Taylor Kelly was formerly Program Coordinator and Office Manager at GMF.

Program Assistant

Forthcoming 

Senior Office Manager

Ansgar Gessner is the deputy managing director for development.

Laura Hope Gammell-Ibañez is the deputy managing director of Leadership Programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). She oversees the implementation of GMF’s Marshall Memorial Fellowship and contributes to the full spectrum of next generation transatlantic leadership cultivation at GMF.  Laura Hope began at GMF as an intern with the Europe Program in 2015 quickly moving into the Executive Office where she was most recently Chief of Staff and Corporate Secretary. Previously, Laura Hope has worked as a private consultant for small U.S. businesses engaging with European markets, and prior to that, as a professional equestrian, working and competing throughout the East Coast of the U.S. and Germany.

She received her bachelors in German Studies from Connecticut College and her masters in European and Eurasian Studies from the George Washington University’s Elliott School for International Affairs. She is a 2019 recipient of the Marshall Award for Excellence. She speaks German and some Spanish.

Maria Florea oversees the Black Sea Trust’s (BST) Enhancing the Resilience of Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership project and BST’s grantmaking portfolio for the wider Black Sea region. 

Florea has extensive experience in leadership program design, having implemented GMF’s Leadership and Democracy Initiative for Eastern Europe, which focuses on Eastern Partnership countries. Over the course of her 10 years at GMF, she has helped hone the skills of more than 200 leaders and civil society activists, supported more than 100 organizations working to improve communities in the wider Black Sea region, and organized numerous events and large-scale forums. 

Florea holds a master’s degree in European governance from the University of Bristol and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Vienna. She is also a graduate of the Georgetown Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate Program. She speaks English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian, in addition to her native Romanian.

Franka Ellman was formerly Program Officer, Transatlantic Programming at GMF.

Matthew Delmastro was formerly Program Assistant at GMF.