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Rodger Potocki is Director for Europe and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy, a leading democracy-building foundation based in Washington, DC. He holds a MA in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University, teaches Central European history at Georgetown University, and was a Fulbright Scholar at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
Fran Burwell is Vice President and Director of Transatlantic Programs and Studies at the Atlantic Council. Prior to joining the Council, Dr. Burwell was Executive Director of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, and also served as founding Executive Director of Women In International Security.
Dorota Mitrus is the Co-Founder and President of the European Institute for Democracy (EID). At the Institute, she implemented several programs supporting democracy on a global scale and sharing the experience of Poland’s statehood transformation. Ms. Mitrus is a member of Vital Voices and World Movement for Democracy networks and a recent member of the International Steering Committee of Community of Democracies.
Bronisław Misztal is the Executive Director of the Permanent Secretariat at the Community of Democracies. He also serves as Professor and Chair of Sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. His research focuses on social movements and democratic transformations, specifically on the formation of civil society in conditions of little or no social capital. Professor Misztal was also a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Chicago and a DAAD Scholar in Bremen.
Robert Hunter is a Senior Adviser at the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C and a member of the Executive Committee of the Atlantic Council Board of Directors where he also sits on the Strategic Advisors Group. Ambassador Hunter served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from July 1993 to January 1998. He was co-founder of the Center for National Policy and an organizer of the National Endowment for Democracy. He also served on the National Security Council staff, as Director of West European Affairs (1977-79) and then as Director of Middle East Affairs.
Jan Surotchak is the Resident Director of Europe at the International Republican Institute (IRI). Mr. Surotchak has served as the director of IRI’s Regional Program for Central and Eastern Europe, which provides training and technical assistance to parties and youth organizations on a cross-border basis in over 17 countries. He currently is serving his fourth elected term on the Borough Council in his Pennsylvania hometown.
Ambassador Jeremy Kinsman is the author of the Diplomats Handbook of the Community of Democracies. Before retiring in 2006 from the Canadian Foreign Service, Ambassador Kinsman was the Ambassador in Moscow (1992), Ambassador in Rome (1996-2000), High Commissioner in London (2000-2002), and Ambassador to the EU in Brussels (2002-2006). Ambassador Kinsman is a Contributing Writer for Policy Options magazine, and a regular commentator for CBC News. In 2007-2008, he was the Diplomat in Residence at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University
Tapera Kapuya is the Coordinator in the South Africa office of the National Constitutional Assembly, a civic movement which campaigns for a new constitution of Zimbabwe. He has worked extensively on international youth programs, including the International Union of Students and the World Youth Movement for Democracy. He is currently developing a regional chapter of the WYMD in Africa.
Annik Lussier is a Policy Advisor at the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She currently develops course work related to democracy and diplomacy and annually devotes her time to the Democracy Dialogue, which brings together Canada’s community of practice and leading international democracy experts. Ms. Lussier worked abroad in Egypt and China as a journalist.
Jan Látal is a member of the Human Rights and Transition Policy Department at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Látal developed and evaluated projects of the program, which promotes democracy and human rights in countries during political transition or undemocratic regimes. Previously, Mr. Látal implemented several civil society programs for the Czech Republic in the European Commission.
Temur Kekelidze is the Deputy Political Director of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He focuses on the planning process and formulating of foreign policy and security issues. Prior to this position, he was the Head of the Policy Planning Division, and Head of the NATO Division in the Department of Security Policy and Euro-Atlantic Integration at the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Andrea Sanhueza is the Executive Director of Corporación Participa, located in Chile. Since 1988, Corporación Participa has worked on national and international initiatives focusing on promoting the respect and exercise of democratic values and fundamental rights throughout Chilean society. Corporación Participa works in the areas of participation and civic education, electoral processes, multilateral processes, university social responsibility, and transparency and access to information.
Ramadan Ilazi co-founded the Speak-up Movement (Levizja FOL) in early 2008 and since then has been acting as the Movement´s Executive Director. As an undergraduate, Ilazi participated in the Prishtina Political School (PIPS) and the Democracy and Diversity Institute of the New School University in New York. His research interests include civil society and civic engagement in the process of democratization.
Vukosava Crnjanski is the President of LiNet, an NGO based in Serbia, and has an extensive background in non-profit management. Ms. Crnjanski currently is a member of the Governing Board of the Youth Initiative of Human Rights, and a Regional Trainer for the National Democratic Institute.
Marcin Walecki joined ODIHR as the Chief of Democratic Governance in December 2009. Dr Walecki has over 14 years of international democracy and governance experience working in more than 30 countries around the world implementing programs ranging from anti-corruption, political finance and public ethics, political party development, to election administration. He presents regularly at international conferences, seminars, and has written for numerous publications including: International IDEA Handbook on Funding of Political Parties (2003), K. H. Nassmacher’s comparative volume Foundations for Democracy (2001), Transparency International Global Corruption Report 2004, ISP Money and Politics (Warsaw, 2005), Political Finance in Post-Conflict Societies (IFES 2006). Recently he published two new studies dealing with public funding of political parties in Muslim societies, and international standards in political finance.
Anita Botti is the Deputy Director of the Department of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues. Ms. Botti previously served as a Legislative Liaison Officer in the Department’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs and as the first Congressional Coordinator for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and for the Under Secretary for Economic and Business and Agricultural Affairs. In 1997, Ms. Botti was seconded to the President’s Interagency Council on Women and served as Chair of the U.S. Interagency Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings. Ms. Botti worked closely with Congress to gain bipartisan support for, and ultimate passage of, a new law entitled the “Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000.”
