Polish

Kristina Pitalskaya is a development manager for multilateral funding at GMF, and is based in Brussels. She brings more than nine years of experience and a background that includes work with the EU, the US Agency for International Development, the UN Development Program, and UN Women as well as with private foundations across Europe.

Pitalskaya has worked in the EU (Belgium and Czechia) and in Georgia on the technical implementation of EU and US democracy support programs. Her work has focused on strengthening civil society, media, and election sectors across Europe, the Eastern Partnership region, and Central Asia. She has led fundraising strategies and managed complex EU-funded proposals and multi-year projects, including under Global Europe, Horizon Europe, and Erasmus+.

Before joining GMF, Pitalskaya held grant and fundraising management roles with the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, the Prague Civil Society Centre, the World Organization of the Scout Movement, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, and the European Endowment for Democracy.

Pitalskaya holds a master’s degree in European studies from the College of Europe, a master’s degree in international relations from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tbilisi State University in Georgia. She is fluent in English, Georgian, Polish, and Russian, with working proficiency in French.

Philip Bednarczyk is GMF's Warsaw Office Director. He joined the organization after serving as the senior Europe adviser on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee and staff director for the House Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats for then-Ranking Member Gregory Meeks. Prior to that, he was a Bosch Foundation fellow in Germany. He also worked for an American NGO in Moscow, and for the EU in Brussels and Tallinn.

A dual Polish-American citizen, Bednarczyk studied at Fordham University and received a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. 

Nedim Useinow is a program manager with the GMF Ukraine Cities Partnership initiative. He focuses on supporting the rebuilding and sustainable, innovative development of Ukraine’s cities.

Before joining GMF, Useinow served as a program officer at ARTICLE 19, where he managed projects on digital security and human rights. He also worked with the Jerzy Regulski Foundation in Support of Local Democracy, a Polish organization promoting self-governance, as an expert helping to share Poland’s experience in democratic transformation with Ukrainian cities. At TechSoup, he led projects focused on digitizing public services at the municipal level in Ukraine. Earlier, at Solidarity Fund PL, he was part of the team coordinating a grant program supporting Ukraine’s decentralization reforms.

Useinow studied political science and cultural studies at the University of Gdańsk and the University of Warsaw. He has been a guest lecturer and the author of several academic publications. He regularly appears in the media, providing commentary on political affairs, regional security, and local development.

Larissa Doroshenko is an open-source intelligence analyst on the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at GMF. As an expert in state-sponsored disinformation, she detects and analyzes foreign information manipulation and interference using ASD tools and other computational methods.

Prior to joining the GMF, Doroshenko taught and conducted research at Northeastern University’s communication studies department and the Network Science Institute. Her projects explored the use of new media for disinformation campaigns and sought ways to mitigate their influence through early detection and grassroots activism. Her research into political campaigning and citizens’ online engagement in Ukraine appeared in leading academic journals and edited volumes.

Doroshenko holds a PhD in political communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a master’s degree in media and communications from Mid Sweden University, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Belarusian State University. In addition to English, she speaks fluent Belarusian, Russian, and Polish, and some French.

Oscar Luigi Guccione is a Warsaw-based program assistant with GMF East. He researches key policy developments in Central and Eastern European countries and organizes projects that further European and transatlantic cooperation. Before joining GMF, he worked for the European University Institute in Florence and in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe secretariat in Vienna. He was also an associate editor for Thomson Reuters in Gdansk. 

Guccione speaks fluent Italian and English, and has a good command of Polish and French.