Dina Rakin
Dina Rakin has been active in the civil sector in Serbia for ten years. She runs Coalition for Solidarity Economy Development. She has extensive experience in project management, public policy research and advocacy, in supporting and collaborating with local initiatives and municipalities. She helped establish mentoring programs for women in Serbia and in the Southeast Europe. She is a journalist with a MA in international relations. She speaks English and French.
Nikoleta Kosovac
Nicoleta graduated from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, at the Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature. After many years of work in numerous domestic and foreign media, Belgrade advertising agencies, Publicis and Saatchi & Saatchi, she wanted to do something she really believes in and found it in the social enterprise Liceulice – the first street newspaper in Serbia. For more than ten years, as the program coordinator of this social enterprise, she has been facing numerous challenges that come with independent, activist media and work on economic and social empowerment of the most endangered citizens.
She is a member of the board of directors of the International Association of Street Newspapers, an associate of the Coalition for the Solidarity Economy Development, the Center for Emancipation Policies, the Jelena Santic Foundation and an expert consultant for marketing and communications of numerous civil society organizations in Serbia and the region.
Bojana Ilić
Bojana has joined the CoSED team as a financial-administrative manager in September 2022. She graduated from the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade. After practice and work in the business sector, she moved to the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) in 2016, where she was in charge for financial-administrative work, but also gained additional experience in monitoring election processes since. After that, she continued her engagement at the Jelena Šantić Foundation as a financial coordinator, where she worked until the summer of 2022. Apart from working for CoSED she is active in various socially engaged projects and actions.
Dragan Srećković
Aleksandar Bogdanović
Aleksandar is in charge for managing the CoSED projects. He gained professional experience through many years of engagement in the non-governmental and public sector. He worked in European Movement in Serbia on improving the position of youth in Serbia from 2007 to 2013, after which he was responsible for the development, coordination of research projects and quality assurance of the research outputs. He gained experience in the public sector as The European Affairs and International Cooperation Coordinator in the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. He has extensive experience in project cycle management and advocacy. Aleksandar Bogdanovic graduated from the Department of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade. He speaks English. He is the author of the blog Moje Braničevo.
Zorana Milovanović
Started her engagement in the European Movement in Serbia in 2019 on projects on gender equality and development of solidarity economy and social entrepreneurship. Since November 2019, as a project manager, she is in charge of initiating, preparing, implementing and reporting on projects in these areas. Within the European Movement in Serbia, she is primarily active in the areas of gender equality, sustainable development and the development of local communities. Within the Coalition for the Solidarity Economy Development, she is active in the field of informing and educating the general public about social entrepreneurship and the solidarity economy in Serbia. She has experience and interest in creating models of social public procurement. She graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences, module international relations and affairs in 2017. She is also an alumna of the international business program implemented at The Business Academy in Belgrade. She is currently working on her master’s thesis in field of international economic relations at the Faculty of Economics. Her hobbies are photography, web design and technological innovations. She is fluent in English and speaks French.
Zvezdana Kovač
Zvezdana Kovac has been working in leading positions for more than 20 years, both in the non-profit sector and in the media in the Western Balkans. She was the executive director of the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE), a regional civil society organization that promotes the building of democratic, pluralistic and peaceful societies, advocating the principles of social responsibility, sustainable development and reconciliation in the region. She was the supervisor of the Joint History Textbooks for 13 countries in Southeast Europe, which cover the turbulent period from 1944 to 2008. She was also the founder, editor-in-chief and moderator of the first and only political TV program broadcast in all countries of the former Yugoslavia and in Albania. For this project, she received the Initiative of the Year (2016) award given by the European Citizenship Association. Prior to joining CDRSEE in 2010, Zvezdana worked as a journalist and held senior positions at various TV stations across the region. She was the editor-in-chief of the national television of FR Yugoslavia. She graduated in Serbo-Croatian language and Yugoslav literature. She speaks English and Greek. Zvezdana Kovac is Secretary General of the European Movement in Serbia since February 2020.
Jelena Anđelić
Formerly involved in the work of the state administration in Serbia, and international agencies, since October 2016, she is a member of the IDC family.
