Empowering disadvantaged youth in Romania to achieve social and professional integration, fostering a future where all young individuals thrive.

Adriana Preda is the chief executive officer of The Social Incubator, an organization that supports the social, educational, and professional development of vulnerable and orphaned youth across Romania. Working with children and teenagers as they prepare to transition out of institutional care, the organization supports over 30,000 youth in 30 counties. Adriana joined the organization during its founding in 2015 and has acted as CEO since 2017. Under her leadership, the organization has grown from five to 54 full-time staff and expanded its corporate partnership portfolio to include companies like Coca-Cola, AFI Europe, HP, Eurosport, Ikea, Unicredit Bank, and Vodafone. The Social Incubator has implemented over 50 projects for vulnerable youth on critical topics such as human trafficking and domestic violence prevention, professional development and employability skills, and psycho-social resilience. Adriana hopes to use the Scholars program to scale her organization’s capacity to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers in institutional care across Romania.  

Adriana participated in the Oxford Executive Leadership Program at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, a leadership program with Business Women Forum Romania, and completed the Social Innovation and Management Program with the NGO Academy in collaboration with Vienna University of Economics and Business. . Adriana holds a master's degree in international arbitration and a bachelor's degree in law, both from the University of Bucharest, Romania. She studied abroad at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain, where she also focused on international law. 

Biography current as of 2023-2024 program year