The foundation was established in June 2015 under the name of the Foundation for Empowering Gender Equality and later on changed to the name of the International Integrity Foundation (IIF), with an expanded scope. IIF aims to support and empower people by developing various initiatives and activities related to multi-sectoral issues that address social, economic, legal and cultural spheres that impact all aspects of people’s lives and their communities.
We encourage private businesses, public authorities and individuals to practice social responsibility through philanthropic activities by getting involved in or donating to our initiatives and activities.
OUR CORE TEAM
Katina Mladenova, Chairperson
Katina holds a Master of Arts in Law with a specialisation in International Law and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in International Relations with specialisation in EU Affairs and Cultural Integration. She has over ten years of experience in building both local and EU funded applications, building project partnerships and identifying relevant funding schemes.
The focus of her work expands to initiatives related to EU Affairs and Policy Development in legislative matters. She is professional in coordinating and formulating Malta’s position on EU legislative and non-legislative proposals relating to justice and ensuring that this is in line with Government policy. Her knowledge expands to areas related to access to finance, providing information on programmes, negotiating contracts with the European Commission, implementing projects, assessing actions concerning EU and local funds and providing recommendations and tools to respective public and private authorities.
She has been working in various multidisciplinary environments on the borders between young people, trainers, policy – makers and researchers. Katina has been involved in initiatives related to the promotion of gender equality, empowerment of women and young girls, women entrepreneurship, social inclusion based on knowledge and innovative aspects, and cultural integration.
For more details, see Katina’s LinkedIn profile
Anamaria Magri Pantea, Secretary General
Anamaria is an economist with specialisation in finance and an MBA alumni of the Edinburgh Business School, UK. She has over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, business development, innovation and access to finance support, accumulated in Romania, Malta, Hungary and across Europe in general, including with/in various EU and UN organisations.
Anamaria has been working with the European Commission as staff of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, as Malta National Contact Point and Management Committee representative for the EU’s Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme for SMEs, as well as independent expert, evaluator and reviewer on a number of EU and governmental support programmes focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and SMEs (e.g. in Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, UK, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia). In this context, she has been involved in various EU programmes and projects focused on R&I support, entrepreneurship education & coaching, clusters and social economy development, pre-empting companies’ distress, support to second starters, etc.
She also provides consultancy on innovation dissemination and exploitation strategy, business development, market research and international scale-up to various companies and organisations across Europe. She does this both on an independent basis and as selected expert service provider in the context of a number of EU-level and Malta specific business support initiatives.
Working for the Malta Investment Management Co. Ltd., the consulting arm of the Ministry for Economy, she was also involved in the structuring of the first EU-backed financial instruments for Maltese SMEs. Moreover, as a Board member of the Malta Venture Capital Fund, she contributed to improved access to equity finance for SMEs. Today, Anamaria is herself a business angel investor part of a number of European networks, e.g. Rising Tide Europe, Global Enabler, etc.
Anamaria also has over 15 years experience as trainer and facilitator of workshops and action learning processes on entrepreneurship, innovation, business modelling and access to finance. She has done this in collaboration with University of Malta, University of Oradea (Romania), Salford University (UK), the Mediterranean Academy of Culture, Tourism and Trade, Malta Innovation Summit, etc.
Since 2013, Anamaria has also been regularly involved as organiser, judge or mentor in numerous entrepreneurship education and startup support initiatives, such as the Startup Weekend Malta, Startup Europe Week, Junior Achievement Young Enterprise (JAYE) Malta Startup Programme, The Million Dollar Idea Competition, Startup Macedonia, etc.
She is also the Malta Node coordinator of the Women Web-entrepreneurs Hubs (WeHubs) European Network, member of Silicon Valletta, 100 Women in Finance and Business & Professional Women (BPW) Malta, also of the Consultative Council on Women’s Rights to the Maltese Government.
Anamaria also coordinated/contributed to a number of studies and publications, including the Analysis of the Gender Gap in the Digital Sector in Malta, Malta’s Attractiveness to Digital Business, the book “100 years of Romania – 100 steps towards an active European citizenship” (Tritonic Publishers), the Euronews CommentVisions: The Energy Challenge Experts Forum, and others.
For more details, see Anamaria’s LinkedIn profile
Leyla Javadova, Treasurer
Leyla Javadova holds a Master of Arts in Public Relations from a Latvian University. She had an experience within a Multilingual Erasmus Exchange Program in Brussels mostly related to European institutions – their communication policy, European Lobbying, internal and external communication of European interests groups. During her studies Leyla joined different NGOs as a volunteer, mostly based on migration related issues.
She has fulfilled Marketing Training (MQF level 4) to gain skills and broaden knowledge about today’s marketing trend. Since 2018 she runs the European Orphans Integration Association (EOI) which aims to assist vulnerable children in order for them to reach their potential in different fields.
During her work experience at the People for Change Foundation in Malta, Leyla worked on various in initiatives related to human rights. She was involved in the creation of a Human Rights Library based on the collection of research about case law related to migrants in Malta, academic research, books, movies, stories from the migrant themselves and international documents from varous agencies such as the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (EUAFR) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
As part of her work at the People for Change Foundation, Leyla also worked on the preparation of a Whitepaper Consultation on Human Rights and Equality focused on outlining issues related to non-discrimination provisions found in the Maltese legislation. She was also involved in the drafting of a set of recommendations on legislative aspects related to migrants and presented to Public authorities in Malta. Apart from this, Leyla worked on the coordination and the preparaion of a conference held in Malta and aimed at presenting individual migrant stories and their traumatic journey experiences which took them to the Maltese islands.
For more details, see Leyla’s LinkedIn profile