Prior to that she worked many years for the office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless persons as an expert on Rwanda and the Caucasus and participated in fact finding missions to both regions.

Ilyena holds a degree in International Relations and an MA in Soviet and East-European Studies from Sciences Po Paris.

Ilyena is an incurable optimist and opera fan. In another life she would have loved imagining a job that entailed climbing trees.