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Indian Ocean Tuna Commission
Indian Ocean Tuna Commission
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Secretariat staff

Executive

Paul de Bruyn

Executive Secretary
paul.debruyn@fao.org
Dr Paul de Bruyn joined the IOTC secretariat in June 2018 as the Science Manager before becoming the Executive Secretary in July 2023. Paul started his career assessing small-scale inshore fisheries in Southern Africa before moving to Europe and getting involved in Tuna and Tuna-like species stock assessments at both IOTC and ICCAT. Paul joins the IOTC from the ICCAT secretariat where for 6 years, he was employed as the By-catch Coordinator and later head of the Department of Research and Statistics. His duties at the Secretariat include leading the planning, coordination and administration of the IOTC Secretariat in accordance with the IOTC Agreement and the decisions of the Commission, and being responsible for the implementation of the policies and activities of the Commission. Paul holds a Doctorate in Marine Science with a focus on stock assessment and management strategy evaluation and brings experience related to Tuna RFMO secretariat procedures and service provision.

Science

Dan Fu

Science manager
dan.fu@fao.org
Dan joined IOTC Secretariat in November 2016 as the stock assessment expert. Prior to joining IOTC, Dan has worked for 11 years as a Fishery Modeller in the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research of New Zealand (NIWA). Before that Dan worked as a Programmer Analyst for two years in Jade Software Corporations. Dan has ample experience in various aspects of fishery data analysis and modelling including standardization of CPUE, catch sampling analysis, and stock assessments. He has expertise in developing both age-and-length-structured models and has been responsible for a number of finfish and shellfish stock assessments in New Zealand EEZ, as well as population modelling of marine mammals and seabirds. Dan has also been actively involved in developing analytic tools and software packages used for fishery survey and catch sampling analysis, population modelling and assessment. Dan started working as the science manager at IOTC since 2024.

Lauren Nelson

Fisheries Officer (Science)
lauren.nelson@fao.org
Lauren Nelson joined the IOTC Secretariat in May 2020 as a Fisheries Science Officer. Lauren has a Masters in Aquatic Resource Management from King’s College London. Her thesis studied the effect of closed areas in the Indian Ocean on tuna fisheries. After completing her Masters she joined the fisheries consultancy MRAG where she worked on a range of projects all over the world including many projects for the EU’s DG-MARE examining the effectiveness of fisheries legislation in Europe. She also worked on several Fisheries Improvement Projects (FIP) for EU Tuna fisheries operating in the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, carrying out preliminary and developing plans of action for the FIPs. After 4 years at MRAG she moved to the NGO Blue Marine Foundation where she focused on projects bringing models of sustainable fishing to small-scale fisheries around the coast of the UK as well as working on the implementation of new marine protected areas both in the UK and further afield.

Genevieve Phillips

Fisheries Officer (Stock Assessment)
Genevieve.Phillips@fao.org
Dr Genevieve Phillips joined the IOTC Secretariat in February 2025 as a Fisheries Officer (Stock Assessment). After completing a PhD in coral reef fish ecology in 2016, she worked as the Data Coordinator at Fisheries Queensland (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland) and then moved to Tasmania to work as a Fisheries Scientist at the University of Tasmania, first at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), and later at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS). At the AAD she participated in various CCAMLR Working Groups, and her work included assessing the impacts of survey design, and age sampling protocols on stock assessment (CASAL) outputs in the Australian Patagonian toothfish fishery in the Southern Ocean. At IMAS, she collaborated in the development and application of a new length-based integrated stock assessment model for decapod crustacean fisheries in Australia, and supervised PhD projects on fleet dynamics and climate change in marine protected areas. Her research also covered Fisheries Research and Development Corporation national-priority projects into the potential benefits of partially protected marine protected areas, and reviewing the options for independent data validation in Australia’s fisheries.

Compliance

Gerard Domingue

Compliance Manager
gerard.domingue@fao.org
Gerard joined the IOTC Secretariat in June 2008 as the Compliance Coordinator and head of the Compliance Section. In May 2020 he formally took on the position of Compliance Manager. In addition to overseeing the smooth functioning of the Compliance Section, he is also tasked with working closely with the Members and Co-operating non-Contracting Parties of the Commission, to ensure the highest possible level of compliance with conservation and management measures adopted by the Commission.  Before joining the IOTC Secretariat, Gerard spent almost twenty years in the Seychelles civil service where he worked in the fields of fisheries research and management of marine living resources.  In this capacity he represented the Government of Seychelles in various fisheries meetings and conferences, as well as in negotiations over access agreement for fishing rights in Seychelles’ waters.

Florian Giroux

Compliance Coordinator
Florian.Giroux@fao.org
Florian Giroux joined the IOTC Secretariat in April 2012 as a Compliance Officer and was promoted to Compliance Coordinator in December 2020. Florian earned his Master in Exploitation of Coastal Living Resources and Aquaculture in France. Before joining the IOTC Secretariat, Florian started his overseas experience in 1998 in Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean where he serves the Fisheries Administration of several countries in the field of fisheries management and monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) of fishing activities. Within the Compliance section, he is tasked with working closely with the Members and Co-operating non-Contracting Parties of the Commission, to ensure the highest possible level of compliance with conservation and management measures adopted by the Commission

Hendreika Monthy

Programme Assistant
Hendreika.Monthy@fao.org
Ms Monthy joined the IOTC Secretariat as Programme Assistant (Compliance) in June 2020. Before joining the IOTC Secretariat, Ms Monthy worked for the local NGO, Marine Conservation Society Seychelles, and also volunteered with the NGOs, Global Vision International and The Ocean Project Seychelles. She’s a graduate of the Seychelles Maritime Academy, where she studied Fisheries Science and Fishing Technology.

