Democracy

Iryna Khomiak is a program officer with GMF’s Ukraine: Relief, Resilience, Recovery program, based in Berlin. She works within the emergency response programming for support of Ukrainian civil society and independent media, especially in terms of the full-scale Russian war. Prior to this, she worked as a coordinator of the Master in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Program at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, and on judicial, police, and juvenile probation reforms in Ukraine. She has worked within international projects funded by USAID and Global Affairs Canada as well as on numerous projects of the British Council in Ukraine.

Inspired by the spirit of the Revolution of Dignity and her experience, Iryna decided to pursue her Master’s degree in human rights at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. There, she focused mainly on peace and conflict resolution policies, women’s rights within this, and the right to education for national minorities. She also holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in the theory and history of literature and comparative studies from the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla academy” in Kyiv, Ukraine. In addition to her native Ukrainian, she speaks English and German, and she has basic knowledge of Polish. 
 

Etienne Soula is a Brussels-based research analyst with the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at GMF. His research focuses on Chinese information manipulation, economic coercion, and use of technology exports to weaken democracies and to disseminate globally its model of techno-authoritarianism. He maintains ASD’s authoritarian interference tracker that covers more than 600 incidents of Russian and Chinese political and economic interference in Europe and North America. He also monitors and reports on Chinese diplomatic and state-media messaging. 

Soula previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Hudson Institute, and NATO. He holds a dual master’s degree in international affairs from American University and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and a law degree from the University of Nottingham.

Brock D. Bierman is president and CEO of Ukraine Focus, a Washington, DC-based humanitarian organization committed to working directly with communities across Ukraine to meet urgent assistance needs through direct cooperation with Ukrainian local, state, and federal authorities.

Prior to helping found Ukraine Focus, Bierman established the Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Light Up Ukraine, and Playgrounds 4 Peace. These programs have helped delivered millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine since February 2022. Along with Ukraine Focus’ Rebuild project, they help thousands of Ukrainians defend their freedoms, rebuild their communities, and become more hopeful and resilient.

For his humanitarian contributions, Ukraine's Territorial Defense Force (TDF) awarded Bierman the Shield of the TDF of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and made him an honorary member.

Bierman has organized and led 13 missions to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, raised $2.5 million in cash and in-kind contributions to support Ukraine Focus programs in 2023 alone, and established key relationships and partnerships with international organizations such as Rotary International and the City of Albany, New York.

Bierman has served two presidents, most recently as the assistant administrator of the United States Agency for International Development's Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, and was confirmed by the US Senate by unanimous consent. Bierman also served three terms in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. A native of Rhode Island, Bierman received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

David Salvo is managing director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at GMF. An expert in Russian affairs, Salvo has been analyzing the Kremlin’s authoritarian toolkit to undermine democracy at home and abroad throughout his career.  

Salvo has worked at ASD since 2017, first as a resident fellow and then as deputy director. He is the principal author of The ASD Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies and makes regular media appearances, including on NPR, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and ABC News, to discuss US-Russian relations, Russian foreign policy toward its near abroad, and Russian tactics and objectives to undermine democracy in the United States and Europe. 

Prior to joining GMF, Salvo was a foreign service officer in the US Department of State, serving most recently as the deputy secretary of state’s policy advisor for Europe, Eurasia, and international security issues. He also advised senior-level State Department negotiators on the protracted conflicts in the South Caucasus, worked on US policy toward NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and served overseas in Russia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He speaks Russian and Serbo-Croatian and has a basic knowledge of French. 

David received his master’s degree from Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies and a bachelor’s degree in government and Russian from Georgetown. He is an avid music lover and plays in several DC-area bands, including a tribute to the renowned rock band Phish. 

Josh Rudolph is managing director and senior fellow of GMF’s Strategic Democracy Initiatives. He has two decades of high-level experience at the intersection of finance and national security across the US government, multilaterals, think tanks, academia, and Wall Street.

At GMF since 2019, Rudolph has launched several programming initiatives that elevate think tank research and civil society coalitions focused on emerging autocratic threats to democracy. These GMF initiatives have analyzed malign authoritarian financial interference in elections, national security threats from unregulated money launderers, international development aid to counter kleptocracy, homegrown toolkits of autocratic corruption in Turkey and Poland, Ukrainian governance reforms amid war and reconstruction, US civil-military relations in the context of democratic backsliding, and democracy promotion in the United States.

Before joining GMF, Rudolph served in a range of US government positions dealing with finance and national security, including as senior fellow on USAID’s anti-corruption task force, adviser to the US executive director at the International Monetary Fund, director of international economics at the White House National Security Council, and deputy director of the US Treasury markets room. Before beginning his public service, Rudolph worked for seven years at J.P. Morgan as an investment banker and financial markets research strategist.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Babson College and a master’s degree in public policy with a concentration in international trade and finance from the Harvard Kennedy School. 

Olena Prokopenko is a senior fellow at GMF. She formerly managed Eastern Neighborhood programs at the European Endowment for Democracy in Brussels and served as a development adviser at the Danish embassy in Kyiv. 

Prokopenko previously chaired international relations at RPR Coalition, Ukraine’s largest civil society platform, and advised Ukraine’s finance minister on donor relations. She served as a civil society expert for the UN Development Programme and the Council of Europe, and worked as a government relations manager at Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

Prokopenko is a co-founder of the Transatlantic Task Force for Ukraine and a government relations trainer at the Kyiv School of Economics. Her analysis of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Ukraine’s reform progress is regularly featured intop international media, including the BBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, TIME magazine, Newsweek, and Le Monde.

Prokopenko is a lawyer by training and an alumna of the US State Department’s Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program. She holds a master’s degree in political science from Western Illinois University.