Piret Tõnurist

Piret Tõnurist leads government innovation work at the OECD and is one of the managers of the OECD Mission Action Lab (MAL). She oversees innovation capacity assessments across OECD member countries, helping governments design effective strategies for more resilient, ambitious, and innovative public sectors. Together with colleagues at MAL, Piret advises challenge-oriented innovation programmes worldwide and supports governments and international organisations in setting up and running missions.

Her work bridges policy, technology, and organisational design to enable digital transformation and mission-driven innovation. During her tenure at the OECD, Piret has initiated and developed several cross-government programmes, including those focused on systems thinking, anticipatory governance, and innovation management. Her current works involves institutionalising AI experimentation in organisations. Earlier in her career, she served as a civil servant in various roles within the Estonian Government related to transformative change, worked as an innovation management consultant, and was a research fellow at TalTech.

She is an innovation economist by training and holds an MSc in Policy Evaluation from KU Leuven, as well as an MA and PhD in Technology Governance from TalTech.