Balkan Investigative Reporting Network
During her journalism studies, Natatalija joined BIRN in 2015 as an intern working on media privatisation and public tenders for media. She graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade in 2016.
She is currently doing a master’s in Social Science and Computing at the University of Belgrade.
Matt Robinson is a journalist, translator and former Reuters Bureau Chief for the Balkans and Special Correspondent for Central and Eastern Europe.
Based in Chisinau, Madalin Necsutu has been Balkan Insight’s correspondent from Moldova since 2017.
He is a political and investigative journalist who specialises in Eastern Europe and the politics of ex-Soviet states in the region.
He has worked as a journalist since 2006 for Romanian media outlets like the Mediafax news agency and daily newspapers ZIUA, Curentul and Evenimentul Zilei.
He was awarded for his political and investigative stories in Romania by the Romanian Professional Journalists Union in 2016; won the prize “European Reporter in 2017” by the European Commission; and has been awarded in Moldova by the UN Development Project in 2016.
He graduated from the Faculty of History in Bucharest, Romania, where he also completed an MA in International Relations. He did his postgraduate studies on diplomacy and is now doing a PhD in history in Chisinau, Moldova, where he has been based since 2015. He speaks Romanian, English, French, and basic Russian.
Haris has worked with BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina since September 2016.
He started working as a journalist in 2006. He worked for the daily Oslobodjenje for three years before joining Dnevni List, where he worked for seven years, reporting on local crimes and the work of the judiciary dealing with organised crime, terrorism, corruption and, partially, war crimes.
He won the second Fetisov international award for 2021 in the “Outstanding Contribution to Peace” category for a series of four articles. In 2023 he was awarded the regional “Srdjan Aleksic” award for contributions to the community for his work on the Database of Judicially Established Facts about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Semir Mujkic is managing editor for BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina. He joined BIRN in April 2017 and has worked as a journalist and deputy editor for BIRN BiH website Detektor.ba where he is managing editor as of October 2019.
He was awarded Second prize at EU Investigative Awards in 2019 for investigative series Corruption in Public Procurements; the Best multimedia investigation into corruption by Anticorruption network in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2018; and a UNICEF prize for journalistic contribution for the protection and promotion of child rights in print media in 2016.
Semir has attended advanced training courses in journalism, Reuters’ training of trainers and a one-month training course on economic and political reporting in London and Berlin, as well as the BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting.
He graduated in journalism from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo and has worked as a journalist since 2006, for Magazine Start and Online magazine Zurnal.
Gabrijela Vukicevic joined BIRN Serbia as finance officer in October 2016.
For 15 years previous to that, she worked as finance/administrative officer at NVO MicroFinS and MicroFinS-DBS. MicroFinS collaborated with the UNHCR (UN refugee agency), SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) and CWS (Church World Service).
Lada Vucenovic joined the BIRN Serbia team in January 2010.
As project coordinator, she handles all operational and project matters in the field of media policy and good governance, and also works as a researcher.
She graduated from Faculty of Organizational Sciences at the University of Belgrade, where she majored in marketing management and public relations. Before joining BIRN, she volunteered at several different organisations: Executive Group, ABS Holdings and Group for Security (G4S).
Bob is a seasoned media veteran and Executive Director of World 50 Group, where he oversees content, programming and product strategy for the company.
He also founded Tiny World Media, through which he has served in principal executive roles for media startups including CB Insights and News Deeply, Inc.; as strategic advisor to The Economist, TechCrunch and Engadget; and senior media advisor to the North Macedonia Strategic Initiative. Prior to this he served as general manager of Washington Post Live, founded the Bloomberg Link division of Bloomberg L.P., held executive positions at Fortune Magazine and was vice president/general manager of the trade show giant, Softbank Comdex. He is a public speaker and writer. His work has won numerous media industry awards in the U.S. and abroad.
Having done business in 25 countries, with a specialization in China, India, Southeast Asia and Mexico, Bob’s career spans the globe. He has served on the board of the Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York City, currently serves on the board of North Macedonia-based Pikasa Analytics and is a member of the Assembly for BIRN Hub (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network).
Azra joined BIRN Hub in August 2014 as a Finance Assistant. In 2017, she became a Financial Officer.
She is based in BIRN Hub’s Sarajevo office. Her responsibilities include helping with financial reports, assisting in the calculation of taxes, assisting with payments, receiving payment orders from the program staff and checking their correctness, communication with project managers and project coordinators, overview of the use of cash resources and creation of cash registers, monitoring project spending on a monthly basis, assisting with end of year preparation and procedures and any other duties that may be deemed appropriate to this role.
Her previous working experience includes working as accounting assistant in Altermedia d.o.o. Sarajevo.
In 2013, she graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Sarajevo. Her major was Macro-financial Management. In 2022, she enrolled in a Master’s Degree at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Sarajevo, where she completed all the exams.
Along with her native Bosnian, she speaks English
Tamara Chausidis is experienced editor and media freedom activist.
In 2014, she started to work as an editor for the website Prizma.mk, the main online publication of BIRN Macedonia. Before joining BIRN, she worked as an editor for Macedonian Radio-Radio Skopje, Radio Free Europe and TV ALSAT-M.
