Michelle Djekić
CO-FOUNDER & VICE CHAIR
Netherlands
Residence: Europe
Ms. Djekić has worked for over a decade in international affairs and development (from human rights to education) with a range of organizations in Europe and Asia. She has been deeply involved with multiple aspects of the establishment and functioning of the PIHF, and will continue to help lead this effort.
Professional Experience
Her humanitarian fieldwork in South Asia, and present involvement in forming a Pacific-based non-profit have enhanced her appreciation of workload management, capacity building for monitoring and evaluation, sharing lessons learned and – most importantly – differences across value structures to develop rapport and empathy.
As a former International Advisor to a growing, educational, non-profit NGO in Nepal, Ms. Djekić spearheaded strategy development and execution, including organizational and project planning; sequencing initiatives; and capacity building in monitoring and evaluation.
At the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), she coordinated international quality control programs and translation verification processes for large scale comparative studies in education worldwide, including instrument and procedural development. Based in the Netherlands, Ms. Djekić also researched and drafted high-level communications for IEA Global Programs & Member Relations.
As Project Editor at ‘The Broker’, an innovative Think-Net on globalization and development, she focused on Human Security and co-supervised the building of a new knowledge platform on Security & Rule of Law initiated under the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ms. Djekić also served as a Policy Officer and Researcher for the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), conducting trade and policy-related research in the fields of human rights, interreligious dialogue and sustainable development.
She has authored and co-authored publications and articles on behalf of international and intergovernmental organizations, and has acquired a combination of transferable skills that will help contribute towards the evolving world of the PIHF.
External Appointments
Ms. Djekić was a Member of the OECD TALIS 2018 Consortium (ex-officio) and the OECD TALIS Starting Strong Consortium (ex-officio). She has contributed core competencies to various different pools of expertise for international consortia, and has represented NPO and NGO’s in leadership positions at United Nations and EU Delegation level.
Education
Prior to attaining her Master’s Degree in Contemporary European Studies, Politics, Policy & Society from the University of Bath (UK), she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Modern European Studies from the University of Nottingham (UK). Ms. Djekić has spent the majority of her formative years in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and maintains strong ties with her adopted home in Southeast Asia.