Taulant Hoxha was appointed CEO of KCSF in September 2018, having previously held various positions in the organization for over 11 years, since 2007.

Taulant led KCSF through a period of continuous growth of the organization both in terms of quality and volume of work, as well as the volume of financial and human resources. Building on the excellent work of the previous leadership of Venera Hajrullah, during 2019 Taulant led the KCSF team in establishing the EJA Kosovo program, as the first mechanism in Kosovo and in the region where multiple donors pool funds into a unique program led by a local organization. Also, during this period, KCSF further improved the transparency and integrity of grant awarding, by increasing the number of support instruments, creating public teams of external evaluators, starting public interviews during selection, etc. Also, this period marked the creation of new capacity building programs for civil society organizations and activists, as well as the protection and further improvement of the legal environment and policies for civil engagement and civil society.

Graduated in political science, Taulant has been a civil society activist for more than two decades, engaged in various initiatives and organizations at the local and central level. He also did study programs at the European Center for Non-Profit Law – ECNL in Budapest on the topic of public benefit status, as

well as at the City University of New York – CUNI on the topic of community philanthropy, with an emphasis on diaspora philanthropy.

Before joining KCSF, he worked as a consultant for youth work at the Council of Europe in 2002-2004, as well as the first executive director of the non-governmental organization “Emancipimi Civil Ma Ndryshe” in the period 2006-2007. Also, he was the president of the Association of Basketball Referees of Kosovo in the period 2008-2009. year, while he was also acting director of the Secretariat of the CiviKos platform in the period 2010-2011. From 2012 to 2022, he served as the head of the CiviKos Platform Board. He published dozens of studies and articles in the country and abroad related to civil society, while he actively participated and led many initiatives for the protection and progress of civil space and civil society in Kosovo and in the region. Among other things, he was part of the group of experts for the development of the regional Environmental Monitoring Matrix for civil society, as well as part of the expert consulting teams for the development of the EU Guide for civil society in the enlargement countries 2014-2020, as well as the Guidelines of the Venice Commission on freedom of association. In Kosovo, he was an active part of dozens of working groups for drafting laws, policies and strategies related to the work of civil society in Kosovo.

Since 2020, he has held the position of deputy. head of the Committee of the Balkan Civil Society Development Network (BCSDN).

Venera Hajrullahu led KCSF for 13 years in a row, during the period of the greatest development of the organization, from February 2006 to September 2018.

A graduate of the French language at the University of Pristina, Venera completed postgraduate studies at the European Institute of the University of Geneva in Switzerland in the early 90s. After a short period of professional engagement in Switzerland, she returned to Kosovo and in 1998-1999 was engaged in the OSCE Monitoring Mission in Kosovo. Just months after the end of the war in Kosovo in June 1999, she was among the key people who helped found the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK). After two years of involvement in the Kosovo Foundation for Open Society (KFOS) in support programs for public administration and local self-government, in 2004 she was first appointed as the deputy director of the Unit for Monitoring the Stabilization and Association Process, and immediately afterwards she founded and was the first head of the Office for of European integration in the Office of the Prime

Minister of Kosovo, within which she was responsible for the creation of various structures and programs related to the European integration process of Kosovo. Also, she was the chairperson of the Group of Experts for Public Administration Reform in 2006-2007, while she was also an external advisor for European integration to several prime ministers, as well as President Jahjaga.

In February 2007, she accepted the position of Executive Director of KCSF, at a time when the organization was in a period of deep crisis. Continuing to work in the basic mission of civil society development, Venera added to the work of KCSF a special perspective of European integration, as a reflection of the opening of the European perspective of the entire region, including Kosovo. With her exceptional dedication and the team, she created, Venera managed not only to get KCSF out of the crisis, but very quickly exceeded the level of development of the organization up to that time. In parallel with the deepening of the School for European Integration and numerous other EU-related projects, under Venera’s leadership, KCSF re-established its civil society grant programs in 2009, while simultaneously creating and developing special research units, that is, the Center of KCSF for capacity building of civil society. During the period of her leadership, KCSF became one of the main civil society organizations in Kosovo and in the region, managing the civil society funds of the main bilateral donors, successfully representing numerous topics on the space for civil society action in Kosovo and towards the EU institutions in Brussels, as well as building capacity of hundreds of organizations and civil society activists. Before her departure from KCSF in September 2018, Venera led the organization in its first serious steps towards organizational sustainability.

