Veronica Cretu is the co-founder of the Innovating Governance Association. She has been nominated to the Ad-Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence of the Council of Europe in November 2019. Veronica is currently an Envoy to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and is a former member of the Civil Society Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), years 2013-2016. She is also the co-chair of the Moldovan Permanent Dialogue Mechanism on Open Government.

Veronica is currently based in Vienna and is a lead partner on Good Governance at Innovating Governance NGO.

She is a Global Woman Aspirational Award Winner 2019, Global Woman Club Vienna Aspirational Award winner 2019.

Some of the most important memberships include:

• Open Government Partnership (OGP) - Civil Society Steering Committee Member (04/2013-10/2016)
• Judge, Open Government Award 2016 competition “Making Transparency Count” with OGP
• UN Civil Society Advisory Group on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Moldova– Member (2012-2015) – Representative of the National Participation Council to the UN Women
• Member of the National Participation Council of Moldova, civil society advisory body to the Prime Minister (2012-2014)
• Member of the Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group to the Internet Governance Forum (IFG) under UN Secretary General – 2011-2014
• Member of the Nominating Committee of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), years 2014-2016
• Member of the At Large Advisory Committee of ICANN, representing EURALO years 2007-2008, 2013-2014

With MA in Contemporary Diplomacy from University of Malta, Veronica is very much involved in the implementation and promotion of the principles of open government, open data, open education, ICT4D, transparency, citizen-engagement and participation in policy making both nationally and internationally. She acts as a speaker/moderator/facilitator in several open-government related events dedicated to CSOs and Governments from across the region. She brings more than 15 years of work experience.

Her main areas of expertise include open government, citizen engagement, capacity development, monitoring and evaluation, critical thinking methodology, gender equality, community development, strategic planning.

In the past years, Veronica worked closely with the World Bank, Council of Europe, UNDP Ukraine, Open Contracting Partnership (OCP), E-Governance Academy Estonia, others. She worked in a number of countries among which Liberia, Turkey, Nepal, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Mexico, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan.

Veronica led independent end of project evaluations, conducted situational analysis and strategic planning sessions for international organizations, CSOs, public institutions. She spent the past two years working closely with the Moldovan Government and World Bank on a Governance Reforms Scorecard, a tool that helps the government keep track of its reforms and ensure a comprehensive strategic planning process, and a ‘live’ monitoring system of its main indicators.

Veronica led an independent evaluation of the Open Contracting Showcase and Learning Projects (Ukraine, Nepal and Mexico City) for OCP during August – December 2017. She is currently providing consultancy to the stakeholders in the Republic of Macedonia on Governance Transparency Strategy. And is working with OSCE mission in Kyrgyzstan Republic on the elaboration of the alternative reporting methodology for the National Action Plan on Open Government 2018-2020.

She also conducted research/analysis for the World Bank in Moldova on issues related to accountability mechanisms in education sector; decentralization of education during years 2014-2017.

She is a native Romanian speaker, fluent in English & Russian, and is a beginner in French and German.

Veronica writes about governance, open government, citizen engagement. Here is a list of the papers she worked on during the past years:

- Co-author of the Study/Report for the World Bank – Moldova preschool and general education: transitioning to a decentralised service delivery model – http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/106571523893165988/Moldova-preschool-and-general-education-transitioning-to-a-decentralized-service-delivery-model

- Co-author of the Handbook on “Transparency and Citizen Participation”, 2017, Council of Europe

- Co-author of the Beginner’s Guidebook on Open Government, part of the Opentactics.info - a digital resource developed by and for open government leaders working to strengthen approaches in transparency, accountability and participation. The resource offers a Facilitator Guide to manage multi-stakeholder conversations, and a Library of co-created processes.", Engine Room, 2017/2018

- Author of the “Co-creating public policies or ways to bring citizens into the process” January 2016 ePSI platforms

- Lead co-author of “Government 5D Transparency” April 2015, EPSI platform

- Lead Co-author of “Open Data in Moldova: striving to be open by default” prepared for Open Data Institute, February 2015

- Lead Co-author “Critical Thinking Competency for an Open Government” November 2014, EPSI

- Lead Co-author of the “How to build local open government?” July 2014, EPSI

- Author of the “Open Education: how to get there through Open Government and Open Education Data” May 2014 EPSI

- Lead Co-author of the “Open Data initiative in Moldova” February 2014 EPSI

- Co-author of the “Influence of Open Government Partnership on the Open Data discussions” , EPSI, 2013