Professional Experience:
I have 14 years’ professional experience working for UN Women and World Bank with increasing managerial and leadership responsibilities, of which 7 years in programmes in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment. In my most recent position as Deputy Representative a.i with UN Women Rwanda, Programme Specialist at UN Women Kyrgyzstan and working for UN Women Moldova over 6 years I gained extensive experience in designing and managing development programmes, provide technical assistance including through workshops to government counterparts, project teams and other select audiences (civil society organizations, other constituencies) and providing strategic advice to the Country Representatives on developing innovative interventions for women’s empowerment, including through applying co-creation, design thinking and positive deviance tools.
In my current role as Head of Programmes/Programme Specialist with UN Women Moldova I am responsible for the management of the Country Office portfolio of programmes under three strategic pillars: Women’s Economic Empowerment, Women in Leadership and Ending Violence Against Women and Girls including conducting gender assessments, developing policy and programme concept notes as part of the UN Women strategic programme and lead a country team of 13 staff. I also provide support in building strategic partnerships and mange inter-agency coordination, including leading the UN Gender Theme Group and actively coordinate UN Women support to the Common Country Analysis processes, preparation of progress reports to management and other corporate gender reporting requirements. I directly support the country office with resource mobilization and I am also responsible for the design and development of new programmes and projects, advice government on development interventions and represent the organization in government and international frameworks.
Before I served for the World Bank financed Projects Management Unit in Moldova for 8 years with increasing management and development responsibilities leading the unit for 3 years as Deputy Executive Director, where I managed successfully a portfolio of USD 63 million World Bank projects in Moldova in the area of rural investments and services, including rural finance, advisory services as well as rural business development. Being the Deputy Executive Director I have gained increasing and intensive experience in providing management advisory services, hands-on experience in design, monitoring and evaluation of development projects, including project design and formulation, budgeting, implementation, M&E, organizational development, training and networking of organizations. Before this I gained practical experience with evaluation of investment projects, preparation of feasibility studies and business plans, assistance in creation and development of rural businesses.