Renne Traicova serves as the Team Leader for the Basel Institute on Governance’s programme in Bulgaria. She has 20 years of experience in designing and managing international development good governance, rule of law and electoral reform programmes with a focus on political transitions. 

Prior to joining the Institute, Renne was a Senior Advisor with the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) Center in Washington, DC. In this role, she was her team’s lead on strategy and programme development related to electoral and political processes in Asia, Europe and Eurasia. 

She has taught Public Policy and Democratization at Link Campus University and Luiss University in Rome, Italy, and has served in senior management roles with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Renne has founded and managed the Initiative for Social Empowerment (ISE), which helps women (particularly victims of trafficking), youth and other marginalised groups in Bulgaria to get out of poverty through social entrepreneurship. She is also the co-founder of the Indiana University’s McLoskey Fund, which brings emerging political leaders from the Western Balkans to the United States for training. 

Renne is an active mentor for emerging women leaders, a frequent speaker at the global women's WINConference, and helped to co-produce the documentary Girls for Sale to advocate against human trafficking.   

She has a BA in Political Science from Purdue University and an MPA/MA in Public Finance and Russian and East European Studies from Indiana University, both in the US.