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 not-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.

Vesna Pusić was born and raised in Zagreb, Croatia, where she studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Zagreb, obtaining her PhD in the field of sociology.

Throughout her career as an academic and politician, Pusić taught at the University of Zagreb and also served for twenty years as a member of the Croatian Parliament.

From 2011 – 2016 Pusić was the Croatian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs. Pusić has been a human rights activist and has published a number of books and articles.

Kathrin Deventer is the Secretary General of the European Festivals Association (EFA). Kathrin is a Co-founder and Board member of the European House for Culture, an initiative of EFA, a member of the Strategy Group of “A Soul for Europe”, co-initiator and board member of The Festival Academy (TFA).

Under her leadership, EFA has launched the new programme for arts festivals EFFE – Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe including its FestivalFinder.eu. In the same way, she also led EFA to co-initiate together with major performing arts networks the EU-funded project of Perform Europe.

She served as a member of the Culture Committee of the EU’s “New Narrative for Europe” project. She has a special interest in culture and its role in civil society engagement and issues connected to the recognition of the importance of culture in society.

Philipp Dietachmair (Gmunden, Austria) has been active in international cultural relations for over twenty years. He began his career in Sarajevo, working on local initiatives aimed at rebuilding student cultural life and higher education in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is currently Head of Programmes at the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam. Previously, he led the foundation’s arts and culture programmes across Central and Eastern Europe, the former Yugoslavia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and North Africa.

Philipp Dietachmair is the co-founder of the Tandem cross-border collaboration programmes, which have connected hundreds of arts initiatives and cultural community actors in more than 40 countries. He also co-designed the European Cultural Foundation’s Culture of Solidarity Fund, which began as a cultural response to the COVID-19 crisis and has since developed into a Europe-wide philanthropic platform for cultural emergency support in Ukraine.

In recent years, he has co-curated the foundation’s European Pavilion arts programme and is currently involved in developing new European initiatives focused on socially engaged arts and support for arts institutions in remote, non-metropolitan areas. He has also contributed to academic field studies and book projects that examine the role of culture and autonomous art spaces in civil society, and that envision more sustainable, slower models of cultural mobility in Europe.

Paul Dujardin is a leading cultural strategist and senior advisor to the Belgian Minister of Culture and Welfare. With decades of experience in cultural diplomacy, multilateral cooperation, and inclusive governance, he has shaped groundbreaking policies and institutions across Europe, the Arab world, and the Global South.

As Commissioner-General for Heritage in Brussels and board member of Culture Action Europe and Kanal Pompidou, he bridges heritage with contemporary creativity, civic resilience, and transnational dialogue. His work spans continents and sectors—connecting the arts with education, social justice, urban policy, and international relations.

Rooted in a cross-cultural family and a lifelong engagement with Africa, Paul’s vision of culture is profoundly humanistic: a tool for equity, solidarity, and dignity. He advises non-profit and public institutions pro bono, offering expertise in ethical leadership, foundation engagement, and long-term fundraising strategies.

Guided by the words of Toni Morrison—“If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else”—he dedicates his work to empowering communities, amplifying unheard voices, and sustaining culture as a space for meaning, memory, and shared humanity.

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC (1945) is an English lawyer since 1971, a part time judge in various jurisdictions between 1983 and 2018 and adviser of the NBO since 2014.

Between 1998 and 2006 he was lead prosecutor for the UN in the trials of Dario Kordić & Mario Čerkez, Goran Jelesić and Slobodan Milošević at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Nice is a founding Trustee of The Charitable Keyboard Trust since 1991 and Co-founded the Geoffrey Nice Foundations in 2014 which delivers multi-disciplinary master classes for participants from all parts of former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, providing cross-national educational opportunities for students, researchers, and academics.

He is Emeritus Professor of Law at London’s Gresham College. Seventeen of his twenty-four public lectures delivered at Gresham College between 2012 and 2016 were published in 2017 as ‘Justice For All’ by Scala Publishers. Several of those lectures concern the 1990s wars of the Western Balkans (former Yugoslavia).

Nice was the chair of the 2018-2020 China Tribunal, a people’s tribunal into ‘forced organ harvesting’ from prisoners of conscience in China.

He chairs the 2020-2021 Uyghur Tribunal, investigating China’s alleged genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghur and other Muslim populations in China.

Nice has worked for victims of the North Korean Regime, the Rohingya Muslims and other victim groups around the world.

He is a regular commentator in the media on world affairs, mostly involving armed conflicts and regularly concerning the former Yugoslavia.

Ivo Josipović (Zagreb, 1957) served as the President of Croatia from 2010 to 2015.

As politician, he promoted reconciliation in the S.E. Europe, human rights and fight against corruption.

Before presidential mandate, he has been a university professor (international Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure), member of Parliament and composer.

He has published several books and 90 scientific papers dealing with international criminal law, criminal procedure and human rights.

As composer, Josipović wrote some 60 compositions for orchestra and soloists, which have been performed and recorded by prominent artists.

Josipović received honorary doctorate from Immanuel Kant University (Kaliningrad) and Istanbul University.

He has received prestigious domestic and international awards for his work in the field of human rights, ecumenicalism and art.

Among many recognitions and decorations, he received the European Medal of Tolerance from the European Union, the Premio Galileo 2000 Award, Grand Prix of the European Broadcasting Union, three Porin Awards for discography.

Ivan Ludlow combines a career as Director of New Studios a film production company focusing on bringing the language of the performing arts to the screen, Artistic Director of an opera festival in Portugal, programmer of chamber music series in the UK and Belgium and consultant involved in worldwide cultural projects such as the creation of a multi-disciplinary incubator in Singapore, with one as an operatic soloist.

He performs at major venues throughout Europe, the US and Asia, including the Salzburg Festival, Opéra de Paris, La Monnaie, Ravinia Festival, Beijing Festival, with influential conductors such as Philip Jordan, Adam Fischer, Ludovic Morlot, Premil Petrović and directors such as Peter Brook, Peter Sellars, Christoph Marthaler.

Particularly interested in new works and new forms he has been a soloist in notable world premieres and ground-breaking adaptations.