Board of Directors

Vita Terauda is Director of Centre for Public Policy PROVIDUS in Riga, Latvia. She is the former Executive Director of the Soros Foundation-Latvia. Prior to joining the Soros Foundation in 1996, she was Minster of State Reform with responsibility for launching the reform of Latvia's public administration and local government affairs. She has also served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A founding member of Delna (the national chapter of Transparency International in Latvia), she is Chair of the board of the World Wildlife Fund Latvia.

Olga Shumylo is Deputy Director of the International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS), where she is Director of European Integration and Foreign Affairs. An expert on the European Union, European integration, international technical assistance, and the political economy of transition, her seven-year professional career experience has included close co-operation with Ukrainian government institutions on building their capacity to implement European integration objectives and introducing EU standards in various spheres.
Areas of Research:
• EU–Ukraine trade and economic co-operation
• international technical assistance
• European Union
• European integration

Zhidas Daskalovski has a PhD in political science from the Central European University, and is currently president of the Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM), a leading Macedonian think-tank, and assistant professor at the Law Department of the University of Cyril and Methodius. He has a vast international experience, having been granted fellowships at the American University in Bulgaria, Oxford University, University College London, Turku University, WIDER Institute, Aalborg University and University of North Carolina. The author of a number of scholarly articles and three books, he was one of the founders of CRPM, whose analyses have been very influential on the policy level, successfully changing or amending various laws and mobilising the public in support of specific issues.

Darina Ch. Kadunkova has a master’s degree in Law Studies (1993-1997) and a BA in Information and Library Management (1991-1993). She attended the Board Source International Fellowship on non-profit governance (1998) and graduated in the international fundraising course of the Fundraising School at Indiana University (1999). She was trained in EU financial instruments and procedures at the European Centre for Public Affairs in Brussels (2003). Currently, she is Deputy Development Director at the European Institute, Sofia. Previously, she held the position of NGOs Development Consultant at the Open Society Foundation-Sofia (OSF) Information Centre (1993-1998), where she was responsible for the provision of consultancy to OSF grantees and clients in various facets of non-profit management. Later, she served as an OSF Senior Programme Officer (1998-2000), and as Programme Director at CEGA (Creating Effective Grassroots Initiatives) Foundation (2000-2001). She has participated in various international initiatives related to European integration, and partnership and network development. She has considerable experience in providing consultancy to local, national and international NGOs in the fields of organisational development and institutional strengthening. Since 2001, she has been a selector of Bulgarian fellows for the German Marshall Memorial Fellowship Programme.

David Kral is Director of EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in Prague, Czech Republic. He heads EUROPEUM's programme on EU policy. He lectures at the University of Public Administration and International Relations in Prague, and previously lectured at Charles University - Faculty of Social Sciences. He is a certified trainer in EU modules for public administration. A graduate of the law faculty of Charles University, he was co-ordinator of the Tempus programme for EU policy. His main areas of expertise are: EU reform and the EU Constitutional Treaty, EU enlargement, EU external relations, Common Foreign and Security Policy and EU policy on Freedom, Security and Justice. David speaks English, French and Italian.

Cholpon Nogoibaeva is Programme Director of the Soros Foundation Kyrgyzstan in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, where she leads the Public Administration, Economic Reform, Information and Education programmes of the Foundation, which develop proposals for reforms in the Kyrgyz Republic.

Cholpon has authored numerous articles and reports on economic and business development, public administration, and education reforms. She is responsible for liaising with local experts and editors for policy papers and handbooks published by the Soros Foundation Kyrgyzstan.

Before joining the Open Society Institute network, Cholpon was a co-founder of the Association of Independent Experts and Trainers of Kyrgyzstan and the Association of Young Researchers. She lectured at Bishkek Humanitarian University (Faculty of Social Sciences) and at the Kyrgyz Pedagogical University (Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences).

Cholpon is a certified trainer in strategic planning, project monitoring and evaluation, institution-building, and programme and project management. Her main areas of professional expertise are: development of reform processes, public service and transparency, local government development, and economic and business development.

Nicu Popescu is a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), London office, responsible for Russia and the Eastern neighbourhood of the European Union (since February 2007). He is also a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. In 2005-2007, he was an Open Society Institute (OSI) supported research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels. As an expert on the Eastern neighbourhood of the European Union he has co-operated with the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission, Freedom House, BBC, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Nicu Popescu has published extensively on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), EU relations with Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and the south Caucasus, and post-Soviet secessionist conflicts. He speaks fluently English, Russian, French and Romanian.