ROSANA TUZHANSKA
Media manager, mentor to civil society organisations and the media. Co-founder and director of the independent media outlet Varosh (Uzhhorod), co-organiser and programme director of the Re:Open Zakarpattia forum.
For the past 17 years, she has been working at the intersection of media, strategic communications and the civil society sector. In 2012, she co-founded Varosh — an independent online media outlet in Zakarpattia, which became the foundation for the subsequent development of a comprehensive regional ecosystem encompassing media, advocacy and culture.
In 2020, together with her team, she founded Re:Open Zakarpattia — an annual event that opens up the region through public discussions, advocacy, research and partnerships. From 2022 to 2024, she led the ‘Teplе Misto’ platform, where she carried out an organisational overhaul, updated the strategy, established new initiatives and mentoring programmes, and developed the veterans’ programme, civic initiatives and social entrepreneurship.
She has significant experience mentoring regional media and civil society organisations (Sumy, Odesa, Dnipro, Kropyvnytskyi, Mykolaiv, Lutsk), working with teams on strategy, management, operational planning and fundraising.
Education: Psychology (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv), Presidents’ MBA (kmbs), programmes from the Swedish Institute, Berkeley Fisher Center, and Deutsche Welle Akademie.
She currently leads development at Varosh, is an expert and participant in projects at the Institute for Central European Strategy, and is working on launching new formats for cross-sectoral collaboration in culture, media and governance.