Our Team
Nicolae Ratiu
Managing Director of Regent House Properties Ltd
Educated in the United Kingdom at Marlborough College, and the United States, New York University, with a BSc in Marine Transportation and economics. As Chairman of The Ratiu Foundation, a British registered charity (est. 1979) with headquarters in Manchester Square, London, Nicolae chairs a board of 5 Ratiu family members who award annually up to 50 grants, worth c. GBP 200,000, in various fields (study, research, projects, travel etc.) both in the UK and Romania. A businessman and philanthropist, Nicolae is also trustee of charities in Romania and the UK: The Romanian Cultural Centre in London, Pro Patrimonio (The National Trust of Romania), ADEPT, The Relief Fund for Romania and the Ratiu Center for Democracy. In addition, through the Ratiu Foundation, Nicolae supports major cultural and educational programs in UK, Romania and US, among which are: The Ion Ratiu Chair of Romanian Studies at Georgetown University, Washington; The annual Ion Ratiu Democracy Award and Fellowship in Washington; The Ion Ratiu Award for Investigative Journalism; The Elisabeth Pilkington Ratiu Award for Advances in Mental Health.
Executive Director, Ratiu Family Charitable Foundation
Pamela Ratiu is executive director to Romania of U.K. registered Ratiu Family Charitable Foundation and of the Ratiu Forum, a project run in partnership with the London School of Economics IDEAS Think Tank. Her expertise covers management, event concept, public relations and partnership development. Pamela has 30 years of experience in international management for both the public and private sector, actively supporting sustainable non-profit organizational development in Transylvania. Pamela joined Ratiu Democracy Centre in 2004 and has actively supported the partnership with Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in offering the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award to those fighting for democracy around the world. She has also initiated the Ratiu Dialogues on Democracy, a series of lectures that aim to strengthen discussions and visions on democracy, reuniting professionals with diverse backgrounds who share an interest in current challenges facing Balkan nations, with a particular emphasis on Romania. Pamela Ratiu is also coordinating the sustainability initiatives run by the Ratiu foundations in Romania to support the local community projects of the Ratiu Democracy Centre. Throughout the years she developed a sustainability ecosystem in Turda, seat of the Ratiu family. This includes social businesses in the field of hospitality and creates local employment opportunities.
Contact: pratiu@ratiuforum.com
Alexander Evans
Director of the LSE IDEAS CSEEP of the Ratiu Forum
Alexander Evans is a Professor in Practice in Public Policy at the LSE, where he teaches on international affairs, national security, and technology. He has previously served as an advisor to the Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street, Strategy Director in the Cabinet Office, and Director Cyber in the Foreign Office. He led the UN Security Council expert mission on Daesh, Al Qaida, and the Taliban; was British Deputy and Acting High Commissioner to India and (briefly) to Pakistan; and served in the U.S. government as a senior adviser to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. He was formerly a senior fellow at Yale, a Gwilym Gibbon fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and Henry Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress.
Professor Chris Alden
Director of LSE IDEAS
Professor Chris Alden teaches International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he is Deputy Head of the Department (PhD and Research). He is also Director of LSE IDEAS. He is a Research Associate with South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). He is author/co-author of numerous books, including Apartheid’s Last Stand – the Rise and Fall of the South African Security State (Palgrave 1996), Mozambique and the Construction of the New African State (Palgrave 2003), South Africa’s Post-Apartheid Foreign Policy (Adelphi Paper IISS 2003), China in Africa (Zed 2007), Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa (Palgrave/Macmillan 2009) The South and World Politics (Palgrave 2010), Foreign Policy Analysis – New Approaches 2nd edition (Routledge 2017), and co-editor of China and Mozambique: from Comrades to Capitalist (Johannesburg: Jacana 2014), China Returns to Africa (Hurst 2008), China and Africa – Building Peace and Security Cooperation on the Continent (Palgrave 2017), New Directions in Africa-China Studies (Routledge 2019) as well as having written numerous articles in internationally recognised journals. Professor Alden has held fellowships at Cambridge University, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo; Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto; Ecole Normale Superieure (Cachan), Paris; CERI, Paris; and University of Pretoria.
Christopher Coker
Director of the LSE IDEAS, dIRECTOR OF THE rATIU fORUM
IN MEMORIAM
Christopher Coker was Director of LSE IDEAS, LSE’s foreign policy think tank.
