Our People
•• Managing Director ••
Rajan Shah
Lex Populi Managing Director Rajan Shah (Raj) has over 20 years of experience in human rights advocacy, international development, and sustainability. Raj has specific expertise in human rights due diligence, stakeholder engagement, and corporate social responsibility. His expansive career includes leadership positions in programs funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), European Union (EU), Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (Hivos), and Oxfam Novib. In these roles, Raj has successfully managed the full spectrum of program implementation, including, program management, budget oversight and control, and ensuring meaningful multi-stakeholder coordination. Raj has in-depth knowledge of international human rights frameworks and sustainability reporting standards and maintains a strong commitment to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in global programs. Raj is based in the Netherlands.
•• Our Experts ••
Nicolas Mansfield
Nicolas Mansfield (Nick) is Vice President at EWMI, where he is responsible for designing and managing rule of law and human rights programs in developing countries. He previously served as the Former Yugoslavia Regional Director of the American Bar Association Central and East European Law Initiative, where he oversaw post-conflict justice reform programs in the former Yugoslav states. Prior to his international development work, Nick served as Attorney General of the Republic of Palau during its transition to independence. He also served as a prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice. Between 2017 and 2021, he was Adjunct Faculty for the Master in Transitional Justice, Human Rights and Rule of Law at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
Nick is currently a volunteer lawyer with the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, which works to prevent and correct the conviction of innocent people in the U.S. states of Maryland and Virginia, and in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Michigan Law School and is based in Switzerland.
Delina Fico
Delina Fico is a prominent expert in project design and management, fundraising, monitoring and evaluation, gender equality and social inclusion interventions, strategic development, institutional and individual capacity development, as well as strategic communication and public education. For 27 years she has worked extensively with international, regional, and national non-governmental organizations, companies, academic institutions, and intra-governmental agencies in the U.S., Western Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe, Caucuses, Central Asia, and Eastern Africa. In her role as the Director of Civil Society Programs at East West Management Institute Inc. (EWMI), Delina designed and supervised the successful implementation of multi-year multi-million dollar programs focused on civil society, community development, and gender equality in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Uganda, and Uzbekistan, that supported civic actors’ initiatives to advance democratic process and reforms addressing priority concerns for citizens. Delina has helped organizations develop strategic plans and various policies and guidelines, carried out needs assessments for project design, conducted external evaluations for donor-funded programs, and delivered training on fundraising, strategic development, gender mainstreaming, and leadership.
Delina is the co-founder of several leading women’s rights groups and services in Albania, and she has served and serves in the boards of leading organizations, including the Network of East West Women, the Albanian Women’s Empowerment Network, Kosovo Women’s Network, Kosovo Stability Initiative, and the Shelter for LGBT Persons. She holds both an MA in Political Science and an MS in Nonprofit Management from the New School in New York City and has completed doctoral courses on International Family and Community Studies at Clemson University. Delina has taught at Tirana University in Albania and New York University and has published in various magazines and publications in Europe on gender issues, feminism, and civil society development. She is based in Albania.
Ana Drakic
Ana Drakic is a democracy, human rights and civil society expert with over 25 years of experience in developing, managing, monitoring and evaluating international development and cooperation projects focused on strengthening democratic governance and civic participation, with a specific focus on capacity development, accountability and transparency, strengthening civil society advocacy, and supporting social inclusion and activism of women, youth, and marginalized groups. Her professional experience is deeply rooted in the Western Balkans, including Montenegro, Serbia, and North Macedonia, where she has worked extensively with civil society actors, informal initiatives, and public institutions. This regional experience is complemented by her work in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Africa, where she designed and supervised the successful implementation of multi-million multi-year programs that built CSO institutional capacity, enhanced advocacy effectiveness, strengthened governance and accountability systems, and promoted meaningful participation of marginalized communities.
Across her career, Ana has held senior leadership and advisory roles within donor-funded international programs, including serving as Chief of Party, Program Director, and Senior Capacity Development Advisor. In all of these roles, Ana worked directly with civil society groups and public institutions on strategy development, management and human resource development including design and delivery of training, and other forms of support, including internal governance. Ana holds a degree in General Management from the Economics Faculty in Montenegro, and is current completing a Master’s degree in Public Administration Management. Ana serves on the board of the Foundation for Active Citizenship (fAKT), a leading grantmaking foundation in Montenegro where she is based, and has co-authored the NGO Sustainability Index for Montenegro for several years.
Boris Strecansky
Boris Strecansky is a consultant and academic practitioner focusing on the resourcing of civil society and knowledge development on philanthropy and civil society. Boris has professional experience in institution-building, learning and development, resource mobilization, strategic planning and scenario development, fundraising, and strategic communication. He has worked in various roles as a consultant, evaluator, peer-learning manager, or resource mobilization advisor in Europe, Eurasia, Southeast Asia, and Africa. In 2021-2024, he served as a Resource Mobilization Advisor and internal consultant in civil society engagement programs in Georgia, Cambodia, and Uganda. Boris is a Co-founder of the Center for Philanthropy, a philanthropy infrastructure development and donor advisory nonprofit in Bratislava, where he served as Executive Director and is a Senior Fellow and a member of the Board. He is one of the initiators and co-founders of an online giving portal, Ludialudom.sk, which has enabled individuals and corporations to donate to charities and NGOs since 2013. He has co-developed the online donation infrastructure in Slovakia (darujme.sk and the crowdfunding portal Startlab.sk), generating millions of EUR annually from tens of thousands of donors to hundreds of CSOs and civic initiatives.
As a researcher, he collaborates with Philanthropy Europe Association, Indiana University, Giving Tuesday, ERNOP, Maecenata Institute, and others. He is the author of reports and articles on philanthropy, fundraising, and civil society in Slovakia and abroad in both the practitioner and academic space and is a member of the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP) and the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR). Boris has a degree in history and philosophy from Comenius University, a postgraduate certificate of developmental donor practice from London Metropolitan University, and a master’s in public policy from Princeton University. He is based in Slovakia.