13th Annual Conference on Economic Reforms in Serbia: Gray Book 2021

Ana Brnabić was born in 1975 in Belgrade. She holds a master's degree (MBA) from the University of Hull from the United Kingdom and has worked for more than ten years with international organisations, foreign investors, local governments and the public sector in Serbia. In August 2016 she was elected Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, and she held that position until the election for the Prime Minister. She is President of the Council for Innovative Entrepreneurship and Information Technologies of the Serbian government and of the National Minorities Council of the Republic of Serbia, as well as Vice President of the Public Administration Reform Council of the Republic of Serbia. As Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, she worked on a faster systematic introduction of e-government in Serbia, with the aim of more efficient work of state administration and local self-government, direct raising of the quality of life of citizens of Serbia, building more modern and transparent administration and fighting corruption. Two most important projects implemented in this segment during her term are e-Baby ("Baby, Welcome to the World") and e-ZUP (full implementation of the Law on General Administrative Procedure). As President of the Council for Innovative Entrepreneurship and Information Technologies of the Serbian government, in day-to-day consultations with IT industry from Serbia, start-ups and innovative companies, she developed the Action Plan and started its fast implementation. In the fight against grey economy, she was in charge of the implementation of the "Take the Receipt and Win" raffle, in which more than 40% of Serbian citizens participated, which resulted in a significantly increased awareness of the importance of the fight against the grey economy. She is a member of the “New Leaders for Europe” group within the World Economic Forum. Prior to her election to the Serbian government, she was Director of Continental Wind Serbia (CWS), where she worked on the implementation of an investment worth €300 million in the wind farm in the municipality of Kovin. She took part in the establishment and was the first executive director, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the non-profit foundation Peksim. She worked at various US consulting companies that were implementing the projects financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Serbia. She was Deputy Director of the Serbia Competitiveness Project, an expert on the Programme of reform of the local self-government in Serbia and a senior coordinator of the Programme for economic development of municipalities. She actively participated in the establishment of the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED) in 2006. She became a member, and then the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of NALED. She has received numerous awards for the development projects she has worked on, for the promotion of social responsibility and tolerance.

She was born on 5 May 1970 in Tuzla. After graduating from the First Economics School in Belgrade, as a student of the generation, she enrolled at the Faculty of Economics, where she graduated in 1993 and received her doctorate in 2001 in the field of energy and economics. She became Assistant Professor at the University of John Nesbitt in 2008, Associate Professor and Vice-Rector for Science in 2011, and was elected as a full-time professor in 2016. She is the author and co-author of four books in the field of energy and sustainable development. She has published more than two hundred papers on the problems and possibilities of the development of the Serbian energy sector. She worked in the First Economics School, EPS-Elektroistok, at Nikola Tesla Airport and the University of John Nesbitt, where she is still employed. From 2004 to 2006, she was the Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia for Energy. She was the Energy Adviser to Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik from 2010 to 2012. From 2012 to 2014, she was the Governor of Serbia at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). She was elected Minister of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection in 2012, and since 2014 she is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure. The portfolio of the ministry, headed by her, has the infrastructure projects in the value of approximately €16 billion. During the same term, she was appointed the President of the Coordination Body of the Government of the RS for Gender Equality, as well as the responsible person on behalf of the Government for the issue of Roma inclusion. She chairs the Joint Government Group of the RS with the task of defining specific measures for improving the position of the Republic of Serbia on the World Bank Doing Business list and the Council of Foreign Investors. She is the President of the Coordination Body for supporting the monitoring of project implementation, investing in the reconstruction and/or construction of clinical health centres. Since 2018, she is a member of the Advisory Board of the World Bank for Gender Equality and Development, the body responsible for reviewing the progress achieved in gender equality at the global level and recommending activities to empower women and reduce the gap between women and men. Since the establishment of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure in 2014, which she still manages, more than 200 km of new highways have been built, more than 200 km of railroads have been reconstructed, public enterprise reforms have been started and a major step forward has been made in harmonization of domestic legislation in the field of traffic and construction with the rules applicable in the European Union. A special achievement is the implementation of comprehensive reforms in the field of construction, which resulted in Serbia's progress from 186th to the 10th place in the world for issuing of building permits on the Doing business list of the World Bank and improvement of the overall rating of the country on the list from 91th to 43rd place in three years. In her twenty-five-year professional career, she received more than 200 acknowledgments, charters and recognition, among which the "Reformer of the Year" in the selection of the NALED is one of the most significant ones. She received this award for the first time in 2014 for comprehensive building licensing reforms, and the second award, "Reformer of 2016", was awarded to her for decade of reforms in this area. She is a member of the Council of the University of Belgrade and the Management Board of the Development Fund. She is the founder of NGO Women's Government, a member of the European Movement in Serbia and the East West Bridge organization. She is the initiator of the initiative "Let Us Employ Thousands of Women in the Rural Areas", which is implemented by the Coordinating Body for Gender Equality in cooperation with Ethno-Network and NALED.

Prof. dr Darija Kisić was born in 1975 in Sarajеvo. She completed the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade in 2001, attended medical internship in 2001 and 2002 at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, and passed the professional exam in Sеptеmber 2002. She enrolled in post-graduate Magister studies in epidemiology in 2002/03 at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade, and defended her Magister thesis in June 2006. Her doctoral thesis "Prеdiktivna vrеdnost kvalitеta života u procеni ishoda bolеsti kod bolеsnika sa multiplom sklеrozom" was defended at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade in May 2010. She attended spеcialization in epidemiology at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade from May 2004 to June 2008, completing sub-spеcialization in epidemiology of non-contagious illnesses at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade in Dеcеmber 2017. She has been employed at the Epidemiology Institute of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade since Fеbruary 2002, when she was appointed Assistant Professor Traineee for Epidеmiology. She was later appointed Assistant Professor in May 2007, and once again in June 2010, while becoming Docent Professor in Fеbruary, being reappointed in May 2016. Since June 2017, she has held the title of Associate Professor for Epidеmiology. She has also been teaching epidemiology at the Faculty of Medicine in Kosovska Mitrovica since Fеbruary 2019. She has been a member of the National Expert Commission for Oncology since 2015, as well as a member of Presidency of Epidemiology Section. She is a co-author of six books in the field of medicine, while the total number of her published works from the SCI list amounts to 122. She has been Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Health "Dr Milan Jovanović Batut" since 2017. She speaks English. She is a mother of one. 