Since 2018, as an independent expert, she has been involved in numerous projects, initiatives and publications in Kosovo, in the region and beyond, in the areas of civil society development, building democratic institutions, European integration, public administration reform and cooperation.

Suzana Arni was a part of the KCSF team for almost 23 years, from its founding in 1998 until her retirement in 2021, while she served as KCSF’s executive director from March 2004 to February 2006.

Graduated as a technology engineer, Suzana was engaged in a laboratory for the research of construction materials from the 70s, until the mass dismissal of Kosovo Albanian workers in 1991, when she was engaged in the civil society sector.

In 1998, she received a donation of three computers, a moment that would mark the founding of CeDeCis (Center for the Development of Civil Society), which would later become KCSF. Suzi, as she is known to her many colleagues and associates, joins KCSF in a variety of departments and roles, from Project Coordinator to Program Director, from part of the Core Grants Team to Executive Director.

While her role in the development of KCSF was comprehensive during 23 years of engagement, Suzi made a decisive contribution precisely in the period 2004-2006 when she led KCSF and ensured the survival of the organization in one of its most difficult periods due to changes in the EU funding model, as the main donor until then.

Lulëzim Peci was the executive director of KCSF in the years 1999-2003, taking over the management of the organization in the period immediately after the end of the war in Kosovo in June 1999.

Together with Agon Demjah and Stephen Sampson, Lulëzim was one of three people who registered the organization on 2 December 1999, prompting it to begin intensive work in support of the non-governmental sector. This was the period when NGOs became the most important local channel for international support for overcoming the state of emergency and reconstruction, while KCSF was identified and supported by the European Union as the main local organization for the management of EU funds for civil society in Kosovo. During the period of his leadership, with the help of the EU, KCSF created mechanisms for awarding grants and distributed over 2 million Euros through more than 200 grants to non-governmental organizations in Kosovo. Also, KCSF started the first studies and publications on civil society in Kosovo, a basic training program for NGOs, as well as awarding over 400 scholarships for pupils and students of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities.

Lulzim left KCSF in November 2003, when he led the spin-off process of KCSF programs, establishing the Kosovo Institute for Research and Policy Development KIPRED and became the first executive director of KIPRED.

He graduated in electrical engineering from the University of Prishtina, Lulëzim holds an MA in international relations from the Ortega i Gasset University in Spain, and a PHD in political science from the University of Southeast Europe in North Macedonia.

Before joining KCSF, in the years 1995-1998 he worked as a researcher at the Kosovo Center for International Studies (KCIS), this center served as a foreign policy team in the Office of the President of Kosovo, dr. Ibrahim Rugova. During 2009-2013, he worked as the ambassador of Kosovo in Sweden, and was also a member of the Board of Directors of the American University in Kosovo, a guest lecturer at the Geneva Center for Security Policy GCSP, a lecturer in the subject of national and international security at the University of Prizren, as well as the president of the Board of Directors of the Kosovo Foundation for Open Society KFOS. He has published more than 70 works and articles in Kosovo, Great Britain, Holland, Greece, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Singapore.

He is currently the executive director of KIPRED, while continuing his research engagement with a focus on security and foreign policy, inter-ethnic relations, as well as political parties.

Agon Demjaha was the first executive director of the Center for the Development of Civil Society (CeDeCis) which would later be known as KCSF. Although he remained in this position for only about a year, he led CeDeCis in the founding process as a delegate of the Kosovo Foundation for Open Society, and then in the first activities in 1998 until the end of the war in June 1999. Also, together with Lulëzi Peci and Steven Sampson, he was one of the three who registered the organization after the liberation, on December 2, 1999, now under the name Kosovo Foundation for Civil Society (KCSF).

Agon holds an MA in International Relations and European Studies as well as a PhD in Political Science. He has more than four decades of experience in the field of university teaching, diplomacy and the non-governmental sector. During this period, he published many articles in the field of political science in various international journals, and he is also the author of various chapters in books by well-known publishing houses such as the United Nations University Press, Imperial College Press and Palgrave Macmillan.

During 2006-2010, he served as North Macedonia’s ambassador to Sweden, and during that period he also covered Norway and Finland as a non-resident ambassador. In the period 2010-2012, he was engaged as an advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as to the Minister of Economic Development in the Government of Kosovo.

He is currently employed as an associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Tetovo in North Macedonia, while continuing his involvement in the areas of ethnic relations, conflict prevention and resolution, regional cooperation and diplomacy.