Stefana completed her undergraduate studies in Economics in 2005 at the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade. During and immediately after her master’s studies at City College, University of Sheffield, she was actively involved in numerous entrepreneurial projects in the private sector, during which she gained initial experience with EU funds and financing opportunities for projects and programs aimed at enhancing competitiveness. From 2010 to 2018, she worked extensively in the field of planning, programming, and monitoring the implementation of pre-accession funds (IPA) and bilateral cooperation in the areas of institutional building and social development. She held positions as Group Leader and later as Head of the Department at the Office for European Integration, Ministry of European Integration, Government of the Republic of Serbia. She coordinated sectoral working groups for IPA programming and international cooperation in the sectors of social development, public administration reform, and rule of law. She also served as Coordinator of the Negotiating Chapter 22 - Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments. As the National Coordinator for Serbian-German development cooperation, she was responsible for preparing and conducting annual negotiations on development cooperation with representatives of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), as well as partner organizations GIZ and KfW. She coordinated and managed several projects on behalf of the beneficiary institution and was a designated member of various supervisory boards for EU projects. She participated in the preparation and implementation of numerous strategic and programmatic documents for the use of IPA national and IPA multi-beneficiary (regional) instruments. Since 2018, as an expert in EU and international development cooperation projects, she has been engaged by KPMG Belgrade, where she worked on strategic and financial management of several EU projects in areas such as innovation and startup ecosystem development, support to anti-money laundering institutions, and public financial management. She was also involved in the development and preparation of several project proposals for funding from EU funds, international financial institutions, and the budget of the Republic of Serbia. She joined the NALED team in June 2023 as the Head of the EU, Regional Development, and Cooperation Department.