She was born in 1974 in Kruševac. She finished her primary education in Kraljevo, graduated from the Pedagogical Academy in Krusevac and Teacher Education Faculty in Belgrade. After that, she graduated from the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Higher Studies in Security and Defense - School of National Defense, Military Academy.  From 1991 to 1994 she was a journalist for Radio-Television Kruševac, and from 1994 to 2008 she was a journalist and editor of PC "Ibarske novosti" and RTV Kraljevo. She worked in the Information Service of the Serbian Progressive Party in the period 2008-2012. year, and from 2012 to 2015 she was a member of the RTS Program Committee. From 2012 to 2020, she was a Member of the Serbian Parliament, and during her three parliamentary terms she was the founder and coordinator of the Women's Parliamentary Network, Chair of the Committee on Defense and Home Affairs, Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on European Integration, the Committee for the Control of Security Services and the Committee on Culture and Information. She was elected MP in 2020, in her fourth term, and in the same year she became the Minister of Public Administration and Local Government. She speaks English. She lives and works in Belgrade with her family.

Sem Fabrizi has been Ambassador of the European Union to Serbia since July 2017. From September 2013 to June 2017 he was Ambassador of the EU to Australia. An Italian career diplomat, he has served as an advisor on international relations to the President of the European Council in Brussels and to the Prime Minister of Italy in Rome. His earlier postings included Geneva, at the Italian Permanent Mission to the WTO and UN, and the Italian Embassy in Beijing. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome he has held positions in the EU Department and the Secretary General’s Office. He holds degrees in International Law and International Economy from “La Sapienza” University in Rome, and he has served as a lieutenant in the Italian Army. Sem has been awarded the honour of Cavaliere Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. 

H.E. Thomas Schieb is an Ambassador to Serbia since 2018. He earned his Master’s degree in Economics, University of Göttingen, Germany in 1992. He was in diplomatic training in Bonn until 1994 when he was deployed as an EU election observer to South Africa. He served in Task Force Bosnia as a desk officer in Foreign Office in Bonn (1994 – 1996). His diplomatic deployment included German Embassy Sarajevo (1996), German Embassy Dar es Salaam (1996-1998), Division Southern Africa, desk officer, Foreign Office, Bonn (1998 – 1999), Division Security Policy, desk officer, Foreign Office, Berlin (1999 – 2002), Counsellor, Political Department, Permanent Mission to the EU, Brussels (2002 – 2005), Spokesperson, German Embassy London (2009 – 2011), as well as service as Deputy European Correspondent in Foreign Office, Berlin (2005 – 2009),  Head of EU Coordination Group, Foreign Office, Berlin (2011 – 2014). Before post in Belgrade he was a Minister Plenipotentiary / Political Coordinator, Permanent Mission to the UN, New York (2014 – 2018).

Mr. Lundin earned a master's degree in Law from Stockholm University in 1996. He previously graduated from the University of Uppsala, Department of Slavic Languages, Eastern European Studies and Economics. In addition to his mother tongue, he is fluent in ten languages, including Serbian, English, German, Russian, French and Italian. Since July 28, 2016, Mr. Jan Lundin has been the Ambassador of Sweden in Serbia, which is his third diplomatic function in our country. Before becoming Ambassador, he held the position of Director General of the Council of the Baltic States (CBSS) and the Permanent International Secretariat.

Sian Macleod was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Serbia in September 2019. Prior to this, Sian was Ambassador and Head of the UK Delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Viennna, serving in this position since 2015. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1983, and before joining the Foreign Office, MacLeod worked as the British Council programme manager. Her first international posting was to Moscow, from 1988 to 1992, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, she served briefly as Deputy Ambassador in the Embassy in Vilnius. She then returned to the Foreign Office, being in charge of various departments, including the Russian department and the department for biological and chemical weapons, control of armament, disarmament. She was posted to The Hague from 1996 to 2000, while in the period from 2004 to 2007 she once again joined the Embassy in Moscow, first as the Chief of the Political Section and then as a Minister Advisor and the Deputy Ambassador. She was the British Ambassador to Prague from 2009 to 2014, and before joining OSCE she served as the co-director of the Foreign Office Directorate for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in 2014 and 2015.

As a member of NALED Managing Board, he firmly supports the organization’s development with strategic guidelines and mentor support in cooperation with the Executive Office. He leads a company that has been a member NALED since 2012, a pioneer of Fair Competition Alliance, and a strongly engaged member of the Food and Agriculture and Environment Protection alliances. A man of Balkan sensibility, he listens closely to the needs of members from rural areas, such as Surdulica and Bela Palanka, always wiling to support their projects. He pays special attention to youth programs, cultural heritage and environment preservation – the latter, he says, being the main reason he engages in NALED. Favorite among colleagues in his team and NALED for his managerial skills, leadership vision and understanding for others. Genuine and straightforward, always available and authentic. Sponsor of summer gatherings on multiple occasions, he is also there to freshen up the days for NALED guests and employees with clear Vlasina water.  

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.