Democracy

An internationally-recognized nongovernmental organization (NGO) leader, Pavol Demeš served from 2000-10 as director of GMF's Bratislava office, where he oversaw GMF's activities in Central and Eastern Europe. He now works in Bratislava as a transatlantic fellow.

Before joining GMF, Demeš was executive director of the Slovak Academic Information Agency-Service Center for the Third Sector, a Slovak NGO committed to enhancing civil society. Previously, Demeš led a distinguished political and civic reform career serving his country as foreign policy advisor to the president of Slovakia (1993-97), minister of international relations (1991-92), and director of the department of foreign relations in the ministry of education (1990-1991). In 1999 he was awarded a six-month public policy research fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. 

Gordana Delić is the regional director of the GMF Balkans program, the Balkan Trust for Democracy and deputy managing director of the Transatlantic Trusts. She has 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector in the area of civil society development, with extensive experience in program management and development, grant solicitation, corporate philanthropy, research and planning, election processes, get-out-to vote campaigns, human rights, and reconciliation. Delić has knowledge of both the nongovernmental and governmental sectors in the Balkans, as well as of international donor strategies, programs, procedures, and operations in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. Prior to joining the Balkan Trust for Democracy, Delić worked at Freedom House Serbia. Her international experience includes five years of work on different democracy development programs in Slovakia. Delić is fluent in Serbian, English, and Slovak. She also communicates in Czech, German, and Spanish.

Nicolas Bouchet is a visiting fellow based in GMF’s Berlin office, working closely with GMF’s Transatlantic Trusts in its efforts to support democracy and civil society in Eastern Europe. He conducts research on EU and US democracy promotion, with a particular focus on Russia and Eurasia (especially the countries of the EU’s Eastern Partnership). His research interests also include US foreign policy, democratization, and civil society.

Kristina Kausch is deputy managing director of GMF’s South and Wider Europe program, dividing her time between Madrid and Brussels. An established voice on European foreign affairs and Europe’s relations with its neighborhood, she conducts research on a broad interdisciplinary portfolio that includes international security, connectivity, the geopolitics of technology, and global power shifts.

Prior to joining GMF, Kausch held positions with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; FRIDE, a Spanish think tank; the Bertelsmann Stiftung; and GIZ, the German development cooperation agency. She has contributed to a wide range of media outlets including The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Guardian, Politico, El País, RTVE, Defense One, Deutsche Welle, ARD, Der Tagesspiegel, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. 

Daniel Hegedüs is a GMF regional director, Transatlantic Trusts Central Europe focused on Central Europe. He writes and speaks extensively on populism and democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe, and the European and foreign affairs of the Visegrad countries. He is frequently quoted in outlets such as AFP, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Euractiv, EU Observer and Der Spiegel. He has studied political science, history, and European law at the Eötvös Loránd University Budapest and Humboldt University in Berlin.