Dessislava Roussanova

Dessislava Roussanova (Cyrillic Desislava Rusanova) is a peacebuilding and mediation practitioner. At present she works for Inter-Mediate. Prior to that (2000 - 2012) she worked for International Alert.

Roussanova's conflict and peacebuilding work has been focused on conflicts in Asia, the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus. Roussanova has co-chaired and facilitated dialogue initiatives like the "Strasbourg Dialogue" (post-August 2008-2010), Armenian-Azerbaijani Public Peace Forum (2008-2010), the Caucasus Women’s League (2000–2002), the Balkans Leadership Initiative (2000). She has worked at the International Secretariat of the global Women Building Peace Campaign (2000–2002) and in the Secretariat of the Millennium Peace Prize (2000–2001). For her work she was nominated for Women of the Year Window to the World Award (2004).

Prior to her career in peacebuilding and conflict resolution Dessislava Roussanova worked in the mass media and in the public relations sector in Bulgaria. Roussanova started her career in 1991 as a journalist. She has worked as a reporter for a TV programme on Channel 1 of the Bulgarian National Television[1] and for some newspapers. Roussanova was also a columnist for Cash Weekly.[2] She worked as a manager of PR- and media campaigns in a PR agency (Peny Ltd of Chapp Holding) and was a chief executive of an agency for public relations and awareness raising campaigns (PRC Ltd). She was head of the Information Department of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI). Roussanova worked briefly as senior expert in the Public Relations Department of the Government of Bulgaria before she moved to the peacebuilding and conflict resolution field.