TI was founded in May 1993 through the initiative of Peter Eigen, a former regional director for the World Bank. Founding board members included Eigen, Hansjörg Elshorst, Joe Githongo, Fritz Heimann, Michael Hershman, Kamal Hossain, Dolores L. Español, George Moody Stuart, Jerry Parfitt, Jeremy Pope and Frank Vogl. Eigen acted as Chairman and Pope was Managing Director. In 1999, TI began publishing the Bribe Payers Index (BPI) which ranked nations according to the prevalence that a country's multinational corporations would offer bribes.