Harm Jan van Burg

Harm Jan van Burg (harmjan.vanburg@oasis-open.org) brings 45 years of experience working in the public sector (Netherlands Ministry of Finance/Tax and Customs administration) to his role as a Senior Policy Advisor on International Standards at OASIS Open, working to help advance open standards throughout Europe with high-level policy consulting.

With a bachelor’s degree in social sciences, Harm Jan has been active in various roles across the Netherlands Civil Service, linked mostly with corporate communications and electronic data exchange. He was responsible for the pioneering videotext services and the world first ever tax administration website and was involved in developing electronic tax filing from 1996 onwards. He was vice-chair of the intergovernmental management team for the coordination of e-government development in the Netherlands and Initiator of the Netherlands Taxonomy Project (now called Standard Business Reporting and applied in multiple countries in the world) – focusing on increasing the efficiency, transparency and lowering administrative burden on companies in financial reporting processes between businesses and government.

He has also been active in OASIS Open, including chairing the Tax XML and E gov technical committees. Additionally, his experience extends to UN/CEFACT, where he was Vice Chair, responsible for Agribusiness, Fisheries, and Agri-food. Today Harm Jan is representing OASIS as Vice chair of UNECE’s Team of Specialists on Environmental, Social and Governance Traceability of Sustainable Value Chains in the Circular Economy.