Officers of the ILO Governing Body

Mr Wilson is currently the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international organizations in Geneva. He is also Ambassador to Switzerland, and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the UN agencies in Vienna and Rome. He is chair of the WTO Working Group on Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) and Vice Chair of the International Gender Champions. Prior to his current appointment, Mr. Wilson served as Coordinator of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group in Geneva and as Chairperson of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO). He held senior positions at the International Trade Centre (ITC), including Chief of Staff, and at the World Trade Organization, where he served as Senior Adviser to the Director-General and Deputy Aid for Trade Coordinator. He holds degrees in International Relations, Development Studies, Psychology and Sociology, and an MBA-Essentials Degree.

Matthias Thorns is the Director of Global Labor Relations and Human Rights at Samsung Electronics, a position he started in 2023. Before that, he served as Deputy Secretary-General of the International Organisation of Employers (IOE), leading the IOE’s work on multinational enterprises and SMEs, sustainability and human rights, as well as G20 and G7. He began his career as Adviser for Social Affairs in the European Business Federation UNICE (now BUSINESSEUROPE), before moving to the Confederation of German Employers (BDA) as Adviser and later Deputy Director of the International and European Affairs Department. He joined the IOE in 2012 as Senior Adviser. He is member of the OECD Sustainable Business Expert Group, the Stakeholder Advisory Board of the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors (APSCA) as well as the Stakeholder Advisory Board of the Birmingham Business School. He holds a Master of Arts in European Studies and a Magister Artium in History and Philosophy, both from the University of Hannover.

Ms Passchier is the Chairperson of the Workers’ group in the International Labour Organization (ILO) since 2017. She studied law at Utrecht University and started her career as a barrister in Amsterdam. In 1988, she joined the Confederation of Trade Unions of the Netherlands (FNV) as its legal adviser, and in 2003 was elected Confederal Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in Brussels. In 2010 she went back to the Netherlands to become a member of the executive board and vice-president of FNV until May 2017. In 2018, she joined the National Contact Point (NCP) for the OECD guidelines for Multinational Enterprises of the Netherlands as one of its independent members, and became its Chairperson in May 2021. She currently is also the Vice-Chairperson of the Fair Wear Foundation.