Teona Gamtsemlidze is from Tbilisi, Georgia, currently residing in Los Angeles, California. She holds a masters degree in law, and has extensive project management and development experience. For over 12 years Teona worked for nonprofit and international organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Her primary focus was democratic governance, sustainable development, public awareness raising and education, advocacy and policy making as well as human rights promotion. Working for OSCE and UNDP enabled her to be engaged in capacity building of democratic institutions and to shape policy making. She advocated for adoption of a number of positive changes to the election legislation to bring it closer to international standards. Teona is a fully accredited BRIDGE facilitator. BRIDGE stands for Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections and is a capacity development tool, designed to be used for institutional excellence.
