Šimon is the Chair of the Prague Civil Society Centre board. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Czech NGO People in Need, the largest humanitarian, developmental and human rights organisation in Central and Eastern Europe. He was one of the student leaders of the 1989 Velvet Revolution before serving as a foreign policy expert on the Balkans and human rights issues for President Václav Havel. He received the Czech Medal of Merit in 2002 and the European of the Year Award in 2003. He is also a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and sits on the boards of the European Partnership for Democracy and Eurostep.

Maria is the Executive Director of the Human Rights House Foundation, based in Oslo, Norway. She has helped launch ventures including the Human Rights House Network (Dugnad ’98), the Voice of Tibet radio station and the annual Oslo film festival, “Human Rights Human Wrongs”. She was previously the Director of the Human Rights House Oslo, a journalist at Norwegian business newspaper Finansavisen, and a theatre instructor at Nordland Fylkeskommune. She has an MSc Degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen.

Jacek is the President of the Institute of Public Affairs, one of Poland’s leading think tanks. He was active in the underground student and publishing movement in the 1980s and co-founded the Policy Association for an Open Society. He is also a member of the board of the European Partnership for Democracy in Brussels. He has a PhD in sociology and was previously a fellow at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is an author and frequent commentator on European affairs and politics for Polish and international media.

Inna is deputy executive director at the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF), a national foundation of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) network in Ukraine. At IRF, Inna supervises strategic planning, evaluation, programmes and organisational development, including collaborating with other donors in Ukraine. Prior to joining the IRF, Inna served as executive director of the Yalta European Strategy, YES. Inna has been a civil society activist since 1992, with the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research (UCIPR) and the Europe XXI Foundation, focusing on Ukraine’s democratic transition, and various advocacy projects. She was a member of the IRF’s executive board from 2006 to 2010 and sat on the steering committee for the World Movement for Democracy from 2006 until 2012. Inna has also served as chair of the supervisory board at the Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum. She was educated at Kiev State Linguistic University, the Institute of Journalism of Kyiv Taras Shevchenko University, and won a Chevening scholarship to study international relations at Keele University in the UK.

Giorgi Gogia is an Associate Director for Europe and Central Asia with Human Rights Watch. He also leads their Fellowship Program. An expert on human rights issues in the South Caucasus, Giorgi has written extensively on criminal justice reform, police brutality, freedom of expression and media freedoms, property rights, disability rights, labour rights, and international humanitarian law violations during armed conflicts. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Giorgi worked for the International Crisis Group as a senior analyst, researching and writing on protracted conflicts in the South Caucasus. A graduate of Central European University in Hungary, Giorgi is a PhD candidate in political science at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia.

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Barbara is a journalist, political scientist and expert on civil society in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She has previously served as a consultant on Eastern Europe for the Bundestag Committee on European Affairs and as an advisor for the German government coordinator on inter-societal cooperation with Russia. She worked for many years as a foreign correspondent, editor and analyst for various outlets, including Reuters, Radio Free Europe and Süddeutsche Zeitung. Barbara has been engaged with the Prague Civil Society Centre since 2015, later working as an external advisor from 2017-2021.

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Rostislav is the Centre’s Executive Director. He has a decade of experience working in human rights across Russia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. He launched the Prague Civil Society Centre in 2014 while head of the East European programme at People in Need, where he also started programmes in Azerbaijan and the northern Caucasus. He was also one of founders the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum.

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Anthony joined the Centre in 2015 after eight years working in international accounting. He trained at PwC as an external auditor and financial institutions consultant, before moving to internal audit at the investment banking division of Komerční banka (Société Générale group) and outsourcing department at Mazars.

Dáša has more than 25 years of experience in international diplomacy and human rights. Before joining the Centre, she was the director of Organisational Development and Movement Building at Amnesty International. She has also worked as the Director of the Czech Centres in China, and in various management positions for the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Palestine, Israel and the Czech Republic.

Maria has more than 15 years of hands-on experience in capacity development for human right organisations, civil society, and independent media. She joined the Centre in 2017 as a Programme Officer in the Grants team, overseeing a portfolio of civil society and independent media partners operating in some of the most difficult environments in the region. Prior to joining the Centre, she worked for 12 years with the Open Society Foundations in Armenia, where she was responsible for grants to civil society and legal initiatives. She is passionate about the advancement of basic rights and freedoms, with a strong interest in the rights of women and children.

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George heads up the Centre’s outreach and external communications. He has been with the Centre for over 6 years in various communication and fundraising roles. Before joining the Centre, George worked at Human Rights Watch in Moscow, International Crisis Group and the OSCE in Warsaw and Copenhagen.

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Tarik has over two decades of experience in media development, international media assistance, media research and advocacy, strategic communication, and academia. Apart from his role as the Head of the Central Europe Programme at the Prague Civil Society Centre, Tarik also teaches several courses on issues related to media, democratization and social change, at the University of New York in Prague. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the Institute for Media and Communication Studies, University of Vienna, Austria. Check his full CV here.

Igor was formerly the director of the Centre's Learning & Exchange programme. In a career working with activists, democracy advocates and academics across Europe, Russia and Southeast Asia, Igor spent 18 years with People in Need in a number of management positions. He founded One World, the world’s largest human rights film festival, and was its director for 10 years. Igor has also served as a board member at the Open Society Fund in Prague and on the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy.