About Kyiv Dialogue

Founder and Director of the European Exchange gGmbH in Berlin. Stefanie Schiffer studied … Slavonic languages and Eastern European History in Tübingen and Munich. She has a broad experience in cooperation with civil society organisations in Eastern Europe. She has been a founding member and initiator of several civil society cooperation programs and international platforms as the EU Russia Civil Society Forum, the EPDE, the Kyiv Dialogue and the Initiative Quorum. She has been an advisor to the board of the Marion Dönhoff foundation and to the filia Frauenstiftung, a member of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung and a board member to the organization Human Rights in Belarus e.V.

Thomas Vogel became Co-Director at the European Exchange in April 2024. He had been … working for six years at the German Federal Foreign Office on OSCE, Security Policy, Eastern Europe and Russia. Before that, he worked as a Foreign Policy Adviser at the European Parliament focusing on democracy support, the rule of law and the civil society in EU Neighbourhood countries. Before joining the European Exchange, Thomas worked as a director for an organisation implementing security sector reforms globally on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office, the UN and the GIZ. He studied communications and linguistics at the Leipzig University and the University of Bergamo (IT).

Matthias Meier joined the European Exchange team in 2022 and currently serves as Head of … Communications, overseeing strategic communications for the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE) and Kyiv Dialogue. He holds a degree in Philology from Leipzig University (2012-2016), where he focused on the communication strategies of Russian state media in Germany. He later earned a Master's degree in East European Studies from Freie Universität Berlin (2017-2020), specialising in institutional reform and political transformation in Ukraine. Before joining European Exchange, Matthias worked on German-Ukrainian policy initiatives at the Berlin-based Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) and managed several public campaigns in the lead-up to the 2021 German federal elections.

Valeriia grew up, studied, and amassed over 10 years of work experience in Kyiv, Ukraine. … Through her work with the Heinrich Böll Foundation and leading Ukrainian NGOs and initiatives such as Centre UA, #MediaHub, Chesno, Stop Censorship she gained experience in coordinating and administering all project-related processes. Before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she worked as an SMM Manager for a German start-up. Since April 2023, Valeriia has joined the team of the Kyiv Dialogue in Berlin as event coordinator.