Team

Jakov Bojovic is the co-founder and Executive Director of the CEPOW Centre for Policy Writing and a programme manager at the EUI School of Transnational Governance. He is an expert in public policy communications. Since 2017 he has delivered numerous training sessions in writing for public policy to participants from governments, international organizations, think tanks, and advocacy groups. He has also taught courses and workshops to students at the IE School of Global and Public Affairs (Madrid), Central European University (Vienna), Columbia University (New York), American University of Central Asia (Bishkek), Kedge Business School (Bordeaux). Jakov holds ...

Irene is a policy analyst specialized in Gender Policies and Political Communication. After working for the European Commission, nowadays she works for Madrid City Hall in the field of Gender and Culture.

Mario is a co-founder of CEPOW and a policy expert focusing on Europeanisation modes of employment policies. He works for University of Zagreb and Centre for European Union Research at Central European University.

Imogen Bayley is CEPOW\'s Communications Manager. Since 2014 she has worked in various editing and communication roles in the education and publishing sectors. Imogen is finishing her Ph.D. at the Central European University in Budapest.

Melanie has been writing speeches for almost ten years and considers it an immense privilege. She spent almost three years as Chief Speechwriter to the former President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.  She worked on his high-profile State of the European Union speeches, as well as on speeches covering a wide variety of topics, from environmental to industrial policy. She has also worked for UNESCO Special Envoy and former first lady of Qatar, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, crafting her speeches for the UN General Assembly and World Education Forum. Melanie is now based in ...

Louise Day is the Digital and Social Lead at FleishmanHillard in Brussels. FleishmanHillard is a global PR company that specializes in reputation management, public affairs, brand marketing, digital strategy, social engagement and content strategy, with more than 80 offices in 30 countries. Louise has previously worked in a communications capacity for a FTSE 100 company, the European Commission and an international organization. Louise leads pan-European digital public affairs campaigns and builds strategies for clients from a variety of sectors- from energy to pharmaceuticals.

Ryan is political editor at POLITICO Europe, with particular responsibility for shaping POLITICO’s 2019 European elections coverage. Ryan served for three years as the original author of our Brussels Playbook column. He began writing for national newspapers in his native Australia in 1999, and is the author of two books including the cult classic “Please Just F* Off, It’s Our Turn Now,” an account of how the Baby Boomers / 68er generation are viewed by the Millenial generation. Ryan is regular policy commentator on outlets such as BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Deutsche Welle. He has reported from major ...

Erik Akse is an expert in EU decision-making and policy development. Since 2002, he implements Better Regulation policies such as ex-ante Impact Assessment, ex-post Evaluation, Stakeholder Consultation, Administrative Burden Reduction, and Legislative Simplification. He worked, among others, at the Dutch administration, the European Commission and the Western Balkans. He is co-founder and non-executive Director of Training at the Impact Assessment Institute. He published several books and articles on EU decision-making, the EU policy cycle, and EU Impact Assessment.

Dominique Ostyn is Director of Communications and Opinions Editor at EurActiv. He is a speaker at CEPOW\'s training in op-ed writing.

Bernhard Knoll-Tudor is an international policy expert and instructor of effective writing and speech-giving for public administrations. He is the Director of Executive Education at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. For over a decade, he worked for the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE), an international organization devoted to “hard” security as well as to human rights diplomacy where he was involved in policy design and public relations. He has held positions at the European Union Monitoring Mission, the United Nations Administration Mission in Kosovo, and with the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ays is currently working towards her PhD at Ghent University while applying her knowledge in practice as a legal consultant at eCOAST. At the same time, she is the editor of Biodiversity and Ecosystems Policy at Politheor and also works as a consultant on biosafety regulations and WTO at the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations.

Better Europe was set up in 2017 by Joost Mulder, an independent Public Affairs expert with a strong network in the “Brussels bubble” and in civil society, with a broad knowledge of EU financial services legislation. With 13 years’ experience in Brussels including as a political assistant to an MEP, a lobby consultant, and head of advocacy at an NGO, Joost is able to build unexpected alliances between different stakeholders. He has deep knowledge of EU decision-making and first-hand lobby experience on less documented procedures such as trilogues and Council negotiations, secondary legislation (DA/RTS/ITS) and the implementation ...