As of 1 September, Ivana Veršić has joined ELIXIR as the new Head of Operations. Ivana comes from the Consortium of Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA ERIC) where she held the position of Chief Operations Officer (COO). She takes over from Susanna Repo, who will remain part of ELIXIR until the end of 2022 to ensure a smooth transition.
Ivana has a PhD in Experimental Psychology and a postgraduate degree in economics and management and spent over seven years at CESSDA, the last five as COO. As COO her responsibilities included operational oversight of administration and finances, overall coordination and supervision of EU funded and internal projects, and strategic direction and planning as part of the Management Board. CESSDA is a distributed research infrastructure of 23 European countries with many operational similarities to ELIXIR. In her role, Ivana was also involved in research infrastructure governance, impact and performance assessment, and outreach to stakeholder communities.
Ivana has an interest in decision-making processes, especially in uncertain and risky environments. She is a native Croatian speaker and has a good understanding of Norwegian.
Ivana will be working to drive operational efficiency within the ELIXIR Hub and lead the resourcing and implementation of ELIXIR's Programme. A core part of her role is to ensure close collaboration and operational alignment with the technical, scientific, project management, legal and external relations teams at the ELIXIR Hub.
We warmly welcome Ivana to the ELIXIR community and look forward to working together.