Jelena is an expert in social economy and civil society, interested in social innovation, partnership development and networking. As a member, she is also actively involved in the work of various national, regional, and EU networks, including the presentation of the Iris network in the position of the project manager since 2017, https://iris-see.eu/. She is a project manager with seven years of work experience in programming, implementation and monitoring of the EU, bilateral and other projects in Serbia and the Western Balkans region.
Miodrag Nedeljković
He began his career in 2002, and he has been working in the civil society sector for 18 years. He also has six years of experience working for the Spanish international NGO MPDL. Since the founding of the Initiative for Development and Cooperation in 2007, he has been the Executive Director. Miodrag is a manager and coordinator of numerous projects, and he used his experience in founding of several social enterprises and social cooperatives (eco BaG, Agro Iris, TDI, Papir servis, etc.) in Serbia. He is a co-founder of the Coalition for the Solidarity Economy Development in Serbia. He has great experience and knowledge in field of formal and non-formal education and economic empowerment of disadvantaged groups.
Ivana Stančić
Since 2009, she has been a part the Smart Collective team and engaed in projects of strengthening social enterprises and civil society organizations. As a Social Innovation Program Manager, she is responsible for the development and implementation of professional and financial support programs for social enterprises, social campaigns, development of partnerships with the business sector, and promotion of social entrepreneurship through various platforms, such as the Social Innovation Forum. She participates in the work of the Coalition for the Solidarity Economy Development and is one of the coordinators of the Social Economy Network of Serbia. She also coordinates the work of the social enterprise Dobra torba. Ivana graduated in sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. Since 1999, she has been active in the civil sector as an activist, educator and project coordinator.
Neven Marinović
Neven Marinovic is a social entrepreneur, co-founder and executive director of Smart Collective, a leading Serbian organization in the field of CSR and social entrepreneurship. He is a director of the Forum for Responsible Business – a network of socially responsible companies in Serbia. Neven received his formal education at the Department of Production and Management at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He acquired non-formal education through a number of educational programs across Europe and the United States, including a training program for management and leadership in the nonprofit sector at the Harvard University. He is a co-founder of several social enterprises in Serbia and is one of the initiators of various support programs for social and young entrepreneurs in the form of incubators, financial support programs, and advocacy coalitions. Neven has extensive experience in consulting for various companies and international organizations, such as the EBRD, the World Bank, the OSCE, and the UNDP.
Svetlana Radosavljević
Svetlana Radosavljevic joined the Trag Foundation team as the manager of the public policy program in 2018. Previously, she gained fifteen years of work experience working in the civil sector, starting a start-up company, as well as working in the Ministry of Finance in the sector for programming and management of the EU funds. She gained most of her experience in the civil sector through the USAID-funded Civil Society Advocacy Initiative. She is a founder of the organization iRevolution, which is focused on the development of digital literacy and the encouragement of Internet entrepreneurship. She also supported children and youth at risk through her work in the international organization SOS Children’s Villages and as a founder of the Center for Youth Integration. She continuously provides volunteer support to various associations in the country and abroad. Svetlana has a degree in organizational sciences, and her specialty is project management.
Biljana Dakić - Đorđević
Biljana Dakić Đorđević has been the executive director of the Trag Foundation since November 2014. She has been professionally engaged in the civil sector for 20 years, with competencies related to fundraising and partnership building, program planning and management, as well as cooperation with the public sector.
Through the activities of the Trag Foundation, it provides support to civic initiatives working to develop their local communities, protect human rights and strengthen social justice. At the Balkan Endowment for Democracy (BTD), a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, she led a grant program for civil society organizations in the Western Balkans. As a long-time director of development of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence (BFPE), she has contributed to the design of numerous programs dedicated to education and strengthening the capacity of leaders in the political and public spheres.
In addition to engaging in these areas, Biljana is particularly interested in issues related to women’s rights and strengthening citizen participation in decision-making processes. She is a member of the global women’s network Vital Voices. She is a member of the Steering Board of the UN Global Compact in Serbia and the Serbian Philanthropic Forum, as well as the Vice President of the Council for Socially Responsible Business of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.