Simon Hunt

Simon Hunt is an accomplished development economist. He currently leads two large research programmes on building the data and evidence for Extreme Poverty reduction (DEEP), and on the scaling of Early Child Development policies and programmes (THRIVE).

In mid-2019, he stepped down after 10 years as OPM’s CEO. Before that, he worked as the Director of OPM’s work on evidence, poverty, and social policy for 13 years. He was an academic at Oxford University for 10 years, and a policy consultant with OPM for the following 27 years. In that time, he has led more than 50 research surveys, policy studies, evaluations, and programmes supporting national rollout of new public services in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Simon’s original motivation came from living and working for two years with Harijans and Tribals (Scheduled Castes and Tribes) in a cluster of very poor villages in Central South India.