should be tracking
The practical interface between fiscal policy, public institutions and private sector growth.
Key takeaways:
- Where public-private collaboration creates durable growth and where it does not
- How fiscal management shapes the operating environment for business
- What credible public-private engagement looks like at country level