Mrs Gisa Fuatai Purcell, a Samoan is the Acting Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO) and the Director, ICT Development. Gisa has over 30 years experience in telecommunication and information and communication technology (ICT) development at the national, regional and international level.

At the CTO Gisa has been acting SG for over 12 months now and has implemented a lot of transformation and innovation decisions including revamping the key performance indicators for staff performance evaluation and developing the strategic plan for 2020-2024. Under her excellent leadership, she guided and won 2 tribunal cases against the CTO in April 2019 and nurture staff to their current status of motivation and happy to wake up in the morning to go to work.

Gisa is the former Head of ICT development for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Land Locked Countries (LLDCs) and countries with special needs, as well as Climate Change Adaptation, Emergency Telecommunication, and e-Waste at the Development Bureau (BDT) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Prior to joining ITU, Mrs Purcell was the Assistant Chief Executive Officer for the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of Samoa after working as ICT and Finance consultant in Wellington, New Zealand for many years.

Gisa established the National ICT Committee of Samoa where she made major contributions to driving the liberalization of the Telecommunications market. She spearheaded the development of Samoa’s first ever national ICT policy and strategic plan and its implementation that started with liberalization of the mobile market, schoolNet and Telecenters. Gisa’s work made Samoa the first country in the South with a liberalized mobile market and the first country to have established an independent office of the Telecommunication Regulator.

Gisa holds a Masters of Commerce and Administration Degree from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; with a major in Information Systems. She values her university and continue to be a partner in various Victoria University’s projects including authoring a chapter in the latest book in e-Government: Achieving Sustainable E-government in Pacific Island States.

Gisa is a family oriented person who is happily married and blessed with 4 children and 6 grandchildren.