She has served as the Director of European Policies and the Civic Participation Program at the Open Society Institute (OSI-S) in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 2000 to 2012 and as a Public Policies and Outreach Director at the Democracy Network Program (DemNet) of the USAID before that. She was also the Executive Director of the Bulgarian branch of Transparency International. Assya Kavrakova is a German Marshall Memorial Fellow.