Nele Leosk

Nele is the founder and the executive director of IGL. As its senior expert on government modernisation and digital governance she advises, trains, and promotes the use of digital technologies in central government and cities. Nele’s main expertise lies on public sector innovation and the transformation of public services and public participation through the use of technologies. She has a vast experience in the design, implementation, and assessment of technology supported public sector modernisation initiatives in more than forty countries in Africa, Central Asia, Europe, Middle-East, South-East-Europe, and many other regions. This entails digital and smart government policy and respective regulations, building organisational capacity but also the design and delivery of online services and e-participation tools.

Previously, she served as the Programme Director at e-Governance Academy in Estonia, and as an expert at the Foresight Centre of the Parliament of Estonia on how to combine technological trends such as AI, blockchains and state reforms. She has also worked at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in Estonia and in the Finnish Institute of Public management (HAUS). She has experienced the life of international and inter-governmental organisations such as UNDP and OECD but also academia.

She holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI), Italy, and an MA in public communication. She is a former Fulbright-Schuman grantee at the National Centre for Digital Government at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at the Governance Lab at New York University.