Ioana-Simona Iliescu

Ioana-Simona Iliescu is an inspector at the Local Development Department of the Municipality of Râmnicu Vâlcea, Romania, where she has worked since 2012. She helps monitor and coordinate the city’s public services and is the municipality’s main contact for citizens, civil society and NGOs on public services and climate change. Since 2022 she has led the project “Partnership for Cohesion Policy Objectives”, run with technical assistance from the OECD and DG REGIO, which created Romania’s first citizens’ assembly: Râmnicu Vâlcea’s Citizens’ Jury on Urban Mobility. She is also local coordinator of several European initiatives, including the We-Z project under the European Urban Initiative, the European Local Democracy Week (Râmnicu Vâlcea has been named an ELDW “Partner” six times) and the European Mobility Week. Since 2023 she has served on the Citizens’ Jury for the European Capital of Democracy, and she brings earlier experience as chief of cabinet to a Romanian Member of Parliament and as an economist in the private sector.