Data

Lucia Pierre

Data Management Assistant
Lucia.Pierre@fao.org
Ms. Lucia Pierre, the Data Management Assistant, joined the IOTC in 2004. Before joining the IOTC she was an employee of the Seychelles Ministry of Agriculture. Her career with natural resources statistics started in 2000 after completing a degree in Agricultural Economics at the University of Reading, UK.

Emmanuel Chassot

Data Coordinator
Dr Chassot was appointed Data Coordinator in November 2024 after having joined the IOTC Secretariat in June 2020 as Fisheries Statistician. After completing a PhD. in fisheries science in 2005 and a post-doctoral contract in Canada in 2008, Emmanuel joined the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development where he was involved in the monitoring of high-seas fisheries targeting tropical tunas in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. During 2017-2019, he worked as a consultant for the Seychelles Fishing Authority and The Nature Conservancy on projects related to the use of Electronic Monitoring, the management of Fish Aggregating Devices and the socio-economics of high-seas fisheries. His work at the Data Section of the IOTC Secretariat includes the management and curation of the data submitted by the CPCs, the analysis of the fisheries data sets to support the Working Parties and Scientific Committee and the participation to projects involving external entities and institutions such as the FAO Tuna Atlas.

Cynthia Fernandez Diaz

Fisheries Officer (Data)
Cynthia.FernandezDiaz@fao.org
Cynthia Fernandez Diaz joined the IOTC Secretariat in January of 2019 as Fisheries Officer, initially giving support to Compliance Section and moving to Data section in 2020. Since 2000 she worked on different projects related to the conservation and management of natural resources in Patagonia Argentina giving consulting and technical assistance on artisanal and sport fisheries for CENPAT- CONICET projects. Cynthia also participated in a project of the Pew Environment Group-The Pew Charitable Trusts to know the situation of Antarctic krill fisheries and she has coordinated the edition of the book "State of Conservation Patagonian Sea "for the Forum for the Conservation of the Patagonian Sea which include a review of fishing activity and the state of the principal exploited species. Cynthia continued his training in the field of sustainability and distribution of coastal-marine resources through distribution models’ and geographic information systems (GIS) tools holding a Master in Management of Sustainable Development (Universidad de Vigo, Spain) and a Master in Professional Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis (Universitat de Girona, Spain). Before joining the IOTC Secretariat she worked as an independent consultant on projects of evaluation systems for fisheries sustainability (MSC assessments and Fishery Improvement Projects) in EU and Latin America. As GIS consultant she was working on a Standardized System for Outlining Aquaculture Management Areas and in the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet). At the Data Section she provides assistance in the reception, verification and preparation of data sets and reports to support the Working Parties and Scientific Committee meetings and contribute to the dissemination of information on the IOTC Secretariat data-related activities.

Christoph Konrad

Fisheries Officer
Dr Christoph Konrad joined the IOTC Secretariat in March 2026 as a Fisheries Officer. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Ecology from the University of Aberdeen (2012), with a focus on quantitative modelling in ecological systems. Following his PhD, he held research positions at the University of Aberdeen and the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University in Canada, where his work included spatial-temporal modelling, tag-recapture analysis, and the study of fishing effort dynamics and marine population processes. He subsequently worked as a Senior Ecologist at Wood plc, contributing to management strategy evaluation (MSE) for Greenland halibut and conducting environmental monitoring and statistical analyses. From 2018 to 2024, he was a Fisheries Scientist at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, where he led modelling work supporting fisheries policy and coordinated multiple Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) expert working groups. His work has focused on management strategy evaluations (MSE), stock assessment, and the development of reproducible analytical frameworks using R and TMB, alongside contributions to international advisory processes, including ICES and GFCM.

Administration

Howard Whalley

Administrative Officer
howard.whalley@fao.org
Howard joined the IOTC in November 2016. He has over 20 years’ experience in the United Nations working in various administrative capacities including facility management, contract management, shipping and travel. He has an academic background in Business Administration with a focus on the implementation and control of facility management contracts. He joined the IOTC from FAO Mozambique where he was the Operations Officer for a large EU funded project aimed at accelerating the progress of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. During his time in Mozambique he helped to set up various offices and manage the administration, operations and logistics of the project. Howard will now use his experience to manage the administrative functions of the Secretariat with a focus on facilitating the work of other colleagues to help them reach their objectives in an effective and efficient manner.

Francis Kilindo

IT Consultant
francis.kilindo@fao.org
Mr Francis Kilindo has a City & Guilds qualification in Electrical and Electronics in addition to certifications in network, security and Microsoft technologies. He has more than 10 years of related experience working with Information Technology and systems. His experience includes periods as an IT Technician with C&W Seychelles, Incipe and VCS as well as 7 years working for Seychelles Land Transport Agency. Francis started with IOTC in May 2018.

Mirose Govinden

Bilingual Secretary
mirose.govinden@fao.org
Mirose Govinden is the Secretariat’s Bilingual Secretary. Prior to joining IOTC she worked for 11 years as a social worker in Seychelles’ Ministry of Social Affairs.

Rosemary Anacoura

Administrative Assistant
Rosemary.Ancoura@fao.org
Mrs Rosemary Anacoura, joined the Secretariat in August 1998 as the Bilingual Secretary and moved to the position of Administrative Assistant in April 2004.

Claudette Matombe

Office Assistant
Claudette.Matombe@fao.org
Ms Claudette Matombe joined IOTC as an Office Assistant on the 06th January 2020. Prior to joining IOTC she followed Reception operation courses at the Seychelles Tourism Academy and worked for 9 years with one of the largest hotel chain in the Indian Ocean, the Constance Group.

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