Sonja Licht

Sonja Licht is the President of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence in Belgrade, Serbia. In 2007 she became a member of the newly established Foreign Affairs Council of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as joining the Council for EU Integration of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

She is currently Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Centre for Democratic Transition, and a member of the Advisory Boards of the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. She is also a member of the Executive Board of the Jefferson Institute in both Washington D.C. and Belgrade. In Serbia, she was Chair of the BOD of Politika Newspapers and a member of the Executive Board of the Women’s Fund Reconstruction. She was also a board member of the Council of the European Cultural Foundation.
From 1991 to 2003 she was first Executive Director and then President of the Fund for an Open Society (Soros Foundation) in Yugoslavia (later Serbia), a major donor of a vigorous civil society. Between 1991 and 1995 Sonja Licht was the co-chair of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, a broad coalition of various civic organisations and movements from all European and North American countries. She was part of the Yugoslav dissident movement from the late sixties, and in the mid-eighties she founded numerous local and international non-governmental organisations, including a number of women’s organizations.

Sonja Licht is a laureate of numerous international peace and human rights awards. In 2008 she received the Star of Italian Solidarity and the French Legion of Honour.

Last updated: 2015