---
title: "The Team"
summary: "OpenSanctions is a small business that develops the open source technologies and the database they produce. Our team is as passionate about producing high-quality data as about fighting financial crime."
url: "https://www.opensanctions.org/docs/company/team/"
date_updated: "2026-09-24"
---
## Leadership
**Friedrich Lindenberg** is the **Founder** of OpenSanctions. His interest in watchlist data is inspired by his work in investigative reporting. Friedrich led the data team at the [Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)](https://www.occrp.org/) from 2016 to 2021, where he contributed to numerous investigations into transnational crime, offshore finance and money laundering; including the Russian and Azerbaijani Laundromat cases.
He started the [Aleph project](https://docs.alephdata.org/), an open-source data platform used by reporters and analysts in over 40 media organisations to explore large structured and unstructured datasets and find reporting leads.
## Commercial
**Julia Schmitz-von Hülst** is a **Principal Account Executive** at OpenSanctions. She's driven by strengthening customer relationships to build a robust commercial business, airing data-driven insights with industry knowledge to help the team act with confidence.
She brings 15 years of experience in technology services and client relationship management, most recently as Senior Director, Expert Services at Market Logic Software, where she led implementation, ongoing paid services, and the support team.
**Jack Popescu** is a **Senior Account Executive**. He works on building and nurturing client relationships, helping businesses leverage our solutions to achieve their goals. He is responsible for driving revenue growth and ensuring client satisfaction.
Prior to joining our team, Jack worked in tech sales for over 10 years and has studied Law and Philosophy with a focus on distributive systems of justice and real-world applications of ethics.
**Faith Clarke** is the **Marketing and Content Manager**. She is passionate about translating complex ideas and concepts into engaging content for a wide range of audiences, and spotting stories within large data sets.
She has a background in journalism, and previously worked as Head of Online News at The Centre for Information Resilience, which conducts open source investigations into human rights abuses. She wrote and edited articles and investigations on Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Sudan and Myanmar, and led dozens of collaborations with media outlets. Prior to this, she led the media and content team on the Afghan Witness project, which archived and verified information on human rights and security incidents in Afghanistan.
**Brenna Maeve** is the **Head of Customer Success and Community Management** at OpenSanctions. She is focused on developing the framework for a robust customer journey that not only gives a smooth experience, but also meaningful engagement and adoption.
Her first introduction to Open Data was while working for Mapillary, now a part of Meta, where she engaged with the OpenStreetMap community that included humanitarian mapping projects and organizations across the globe. She is passionate about having good, accessible, clear data contribute to tangible change.
**Stefan Sava** is a **Customer Engineer** at OpenSanctions, working at the intersection of product, data and customer use cases.
Previously at [FintechOS](https://fintechos.com/), where he held roles across engineering, solution architecture and presales and sales engineering, leading the efforts in Central and Eastern Europe.
He focuses on translating complex systems into usable solutions, bridging technical and business stakeholders and driving adoption through clarity.
## Operations
**Julia Vernersson** is **Chief of Staff** at OpenSanctions. She brings nearly two decades of experience in operations and organizational leadership. Most recently, she served as Managing Director of [Hostwriter](https://hostwriter.org/), a global network for cross-border journalism connecting media professionals across 160+ countries, and hosting the award-winning outlet [Unbias the News](https://unbiasthenews.org/). Earlier in her career, she worked in media development and operations at [Sourcefabric](https://www.sourcefabric.org/), Europe's largest developer of open-source software for news media.
**Rita Prates** is the **Operations Manager** at OpenSanctions. With a strong operations and project management background, she specializes in optimizing workflows, enhancing efficiency, and creatively executing strategic initiatives.
She’s passionate about OpenSanctions’ mission of promoting transparency and uses her skills to streamline processes and support smooth, efficient operations.
## Data engineering
**Eric Barrett** is the **Data and Security Manager** at OpenSanctions. His background is both in data journalism and applied security, exemplified in his previous work as the data desk manager and data director at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) from 2019 to 2025.
Prior to working in journalism, Eric directed a not-for-profit in Tbilisi, Georgia whose mission was to make complex, public-interest data transparent and accessible.
**Ivan Stavropoltsev** is a **Data Engineer** at OpenSanctions. He is passionate about data accuracy and has technical expertise in web scraping, data cleaning and integration. His specialization lies in constructing and managing web crawlers to gather information from various data sources.
Prior to joining OpenSanctions, Ivan gained a Master's degree in International Affairs from the Hertie School in Berlin, where he focused on International Security and Data Science.
**Asya Gergel** is a **Data Engineer** at OpenSanctions. She builds and maintains web crawlers and contributes to improving the data pipeline.
Beyond her work at OpenSanctions, she collaborates with a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University on a research paper about the war in Ukraine and is developing a civic tech tool for an LLM-assisted deliberation at Oxford's Computational Social Science Group. Previously, she worked as a data scientist on national-level political campaigns and party strategy across the EU. She has contributed to research on information manipulation and policy evaluation with advocacy organizations, think tanks, and academic institutions such as NYU's Center for Social Media and Politics, Princeton University, and Columbia University. Asya holds a Master's degree in Political Economy from NYU.
## Platform engineering
**Edith Viljoen** is an **Engineering Manager** at OpenSanctions. She has a background in legal publishing and more recently worked as a Python developer and XML nerd at [Laws.Africa](https://laws.africa), a non-profit focusing on providing and improving free access to legal information.
She is most comfortable at the intersection between people and technology, translating either way as needed and making sure that the latter works for the former.
**JD Bothma** is a **Senior Data Engineer** at OpenSanctions with a deep interest in making data meaningful, and making systems work. At OpenSanctions he works on the data platform and supports customers in making use of the data. Previously as Head of Tech and then Head of Product at [OpenUp](https://openup.org.za/) in South Africa, JD was responsible for developing numerous open data tools, making information easily accessible to both technical and non-technical audiences and clients in government, civil society, academia, and the media.
He has a passion for understanding how data is best shared to be easily usable, and helping users understand the opportunities and limitations of a dataset.
**Leon Handreke** is a **Software Engineer** at OpenSanctions. He works on maintaining and improving our data platform, ensuring the reliability and timeliness of our data deliveries and making our data even more rich.
Prior to joining OpenSanctions, Leon studied Computer Science, Sociology and Political Science. He previously worked as a Software Engineer at Google.
**Johan Schuijt** is a **Creative Technologist** at OpenSanctions and is responsible for EveryPolitician and PoliLoom. He’s a self-taught hacker with a stubborn belief that good data should be open and technology should serve the public interest.
Previously, he built data tools at Follow the Money. He was drawn to the team’s sharp thinking and the commitment to building a truly open product. He cares about transparency, open source, and building things that help people hold power to account.
And you? Check out our [open positions](/docs/company/jobs/).