Executive Office

Violeta started building expertise in local economic and rural development and standardization, upon graduation in 1998, as an expert and team leader in USAID programs in Serbia and the region, through the design and implementation of complex development projects worth over 10 million dollars. As the first employee of NALED, and its Executive Director since July 2007, she was instrumental in growing an independent membership organization, which later grew into the largest public-private association focusing on building a favorable business environment in Serbia. She is a graduate philologist and gained further education in the field of economics and project management in specialized training and study programs in the United States and Europe. She is engaged as a motivational speaker and moderator at professional conferences around the topic of women's entrepreneurship and leadership in the country and abroad. She has gained international experience as a consultant in the field of certification and intellectual property protection. She is a member of the Regional Council as the umbrella body of the Network for a Favorable Business Environment, which brings together state institutions and sector organizations from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro to institutionalize mechanisms for cooperation and strengthening the competitiveness of the region. She actively contributes to the preservation of traditional heritage of Serbia and employment programs for women through the role of the founder and president of Ethno Network. 

Jelena has been engaged in the reform of legislative process and regulatory framework for doing business, investment promotion, business support programs and establishing partnerships between the public and private sectors, as an expert in policy reform and implementation of economic development policies. She started her career in 2000, in the International Republican Institute (IRI) working on the development of political parties, civil society organizations and local governments. After that, she spent five years as the Head of Local Economic Development Team in USAID Municipal Economic Growth Activity program. During that appointment Jelena engaged in the development of more than 50 economic development strategies and institutional capacities for dealing with economic issues in more than 30 local governments. She worked at similar programs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Slovakia, Kyrgyzstan and Jordan. Since 2010, Jelena joined NALED, first as the Program Director and then as Policy Director. For the past 3 years, she served as the technical and expert coordinator of the Government of Serbia Joint Group for improving Serbia’s position on the World Bank’s Doing Business list. Within this engagement, she coordinates the development of Government's Doing Business Reform Plans, leading the correspondence with the World Bank, by preparing reform updates and coordinating and monitoring the implementation of the Plan. During a period of 3 years (until 2017) she was the lead expert in construction permitting reform in Serbia, a reform that was recognized by the World Bank, as the biggest reform in Serbia for the past 10 years. She was the Project Manager for the implementation of the electronic construction permitting system (EBPS) in Serbia (supported by the German and Swiss governments) and led the implementation of the World Bank’s project targeted at training and mentoring of the EBPS users. In 2017 she was the key expert in designing the cadaster reform (property register reform), and in 2018 she worked on drafting legislation for this reform - the Law on Property Registration. She is a member of more than 10 Government's working groups, working on tax legislation, public procurement, shadow economy, and other business environment issues.

Milica is an experienced regulatory expert and researcher with over 9 years of experience in practical policy research and large database processing. Milica participated in about 30 projects (EU, GIZ, USAID, EBRD) as a regulatory expert, researcher/analyst or project manager. She managed teams of domestic and international researchers and independently carried out the entire research process, from developing methodology, methodological tools (questionnaires, databases, etc.), through collection (through surveys, interviews, focus groups), to data processing, development of practical " turnkey" recommendation and presentation to decision makers. Her main area of ​​expertise is "business process" analysis and GAP analysis with a focus on digitization and optimization of public services, as well as research in the field of demographic trends and the labor market. She participated in the development and/or implementation of numerous public reforms, including the introduction of a system for the electronic issuance of building permits and the introduction of a system for digitizing procedures for registering and approving subsidies in agriculture - eAgrar. She gained managerial experience leading the Research Unit at NALED, after which she moved to the position of Research Advisor, where her main focus is providing research support for the implementation of regulatory activities that are horizontal and include multiple sectors. Milica holds a master's degree from the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, where she worked as an assistant on the courses Basics of Economics and International Economics. She speaks fluent Serbian and English, and also speaks Spanish.

Milos began his career at NALED in 2019, working on the project "Optimization of the Healthcare Network - Health Masterplan." Since then, he has been engaged in the Research and Analytics unit as a researcher/analyst responsible for conducting research and preparing analyses on numerous projects such as Public Procurement and Good Governance for Increased Competitiveness, Establishment of a Platform for a Favorable Business Environment in the Region, and the National Initiative for Cashless Payments. In addition, he performs economic analysis and statistical and descriptive data processing in various areas where NALED is implementing regulatory reform and monitoring institutions, contributing to the development of numerous publications, including the Regulatory Index of Serbia, Local eGovernment Index, Research on Public-Private Dialogue and Legislative Process, and Research on Citizens' Attitudes toward the Shadow Economy and Cashless Payments. By defending his master's thesis on the topic "Critical Analysis of the Institutional Framework of Public-Private Partnerships in the Republic of Serbia," he earned the title of Master Economist at the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade. During his studies at the same faculty, he held the position of vice president of the debate club and won numerous debating tournaments.

Aleksa Jerković completed his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Economics, majoring in International Relations. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in Economic Analysis and Policy (with a focus on Macroeconomics) at the same institution. During his studies, he had the opportunity to undertake a six-month internship at the National Bank of Serbia in the Interest Rate Department, where he was involved in monitoring preliminary and final interest rate results. He joined the NALED team in January 2024.