Originally from Croatia, Lea currently leads a programme of work at Global Partners Digital (GPD) focused on strengthening broad-based and representative civil society voices in international debates on Internet policy and governance.
Since 2012, she has concentrated upon facilitating coordinated civil society advocacy in Internet Governance Forums (IGF), the NETmundial, the WSIS+10 Review process, the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development’s (CSTD) Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC), and various processes of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) including the WCIT, the WTPF, and the WSIS+10 MPP. She has engaged in these processes as on-site participant, observer, and panellist, providing direct written and oral inputs, and conducting independent research to contextualise and communicate outputs and relevance of these processes to the broader community. In these efforts, she has collaborated with various civil society networks and organisations as well as representatives from other stakeholder groups, applying a consultative and action-oriented approach. Apart from having strong links with the civil society community, Lea has a working relationship with governments, academics, and leading private sector organisations.
Before joining GPD, Lea co-founded the Croatian UN Association, organised the first Croatian Model UN conference (ZAGIMUN), and was a founding member of the European Model UN Network (EMUNNET). In 2009, she worked at the UN Democracy Fund in New York. Lea holds an MSc in Global Governance and Ethics from UCL and an MA in Comparative Literature and Hispanic Studies from the University of Zagreb. She is fluent in English, Spanish and Croatian.