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Ella Kokotsis, PhD, Senior Advisor, Market Assessment & Compliance Division

Ella Kokotsis knows more than a little about clarifying priorities and accountabilities. In her current role supporting MACD’s Vice President, Ella puts her organizational and analytical skills to work by assisting her team in leading market oversight, assessment and compliance. 

In a way, Ella’s support in the division has brought her career at the IESO full circle: from market opening to market oversight. Working in the electricity industry wasn’t something she ever considered. But after completing her PhD at U of T on leadership accountability for G7 commitments, Ella found that her academic background in compliance opened doors at the IESO.

Ella Kokotsis, PhD, Senior Advisor, Market Assessment & Compliance Division

Ella Kokotsis knows more than a little about clarifying priorities and accountabilities. In her current role supporting MACD’s Vice President, Ella puts her organizational and analytical skills to work by assisting her team in leading market oversight, assessment and compliance.

In a way, Ella’s support in the division has brought her career at the IESO full circle: from market opening to market oversight. Working in the electricity industry wasn’t something she ever considered. But after completing her PhD at U of T on leadership accountability for G7 commitments, Ella found that her academic background in compliance opened doors at the IESO.

More than 21 years after taking on her first contract developing compliance manuals, Ella credits the IESO with her ability to balance a full-time role that feeds her need for challenge and purpose with her passion for writing and speaking on summit-related issues and themes.

“My career at the IESO has allowed me to pursue my interest with the Munk School of Global Affairs. I haven’t had to sacrifice one for the other – it’s always just worked,” says Ella, whose research has taken her from China, Russia, France and Germany, to the U.K., Italy, Belgium and Japan, and enabled her to rub shoulders with world leaders (not to mention celebrities like Bono and George Clooney).

“It sounds so cliché, but I’ve had incredible managers and worked with really solid teams at the IESO. Both have always known that I had this outside interest and always provided support and encouragement along the way.”

An expert on summit accountability, Ella has written broadly on the G7 and G20 summits and global governance, directed the research and publication of numerous analytical documents, and spoken at summit-related conferences worldwide. Her research methodology for assessing summit compliance continues to serve as the basis for the annual accountability reports produced by the G7, G20 and BRICS Research Groups. She is the author of Keeping International Commitments: Compliance, Credibility and the G7 Summits and co-author of The Global Governance of Climate Change.