Liz is the Director of Tax Justice and Human Rights at the Tax Justice Network (TJN), where she has worked since 2010. In her role, she leads a programme of collaboration between tax justice and human rights advocates in initiatives of practical application, with a network of regional and global researchers, advocates, and campaigners who are interdisciplinary and international in scope. Currently, her work particularly explores tax justice and its contribution on a climate just transition.
She also represents TJN in the Financial Transparency Coalition, an international network of 12 civil society organisations, and is an active steering group member of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice’s working group on tax and gender. In 2017, she designed a proposal and secured donor support to bring together international researchers, advocates, and activists working on tax, women’s rights, and gender justice to develop an action plan for progressive tax systems and financial transparency for women’s rights. The collaborative outcome was the Bogota Declaration on Tax Justice for Women’s Rights.
Before joining the TJN, Liz was a Development Manager at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, where she worked with the Skoll MBA Scholars and the Business School team to promote social justice ethics and practice.At the beginning of her career, she spent 17 years in supported housing roles including managing a residential supported housing service for young people who had finished short custodial and non-custodial sentences, and developed, planned, and evaluated service provision in consultation with service users. These experiences gave her an opportunity to challenge service inequalities, including opening access of provision to women and working with governing bodies to challenge discriminatory practices related to HIV/Aids and perceptions of risk.
Liz gained an MA (Hons) degree in Victorian literature at the University of Liverpool in 1984 after studying English literature as an undergraduate. In 2014, she gained a postgraduate certificate in human rights development management, international human rights, and development management from the Open University.
What gives me hope? Opportunities to strengthen democracy, a concept that is under such attack in our time. It is why I believe tax justice is so important — because it can create opportunities for all people, especially women, to have choices, and for their voices to be heard.Liz Nelson