Jestina Mungarewa Mukoko is the Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a human rights monitoring group in Zimbabwe. She was recently abducted by Zimbabwe’s secret police, and was freed after an order was issued by the Zimbabwe High Court. Ms. Mukoko was formerly a Programs Manager at the Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust. She was also a reporter, and founding employee, with Radio Voice of the People, the first independent station on Zimbabwe airwaves. She recently received one of the ten 2010 International Women of Courage Awards.
Melanne S. Verveer is the United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. She is the former Chief of Staff to First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton and Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of the Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international non-governmental organization that supports global women’s leadership.
Aron Mir Haschemi serves in the in the Political Directorate-General, Division for Pan-European Political Structures in the German Federal Foreign Office. As the OSCE Desk Officer and First Secretary in the division, Mr. Mir Haschemi is the point person for German contributions to OSCE-ODIHR election observation missions. Previously, Mir Haschemi served in the German Embassy in Beijing as a Political and Press Officer. Mr. Mir Haschemi has worked on freedom of the media and on the working conditions of foreign journalists in China, and has cooperated with a number of Chinese NGOs.
Lukasz Szozda is a 2009 winner of the Democracy Video Challenge, a worldwide film-making contest organized by U.S. Department of State and YouTube, for his short film, “Democracy is…” Mr. Szozda is an artist studying animation at the Academy of Fine Art in Warsaw.
Iryna Vidanava is the Founder and Editor in Chief of 34 Multimedia Magazine, a publication aimed at promoting creativity, dissent, and democratic values in Belarusian young adults. Ms. Vidanova one of Belarus’ leading experts on new media and is currently a scholar in residence in Warsaw, and a Ph.D. candidate at Belarus State University. In 2010, she was named on the list of the World’s Top Dissidents by Foreign Policy magazine.
Matt Harrison is founder and president of the Prometheus Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to pioneering innovative civic engagement technology. Since founding the Institute at the age of 19, Matt’s passion has been to find creative means to maximize democratic responsiveness among younger citizens. Along with recruiting a team of developers and marketers, Matt led the development of the Institute’s award-winning iPhone app, DIY Democracy, which currently boasts over 250,000 users and has gained international news coverage and recognition, including being featured by Apple on the front page of the App Store. Matt is the author of the book The American Evolution, has been a guest on Fox News “Strategy Room”, and has been quoted in the Orange County Register and Chicago Tribune, among other outlets. He holds a Juris Doctor and Master of Public Policy from the University of Southern California, as well as a Bachelor of Business Administration in Political Science and Economics from the University of Miami.
Anna Kostrzewa is the Deputy Director of the Department of East European Affairs in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ms. Kostrzewa has been involved in a number of Polish Foreign Ministry initiatives in Europe’s eastern neighborhood including in Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. She has also been active in various initiatives of the Community of Democracies, including the Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise program (SENSE).
Alexandru Musteata is the Project Assistant at the National Youth Council of Moldova, where he is currently working on a project called, “Youth for their rights.” Previously, Mr. Musteata coordinated several youth education programs related to voter education and European integration.
Emil Dediu is the Head of the America Directorate in the Bilateral Cooperation Department at the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration. Mr. Dediu has also worked for the OSCE and International Security Directorate, and the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Brussels. He holds a Ph.D. in law from the State University of Moldova.
Munkhjin Batsumber serves as an Attaché and Assistant to the State Secretary of Mongolia. Mr. Batsumber has also served as an Assistant to a Member of Parliament. In 2008, Mr. Batsumber wrote an article entitled “the elected dictatorship,” which was published one of Mongolia’s daily newspapers. Mr. Batsumber took part in a constitutional court hearing related to claims that the Parliamentary election law of Mongolia was in violation of several provisions of the Constitution.
Douglas Wake serves as the First Deputy Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). From 2008-2008, he served as the Director for UN Peacekeeping, Sanctions and Counter-terrorism in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. From 2004-2006, he was the Deputy Head of the Mission to Serbia and Montenegro of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), in Belgrade. Mr. Wake has been a career diplomat for over 28 years, and he has also been a professor of international relations at the U.S. Army War College.
Viktorija Braziunaite is the Assistant to a Member of the Lithuanian Parliament specializing in EU affairs and foreign policy, and the Vice-President of the Lithuanian Taekwondo Federation handling communication and coordinating public relations. She received a master’s in EU politics and administration from Mykolas Riomeris University.
Rasa Kubilickaite is the Director of the Institute for Democratic Politics. She was formerly the Director at the European Integration Studies Centre, a Public Relations officer at the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania and a Specialist of the Studies Department at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science in Vilnius University.
Constance Phlipot is the Senior Advisor to the Permanent Secretariat of the Community of Democracies in Warsaw, Poland, seconded by the U.S. Department of State. She taught International Relations and Economics as a Faculty Advisor at the U.S. Army War College. She served as a Senior Advisor on the former Soviet Union in the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning and as Deputy Chief of Mission in Embassy Minsk (2004-2006). Before heading to Minsk, Ms Phlipot was the Director of Country Assistance in the office of the Coordinator of Assistance to Europe and Eurasia, for the 12 countries of the Former Soviet and as the Regional Affairs officer in the Office of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
Cynthia Romero is the Assistant Director of the Transatlantic Relations Program at the Atlantic Council. Previously, she was a consultant on the Latin America team at the National Democratic Institute (NDI). She has also worked on foreign policy at the Office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Ms. Romero holds a Masters in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queens University Belfast, where she was a George J. Mitchell Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University.