Advisory Board


François Lafond

 

François Lafond is currently an international adviser at Expertise France, on Public Administration Reform within the Serbian Government. Previously he was a European Affairs advisor in the Macedonian government (2017-21). He has worked as a political adviser, think tanker, associate professor, translator, and media contributor on European and transatlantic Affairs. Expertise: Western and Southeastern Europe, European integration, and Transatlantic Affairs. Fluent in French, English, and Italian.


Vesna Vasileva

 

Vesna Vasileva is a policy researcher, analyst, mentor, and business advisor with extensive progressive managerial experience in the business sector, banking, international organizations (including the UN), and NGOs. In addition, Ms. Vasileva is a certified EU Trainer with solid experience in organizing and conducting training for local government officials, journalists, NGOs, and businesses on a number of EU-related topics. She holds a PhD in Strategic Management and a master’s degree in European Studies from the Faculty of Economics in Skopje.


Anastas Vangeli

 

Anastas Vangeli is an Assistant Professor at the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His research focuses on Global China, Europe-Asia connectivity, diffusion of ideas, and non-market corporate strategy in the context of global uncertainty. Anastas holds a PhD from the Graduate School of Social Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, and master's degrees from Renmin University of China, Beijing, and the Central European University, Budapest. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the ChinaMed Project, Turin World Affairs Institute (T.wai), Turin, Italy, and a Research Fellow with the EU*Asia Institute, ESSCA School of Management, France. He was a recipient of the Presidential Award for Best Young Scholar in the Social Sciences in 2020.


Ioannis Armakolas

 

Ioannis Armakolas, PhD (Cantab), is Associate Professor in Comparative Politics of South East Europe at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia and Senior Research Fellow & Head of the South-East Europe Programme at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP); he’s also a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. Ioannis Armakolas is a member of the Europe’s Futures network of the Erste Foundation.