Dr. SimoneRajilić is a Senior Expert at EAF, advising organisations on diversity, equal opportunities and inclusive organisational development. As an experienced trainer, she develops and delivers workshops and lectures on a wide range of diversity topics, including unconscious bias, discrimination in the workplace and diversity-sensitive language. She also designs mentoring and career development programmes for EAF with a focus on promoting diversity in business and academia, and supports organisations in implementing these programmes.

Another focus of her work is supporting organisations in preventing and addressing discrimination. She develops anti-discrimination and safeguarding concepts together with organisations, supports the establishment of complaint and support structures, and establishes external contact points for employees experiencing discrimination or conflict. In her work, she combines academic expertise with many years of practical experience in organisational development and helps organisations to promote diversity in a sustainable way.

Simone Rajilić studied Slavic Studies and Political Science in Frankfurt am Main, Zadar, Berlin and Potsdam. She worked as a researcher in linguistics, cultural studies and gender studies, focusing on the links between language and discrimination. She has published on feminist language practices and completed her PhD in Slavic Linguistics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2019. Her dissertation examined different concepts of femininity in language.

Before joining EAF Berlin, she led two mentoring programmes for children and young people in Berlin-Neukölln, working to improve educational opportunities regardless of social background.

An intersectional perspective on equality and diversity is at the heart of her work. She combines research-based expertise with extensive consulting experience and supports organisations in creating fair, inclusive and discrimination-free working environments.

Membership

Member of LUA– die Carewerkschaft

Selected Publications

• Rajilić, Simone / Roswitha Kersten-Pejanić (2024): Language, sport, and gender: Linguistic means of empowerment and sexualization of the human body. In: Kersten-Pejanić, Roswitha / Lumnije Jusufi (eds.): Sportsprachen als Spiegelbild gesellschaftlicher Vielfalt. Berlin.‍
• Gerechtigkeit statt Blumen. Ein Plädoyer für einen politischen Muttertag [Justice instead of flowers. A plea for a political Mother’s Day], blog post, 12 May 2024.‍
• Lohn und Zeit gemeinsam denken [Thinking about pay and time together], blog post, 6 March 2024 (co-authored with Lisa Hanstein).
• Rajilić, Simone (2019): Weiblichkeit im Serbischen. Berlin.
• Rajilić, Simone (2017): Is Serbian Becoming Croatian? Nationalist Counter-Reactions to Feminist Linguistics in Serbia. Gender and Language, 11(2), pp. 201–226.
• Rajilić, Simone (2015): Feministische Perspektiven auf (nicht) diskriminierende Sprachpraktiken in Serbien. In: Scheller-Boltz, Dennis (ed.): New Approaches to Gender and Queer Research in Slavonic Studies. Proceedings of the International Conference "Language as a Constitutive Element of a Gendered Society – Developments, Perspectives and Possibilities in the Slavonic Languages". Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 109–127.