His publications include Rebooting Clausewitz (Hurst, 2015), Men at War: what fiction has to tell us about conflict from the Iliad to Catch 22 (Hurst, 2014); The Improbable War: China, the US and the logic of Great Power War (Hurst, 2015); Future War (Polity, 2016), and The Rise of the Civilizational State (Polity, 2019). His most recent book is Why War? (2020).
He was Professor of International Relations at LSE, retiring in 2019. He was a former twice serving member of the Council of the Royal United Services Institute, a former NATO Fellow and a regular lecturer at Defence Colleges in the UK, US. Rome, Singapore, and Tokyo. He had also been a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute for Defence Studies In Tokyo, the Rajaratnam School for International Studies Singapore, the Political Science Dept in Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok and the Norwegian and Swedish Defence Colleges.
emilia Knight
Former Centre manager of LSE IDEAS
A senior executive with a substantial record of strategic business development in international markets. Dr Knight holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and an Executive MBA. As Centre Manager of LSE IDEAS, she was in charge of the day-to-day running of the centre.
A strong and consistent supporter of the Ratiu Forum and its mission, Dr Emilia Knight recently retired. We are deeply grateful for her support over the years.
maria Branea
Consultant
Maria currently works with the European Leadership Network, a London-based European security think-tank, as a Research and Administrative Assistant on the Eurasia Futures project. Prior to joining the ELN, she worked as a Program Manager at the Ratiu Forum and as a Program Associate at LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics’ foreign policy think tank. During this time, she coordinated the Ratiu Forum’s Journalism Program aimed at bolstering independent media in the region and she assisted with IDEAS’s Russia-Ukraine Dialogues and the Central and South-East Europe Program. She holds a Master’s degree in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Oxford, where she previously studied for a Bachelor’s in History.
Oana Camilleri
Project Manager
Oana Camilleri studied art in London, BA (Hons) Camberwell College and Master at the Royal College of Art.
Has been a visiting student at the School of Visual Arts New York and participated in art and culture exchange projects in Berlin, Japan, Poland, Sweden and China.
She was an intern at the Romanian Cultural Center in London, where she contributed to the Ion Ratiu Archive project.
lavinia Elena Iclozan
Communication Director
Lavinia Elena Iclozan is a senior Marketing and Communications professional with experience delivering integrated marketing, brand building, and communication strategies across diverse industries, including factory automation and robotics, pharmaceutics, retail, architecture, and design. From 2026, her contribution to the Rațiu Forum team is the coordination of digital communications, content delivery, programme promotion, and stakeholder engagement across online platforms and programme activities.
Alexandru Parasca
Project Coordinator
Alexandru is a student at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest. His main areas of focus include research on the crises of democracy in Europe, with a particular focus on processes of radicalization. He has experience as an assistant manager at the Potaissa Art Association and as a volunteer at the Bread of Life Orphanage and Feeding Centers Foundation. Since October 2023, he has been involved with the Rațiu Forum, where he initially contributed as a volunteer by assisting with events and supporting the administration of the Foundation’s archive. He currently works for the Rațiu Forum, where he coordinates the Christopher Coker History Research Prize and coordinates the organization’s volunteers.
Hannah Salazar
program manager
Hannah holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a Master of Public Administration candidate at the London School of Economics’ School of Public Policy. She supports the organisation and administration of the annual Ratiu Dialogues forum. Prior to her postgraduate studies, Hannah worked in Washington, DC, in operations and administrative capacities in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Roxana David
program manager
Roxana holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and European Studies from the University of Bucharest. Her experience spans resilience and security, gender equality, civic education and public policy, always at the intersection of grassroots action and institutional change. She has contributed to projects addressing youth civic participation, rural community development, and gender equality education, and has engaged in legislative work through an internship at the Romanian Senate. She brings that diverse background to the Rațiu Forum, where she coordinates the Journalism Mentorship Program.
Vladd Coker
The IDEA's mascot born in timisoara, Romania
Vladd’s job description:
Meet and Greet (sometimes over enthusiastically).
Oversees activities in the courtyard.
Chases all cats.
Exercise visiting professors who spend far too much time at their computers.
His favorite book? The “Iliad”, of course.
THE RATIU DIALOGUES ON DEMOCRACY