Learning, Participation & Culture Expert | Certified PMP® Project Manager

Marilena Koliavasili is a Learning, Participation & Culture Expert and Certified PMP® Project Manager with more than 20 years of experience designing and delivering learning, exchange and stakeholder engagement processes in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.

She supports cities, organisations and local communities in translating participation into concrete, transferable outcomes through workshops, peer-learning activities, stakeholder engagement processes and culture-led initiatives. Her work combines structured project delivery with participatory methodologies, ensuring alignment with objectives, timelines and expected results.

Her experience includes collaboration with municipalities and community partners in the co-design, implementation and evaluation of participatory projects, as well as the development of practical outputs such as facilitation tools, learning resources, guides and transferable methodologies that can be adapted by local teams.

Drawing on her background in project management and EU programme evaluation, she brings a strong understanding of impact, implementation, monitoring and knowledge transfer. She combines facilitation with structured planning, helping projects move from ideas and participation processes to actionable results.

A distinctive feature of her practice is the use of narrative, sensory and place-based methods that help engage diverse communities and complement conventional consultation approaches. These methods generate meaningful participation and tangible outputs, including collective atlases, facilitation tools and reusable learning formats.

Her expertise is particularly relevant for initiatives focusing on community participation, social cohesion, local identity, stakeholder engagement and culture-led urban development, especially where there is a need to move from one-off activities to structured, repeatable and transferable processes.