Jelena Cosic

Jelena Cosic is ICIJ's training manager and Eastern European partnership coordinator.

She prepares and implements training programs on ICIJ platforms, new materials, and documentation, both internally and across the organization’s global reporting network.

Prior to joining ICIJ, she worked as a reporter, regional coordinator and project manager for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), a grouping of non-government organizations promoting freedom of speech, human rights and democratic values across southern and eastern Europe.

Part of her busy brief over this nine-year tenure was to design and run skills training programs for the prestigious BIRN Summer School of Investigative Reporting.

Her work also entailed the convening of international investigative teams; overseeing partnerships with other investigative centers; and helping to drive internal technological change.

She has received several investigative journalism awards, including a Certificate of Excellence, Global Shining Light Award; an EU Investigative Journalism Award in the Western Balkans and Turkey; and a Serbian Independent Association of Journalists Award for investigative journalism in online media.

In 2017, Cosic was awarded a Digital Communication Network Exchange Program fellowship, which allowed her to study in Washington D.C. and Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. The program, funded by the U.S. State Department, aims to enable chosen professionals from diverse backgrounds to assess the impact of digital technology and to generate ideas, tools, and products to overcome challenges and maximize benefits.

Prior to joining BIRN, she was a reporter for the prestigious B92 network in Belgrade, Serbia. The broadcaster has a proud history of free speech advocacy and was closed down several times during the 1990s by the oppressive Milosevicregime.

Cosic is an avid runner and film buff. She prefers small, independent productions to mass-market blockbusters but still greatly admires Daniel Day-Lewis.