Staša Tkalec

Staša Tkalec joined Connect Europe in March 2025 as a new European Affairs Advisor, responsible for bolstering the association’s EU engagement. She works on maintaining and further expanding relations with the policymakers and key stakeholders in the connectivity sector, in cooperation with the policy team and in coordination with the member companies. She also supports the Director General and the leadership team in their high-level outreach.  

Staša acquired experience in European policies as a head of the office and policy advisor to the Member of the European Parliament (2019-2024), focusing particularly on employment and social policies as well as horizontal child and human rights issues. Prior to that, she worked as a political advisor to the Members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia (2015-2019). At the beginning of her career, she was awarded with the traineeship at the Human Rights Department of the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the third best graduate in the 2009/2010 cohort of the European Master’s Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation (EMA).  

Staša holds a PhD in Globalisation studies from the of Ljubljana and a Master's degree in human rights and democratisation (EMA), which she completed in Venice and Thessaloniki. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in International relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana. She is the author of several peer-reviewed publications in the areas of foreign policy, human rights and international economics.

She speaks Slovenian, Croatian, English, French and German, and has a basic knowledge of Portuguese and Italian.