The team

Boris Tonhauser
Director
English, French, Slovak, German, Czech
+32 2 500 05 39
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Boris became Director of PLATFORMA on 2nd October 2023. Before that, he was Executive adviser, in charge of the project coordination. With 20+ years of experience in the fields of local governance, international cooperation and statutory affairs, his background includes political science, international relations, law and sciences studied in Bratislava, London and Strasbourg.

Eva Baños de Guisasola
Adviser - Global Agendas, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Climate
English, French, Italian, Spanish
+32 2 500 05 45
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Eva graduated in European law at the University of San Pablo CEU in Madrid (Spain), with Legal Practice and accountancy diplomas, and has a D.E.A Environmental law, planning and management in the territory from the University of Limoges (France). She lives in Brussels since 1999 where she has experiences as: Executive Director at Aqua Publica Europea, Policy Officer for Environment over 9 years within EUROCITIES, consultant at Eamonn Bates and at Lovells Boesebeck Droste International law firm. Previously she has worked as Senior Scientific Manager at the Euro Mediterranean Climate Change Center in Italy for 3 years, also in charge of the initiative of the Mediterranean Climate Change Cities Consortium. In April 2015, Eva joined the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) as Senior Policy Adviser on Energy and International Negotiations on Climate. She has been involved in shaping the Global Covenant for Climate and Energy and partner in the Regional Covenants in Europe and in Sub-Saharan Africa. At CEMR, she has been very much involved in advocacy and outreach strategy, mobilisation and engagement of cities, synergies with different initiatives and networking activities, UNFCCC negotiations and the EU energy pact, climate issues and the Green deal proposals on climate and energy. Since October 2021, Eva is working at PLATFORMA as advisor on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global agendas and climate. She did secondments in Birmingham, Vienna, Gothenburg, Washington, Barcelona and Rabat.

Clémence Lohr
Intern
French, English, German
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Clémence will support the PLATFORMA team as an intern from March to July 2024. She graduated from a Bachelor’s degree in English Culture and European Affairs at the University of Nantes (France). She is currently finishing her Master’s degree in International and European Studies, with a specialisation in European Projects Management. She also attended the Technishe Universität Dresden (Germany) and Maynooth University (Ireland), as part of the Erasmus mobility program.

Francesco Pala
Adviser - Young Elected Officials and Partners Engagement
English, French, Italian
+32 2 500 05 47
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Francesco has joined PLATFORMA in November 2022 as Officer in charge of Young Elected and Partners Engagement. He graduated in Political Science - International Relations at the University of Siena and attended the Master in European Studies at the ULB - IEE in Brussels, and he has experience on participatory democracy, good local governance and multi-stakeholder approach. In 2017, he joined ALDA - the European Association for Local Democracy - as Assistant to the Secretary General and then covered the role of Strategic Planning Coordinator and Head of the Secretary general Office till February 2022.

Chahaiya Pilkington
Adviser - Policy & Advocacy
English, French, Italian
+32 2 791 67 73
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Chahaiya joined PLATFORMA in January 2023 as Adviser for Policy and Advocacy. She holds a Masters in Geopolitics, Territory and Security from King’s College London and obtained her Bachelors in International Studies from Leiden University. Specialised in European Affairs and EU-Africa relations, Chahaiya has been working in the EU ecosystem for the last four years and previously worked as Manager for Outreach and Advocacy for the Africa-Europe Foundation, where she contributed to the set-up of the organisation and the development of its advocacy strategy and engagement campaigns. A passionate Europhile she also worked as a Programme Manager for EU think tank Friends of Europe where she led the organisation of their flagship project and key publications. Chahaiya has also gained experience working in the public policy unit, in the Economic and Social Development Department at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome.

Bella Tskhelishvili
Adviser – Eastern Partnership and Geographic Dialogues
English, French, Georgian, Russian
+32 2 842 67 77
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Bella joined PLATFORMA in January 2020 as Officer in charge of Eastern Partnership and Partners Relations. She holds a Master's degree in Political Sciences - International Relations from the Institute of Political Studies, Strasbourg, France.
Her expertise covers policy and advocacy work. She contributes to conceptual and strategic reflections on the Eastern neighbourhood and dialogue with EU Delegations in partner countries and advises on evolutions in the area. She also supports the advocacy strategy for this thematic area, including towards European institutions and with external stakeholders. In terms of project management, she designs, monitors and reports on diverse projects with partners on energy, climate, gender equality, decentralisation and public administration reforms.
Her previous professional experiences include Gender Equality and Diversity work at the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), European local cooperation policy at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and adaptation of Georgia to the legal requirements of the Council of Europe at the Permanent Representation of Georgia at the Council of Europe.

Chine Venturi
Finance Officer | Officer - Culture
English, French, Spanish
+32 2 265 09 30

Communication

Hervé Devavry
Adviser - Press & Communication
English, French, Polish
+ 32 2 842 67 70
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With an experience of eight years in EU bubble press rooms for various media (Le Parisien, EurActiv.com, Les Echos de Pologne, DeHavillandEU...), Hervé joined PLATFORMA in 2016 to put decentralised cooperation in the spotlight. He studied political sciences in Lille (France) & Cracow (Poland) and journalism in Paris.