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Konstantina Karydi

Senior Advisor to RCC Europe

Konstantina Karydi is an impact oriented professional with international policy and technical experience on urban resilience, climate transformation and change management focusing on solutions to address 21st century risks and challenges. She currently works as Senior Advisor to RCC Europe and serves as advisor and high-level expert for multilateral entities and organisations such as the European Commission, the European Urban Initiative and UNDRR Making Cities Resilient 2030 Campaign Europe and Central Asia. 

Previously, she has held positions as Associate Director EME and Climate Transformation Lead for the global 100 Resilient Cities Initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation, Special Advisor on Resilience and Social Security to the Minister of State, at the Greek Prime Minister’s office Alexis Tsipras and Senior Advisor to the Mayor of Athens, Giorgos Kaminis, with a focus on the EU Urban Agenda, Strategic Initiatives and City Diplomacy.

Prior, she worked for 10 years in the areas of civic engagement and civil society growth in the Balkans and the Black Sea. She is co-founder of the regional organisation Balkans Beyond Borders (BBB) focusing on Balkan integration and peace-building through culture and more recently of the Climate Change Hub Greece in the context of the regional initiative ‘Resilience and Recovery in Greece and SE Europe’ co-led by RCC. For her work she has been co-recipient of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) civil society prize promoting "Identities, European values and cultural heritage in Europe" and the European Youth Charlemagne Award.

She is an active citizen and volunteer currently helping young leaders to grow and new organisations to increase their impact as advisor and member of the Alumni Board of the European Fund of the Balkans. In her various capacities she has had the opportunity to teach as a guest lecturer in leading global universities such as EPFL, Harvard, LSE, the University of Athens and the University of Jerusalem and to oversee or contribute to the development of key strategic and urban policy initiatives, documents and publications.

Konstantina lives in Athens, Greece speaks Greek, English, French and Spanish and is holder of the Global Executive Masters Degree “Innovative Governance of Large Urban Systems” from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the MSc European Public Policy from University College London (UCL) and the BA on European Social and Political Studies undertaken in UCL and Sorbonne Paris IV.