Virginia Rose-Losada is the Global Coordinator and lead officer for the ILO’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme. Since joining the ILO in 2009, Virginia has held various positions of growing responsibility in supporting entrepreneurship and SME initiatives, programmes and policies targeting women and youth in over 15 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Between 2018 and 2020, she worked for the ILO Office for the Caribbean as Enterprises Specialist where she focused on issues such as resilience and productivity in small island contexts. Virginia, a Spanish national, holds an MA in international economics and Latin American studies from the Johns Hopkins School for Advance International Studies. Prior to working with the ILO, she worked for the Inter-American Development Bank as coordinator of a university network promoting social responsibility within Latin America and the Caribbean. She is fluent in Spanish, English and French

Valentina Verze joined the ILO Enterprises Department in 2018 and currently works as a Technical Officer on Women's Entrepreneurship Development at the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Unit. Valentina supports the team in programme management, design and technical assistance to development cooperation projects, partnership building, policy advice and knowledge generation/sharing. Previously she worked at the Cooperatives Unit fostering the technical area of social and solidarity economy, decent work and inclusive and sustainable development. Between 2014 and 2018, Valentina was in charge of project management in the NGO sector in the Middle East in the fields of local economic development, sustainable enterprise and value chain development, women's empowerment and humanitarian-development-peace nexus in forced displacement and fragile contexts.
Valentina holds a joint master’s degree with merits in Social Economy from the University of Bologna (Italy) and the Reims Management School (France) and a bachelor’s degree in International Development Studies from the University of Bologna (Italy).

Other team members working on WED and related topics: 

• Merten Sievers

The ILO-WED Programme wishes to thank its past staff:

• Joni Simpson

The ILO-WED Programme also wishes to thank past interns for their support and contribution:

• Jaylan El Shazly
• Mathilde Hebert
• Elyssa Majed
• Lourdes Toledo
• Bahar Ucar
• Sara Cavallo
• Ludmilla Azo
• Guillaume Baillargeon
• Andrea Bocanegra
• Charles Cauchon