BEKA VUČO
President of the Board
Beka Vučo was born and raised in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Beka’s life has been dedicated to culture, democracy, human rights and international understanding. After graduating from Belgrade University’s Faculty of Philosophy and the University of Arts, she worked for over fifteen years as the Producing and Managing Director of the prestigious avant-garde Theatre Atelje 212 and BITEF festival in Belgrade. As a Fulbright scholar (1979-81), Beka completed her master’s degree in performing arts and business management at UCLA.
After moving to New York in 1987, Beka was affiliated with various regional and off-Broadway performing arts organizations that worked closely with Eastern Europe and Russia, including Theatre International Exchange Service (TIES), at that time, an Open Society Foundation’s grantee.
In 1991, at the time when George Soros was opening his foundations in Eastern Europe, Beka joined Open Society Foundations as the Regional Director and helped establish offices in the Western Balkans. She was affiliated with OSF for three decades. Much of her work at OSF focused on support for democratization, culture, equality and human rights.
Beka is also an accomplished photographer with published works in magazines, books, solo and group exhibits in New York and Washington, DC and Europe. Her interest in photography is inherited from her father, Nikola Vučo, whose own photography was part of the creative output of the surrealist movement of the 20th century Paris. Beka’s ongoing portfolio My Balkans gives a personal view of the turbulent history of the region since 1991.
In 2020 Beka founded and is the President of a New York based non-for-profit organization My Balkans Inc. to promote and help various activities in the field of culture, arts and education to organizations and individuals in South Eastern Europe and the Balkans, who are fighting for freedom of expression, social openness, artistic excellence, educational advancement and societies that promote justice and equality.