19th ANNUAL ASSEMBLY AND GREY BOOK: THE PATH OF REFORM AND EQUALITY

Edward Ferguson took over as His Majesty’s Ambassador to Serbia in July 2023. Before coming to Belgrade, Edward served as the Minister Counsellor Defence at the British Embassy in Washington DC in September 2018. Together with the Defence Attaché, he led the British Defence Staff (United States), a network of 1,000 people spread across 28 States. As the UK’s senior policy adviser on defence relations with the United States, he was responsible for UK-US collaboration on strategic planning, nuclear policy and programmes, trade and acquisition, and science and technology. He was the US Network’s lead on HMG’s Integrated Review and AUKUS, and the senior champion for the Race, Ethnic and Cultural Heritage Group. Previously, he served as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2014 to 2018, where he created and led a new international strategy, co-launched by the British and German Foreign Ministers, that re-energised Euro-Atlantic integration after years of stagnation while stimulating economic growth and reducing high levels of youth unemployment. A former Exhibitioner and Choral Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, where he was also Treasurer of the Oxford Union, Edward graduated with First Class Honours in Classics in 2001. Joining the Graduate Fast Stream of the Ministry of Defence, he started out in the Naval Staff before joining the Iraq Secretariat during the build-up to and subsequent execution of Operation TELIC. In 2003, he was involved in financial and requirement scrutiny of the Department’s future helicopter procurement programme. From 2004 to 2006, he managed a national award-winning £300-million programme to consolidate the MOD estate in Greater London and to redevelop RAF Northolt. In 2006, he volunteered for an operational tour, serving as Political Advisor to a British Battlegroup in Maysaan Province, Iraq (while his brother was a troop leader with the British Army in Basra). On his return, he took on responsibility for the strategic management of the UK’s bilateral defence relations with the United States, Canada and Western Europe. From 2007 to 2009, he worked as Private Secretary to three Defence Secretaries, acting as their closest adviser on issues relating to operations in Iraq, the £6-billion defence equipment programme, science & technology, counter-terrorism and counter-piracy. In 2009, he was appointed the Head of Afghanistan and Pakistan Policy, responsible for advice to the National Security Council on the policy, financial, legal, parliamentary and presentational aspects of the UK military contribution to operations in Afghanistan, and on the long-term defence role and interests in Pakistan. From 2011 to 2014, he was Head of Defence Strategy and Priorities, leading two teams, one responsible for leading the MOD’s contribution to developing the 2015 National Security Strategy and the Strategic Defence and Security Review, and the other for prioritising the MOD’s international defence engagement activities. In 2013, he graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science with an MSc with Distinction in Strategy and Diplomacy. He has been a member of the RCDS Strategic Advisory Panel, a member of the US Air Force Grand Strategy Advisory Board, and is a graduate of the PINNACLE Command and Staff course.

Born in 1978 in Belgrade. She graduated in banking and finance from the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade and received a Master’s degree in Finance and Management from SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Italy, and the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles. She published several scientific papers on the topic of public-private partnerships and project financing in cooperation with the University of Belgrade and was a guest lecturer at master’s studies at University College London and at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade. From October 2022 to May 2024 she served as Minister of Mining and Energy. She held the same office from May 2024 to April 2025. Prior to serving as Minister of Mining and Energy, she was a member of the Executive Board at NLB Komercijalna Banka, where she was in charge of corporate and investment banking. She spent a significant part of her career, from 2016 to 2021, in the position of Director of the Regional Representative Office of the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the Western Balkans, the largest multilateral financial institution in the world and one of the largest creditors of the Western Balkan countries. She brought to the Serbian government a rich 20-year long international experience of financing large corporations, investments and projects in the fields of energy, transport, telecommunications, innovation and other industries, as well as experience in financing small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the pillar of the Serbian economy. Before serving at the EIB in Belgrade, she was the Manager for Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania at the EIB headquarters in Luxembourg and was in charge of public-private partnership projects and project financing including in Ireland, France, Great Britain and the Benelux countries, when she was awarded by Project Finance magazine for the European transaction of the year in the aviation sector in 2013. The French-Serbian Chamber of Commerce granted her an award for contribution to the improvement of French-Serbian economic relations. In 2023, the WISE Serbia organisation declared her a leader in sustainable energy, while Bocconi University included her among the 99 most outstanding women, former students of the university, who are changing the future. Prior to her career in banking, Đedović worked in the media and communication field. She received recognition for reporting from the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2001 from the US National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She speaks English, French, Italian and Russian. She is married and is the mother of Duška and Milan.

Dejan Đokić has been the Director of ASEE in Serbia since February 2017. He started the company engagement as Project Manager in 2005, and further career development led him to the position of Director of Profit center for infrastructure services. He has managed and took part in a number of projects of crucial importance for the company, in financial and public sector in the region, as well as major regional projects in the field telecommunications. Before joining ASEE, Dejan worked as engineer-associate in Jugoimport company and as technology engineer in Zepter International. He graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade, earning a degree in the field of industrial engineering.

Senior CEO and Board Member, strategy executive, of global multinational companies with more than 25 years of experience in large multicultural organizations within Retail, FMCG, Home Appliances and Automotive Industry. Managed complex teams across Europe, Japan and North America in companies ranging from 11.000 to 24.000 employees. Built a career focused on problem solving, strategy modeling and analysis, executing restructuring strategies, and driving revenue growth & cost savings projects with impacts on EBITDA from 1-150M EUR.

Violeta started building expertise in local economic and rural development and standardization, upon graduation in 1998, as an expert and team leader in USAID programs in Serbia and the region, through the design and implementation of complex development projects worth over 10 million dollars. As the first employee of NALED, and its Executive Director since July 2007, she was instrumental in growing an independent membership organization, which later grew into the largest public-private association focusing on building a favorable business environment in Serbia. She is a graduate philologist and gained further education in the field of economics and project management in specialized training and study programs in the United States and Europe. She is engaged as a motivational speaker and moderator at professional conferences around the topic of women's entrepreneurship and leadership in the country and abroad. She has gained international experience as a consultant in the field of certification and intellectual property protection. She actively contributes to the preservation of traditional heritage of Serbia and employment programs for women through the role of the founder and president of Ethno Network. 

Dragan Penezić holds a PhD on the topic "The modern concept of business through the development of Public and Private Partnership (Comparative study of PPP models in Europe - Solution for Serbia)" in 2010, and graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade in 1999. He joined British American Tobacco in 2016, where he started as a Government Affairs Manager and currently holds position of the Head of Legal and External Affairs for Serbia and Montenegro. Prior to his career in BAT, he held the position of the Secretary General of the Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia, where he spent seven years and has been a member of the Negotiating Group for Chapter VIII (Competition and State Aid) in the process of Serbia's accession to the European Union. Dragan has extensive experience in public administration, first as Assistant Minister in the sector for concessions and public - private partnerships in the Ministry of International Economic Relations, and then in the Ministry of Trade and Services as Assistant Minister in the sector for trade, prices and consumer protection. He is a President of the NALED Assembly since 2017 and President of  FIC’s Anti-Illicit Committee from 2018.