Chief Operating Officer
Michael Svetlik serves as the McCain Institute’s Chief Operating Officer, leading the operational, financial and personnel portfolios of the Institute. In this role, he ensures operational effectiveness and efficiency to achieve organizational objectives and enable lasting impact.
Svetlik has over 25 years of experience in non-profit management, playing a key role in leading organizational growth, program innovation, business development and building bilateral and multilateral partnerships. He has led diverse and geographically dispersed teams, navigated challenging environments to ensure continued impact and developed strategies to achieve operational and financial sustainability.
Before joining the McCain Institute, Svetlik served as Chief Operating Officer at the Halifax International Security Forum where he was responsible for providing leadership and oversight of organizational and program support budgets, and establishing increased operational efficiency through planning, performance metrics and resource allocation.
Svetlik has extensive international development experience, including serving for 13 years as the Vice President of Programs for the International Foundation of Electoral Systems, overseeing democracy support programs in over 50 countries. Prior to serving in this global role, he was the Foundation’s regional director of Europe and Asia, and project manager of Tbilisi, Georgia, and Baku, Azerbaijan. In addition, he served as an instructor at the National School of Public Administration (Warsaw) and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Poland from during its early transition to democracy.
Svetlik earned a Master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and holds a Bachelor of Arts from The University of Texas at Austin.
