Project team

Ane SINDIK

Team Leader

Ane SINDIK is BSc in Economics, specialized in Economic Development and Administration, MSc in Business development & Management and she is currently pursuing her PhD in Economics.

She has more than 10 years of experience as team leader and key expert in the Western Balkan Countries, post conflict regions and conflicting territories with extensive experience working with minority groups, implementing EU best practices models and conducting capacity building seminars and trainings for national, regional and local administration officials and ministries relevant for economic development.

As key expert, she has supported BiH in IPA II Programming, demonstrating close communication and coordination attitudes with the EU delegation and other donors proposing EU best supporting models and policy instruments for further institutional support programmes.

Regarding ENI and ENPI countries, she has been involved recently as team leader in two EU funded projects in Azerbaijan related to EU best practices in agriculture and pest management in crop production and processing.

Vlasta KNAPIČ

Strategic Coordinator

Ms. Knapič is currently involved as phytosanitary expert into several EU funded projects in plant health area, working on legal approximation to the acquis, plant pest surveillance, and development of phytosanitary information system.

Ms. Knapič has a solid background experience in plant pathology, diagnostics and monitoring of pests, being for 10 years with the public research institute as part of the Slovenian Plant Protection Organisation. Until 31 July 2019 she worked as a public servant employed by Government of Republic of Slovenia. On 1 August 2019 she started her own consultancy career registering an unipersonal company in her country of residence – Slovenia.

She has more than 20 years of experience in public administration management, including coordination of the NPPO, delegation of official tasks, public authorization of laboratories, and establishing official pest surveillance system in Slovenia. She has experience as a national delegate to the IPPC, EPPO and EU working groups for plant health policy and controls since the accession of the Republic Slovenia to the EU in 2004. For 12 years she was as a head of Plant Health Department in charge of drafting and implementation of EU phytosanitary legislation in a core phytosanitary team. She led designing of surveys and monitoring programs, contingency and action planning, public awareness and communication on outbreaks, development of information system and managing official portals. She followed discussions and contributed to strategy and development of new Plant Health Regime from several levels: as a member of COPHs and Plant Health working groups at the Council of the EU, as a member of Commission working groups on revision of annexes and implementation of Europhyt and Traces information systems, as a member of international working groups of EPPO (Working party on Phytosanitary Regulations, Panel on Global Affairs) and IPPC (Commission on Phytosanitary Measures), where standards, which have been built into new Plant Health Regulation, were adopted. She continues to support decision-makers in the field of international and the EU phytosanitary policy, especially in managing quarantine pests, developing phytosanitary measures, contingency planning, risk analysis and categorisation of phytosanitary actions. She continues gaining experience with third country systems and implementation of EU legislation.

She has also previous experience in BTSF Initiative as she was a Training Coordinator and a Tutor for the EU BTSF Initiative in Africa in the period 2015-2017, and at BTSF on EU import requirements for Africa and Asia in 2022. Currently she is a TC and Tutor for the EU BTSF Initiative on Import controls for the period 2019-2024, on simulation exercises in plant health sector 2020-2023, for the BTSF on Surveys 2019-2022 and BTSF in both courses of New Plant Health Regime 2020-2023.

Mónica Zabala

Project Director

Mrs. Zabala is an Economist with focus on Cooperation and Development of Less Developed Countries. Since 2006 Mrs. Zabala is responsible of the BTSF Team within AENOR, leading the relations of AENOR with DG SANTÉ, the Contracting Authority, HaDEA, and technical partners. She has been involved both in the technical parts, organizing training courses and financial aspects, ensuring a continuous improvement of AENOR´s BTSF management skills.

She has over 20 years of professional experience in the implementation of technical assistance projects for multi donors, particularly EU funded projects focused on quality and food safety related topics. She is well familiar with PRAG rules, project cycle management, monitoring and evaluation, communication and social media management on international projects, invoicing, reporting and quality assurance.

Anne-Lise Nicot

Project Manager

Anne-Lise is graduated in Law by the Université of Occidental Bretagne. She holds Master’s in Public Law by the University of Nottingham (UK), Master in International and European Affairs by the Université of Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (France) and Master in Corporate Communication by the École Supérieure of Management en Alternance (France).

She has more than 12 years of professional experience having worked in different countries (United States, France and Spain). Her main specialization is the organization of Events, for which she has been working since 2010. She has led the organization of more than 200 events on behalf of business leaders (BP, ESSO, Pfizer, Sodexo, UPS, Iveco, Allianz…) with French politicians, institutions and civil society.

She joined AENOR in 2021 as Event Manager for BTSF projects and she has organized 10 sessions (F2F and VC) so far.

Anne-Lise is a French native speaker, but she is fluent in Spanish and English too.

Regional Support Experts – phwb@aenor.com

Melisa GAZDIC- Support expert for B&H and Montenegro
Vojislav SIMIC- Support expert for Serbia
Jadranka KUNGULOVSKA- Support expert for North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo