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Sebastian Burduja (born on the 18th of June 1985, Bucharest) is a Romanian entrepreneur and politician. He is the Vice President of the Romanian National Liberal Party (PNL) and President of the Sector 1 Branch of PNL Bucharest. He also occupied the office of State Secretary within the Ministry of Finance until December 2020. He was the founder and acting President of PACT (Youth Civic Action Platform), a political party launched in January 2016, until August 2019. Burduja has also founded and lead LSRS (League of Romanian Students Abroad) and the CAESAR Foundation (Center for Access to the Expertise of Romanian Students and Graduates).

Career
He has completed multiple internships within the United Nations - The Economic Commission for Europe, in Geneva, at McKinsey & Co (a Consulting firm) from Bucharest, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - NATO Division, at the National Endowment for Democracy (Washington DC) and at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies⁠ (Stanford CA), where he has collaborated with the renowned political analyst, Dr. Larry Diamond, as his assistant. While at Harvard, he has also collaborated with professors Steve Jarding and David Gergen, among others.

Sebastian Burduja was a consultant at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, between 2011 and 2012, a strategic consultancy company which develops top tier national strategies and development projects for emerging countries, in partnership with organizations as G20, World Bank, UN and others.

From 2012 to 2015 he has worked as a sustainable development specialist at the World Bank, at the central headquarters in Washington D.C., leading projects for the European and Central Asia regions, including in Romania. In his time at the World Bank, he has been author and co-author for 22 technical reports for Romania. Burduja has also sustained the presentation called „Reshaping the Economic Geography of Romania”.

In April 2016 he was elected as the President of PACT (Youth Civic Action Platform). PACT gained renown by starting several projects as: Pactul pentru cetateni, candidez.eu a platform with the purpose of supporting all the independent candidates and contesting the applications of candidates for the local elections which were suspected of having fraudulent supporter lists. PACT designated 100 candidates for the local elections held in June 2016.

He is one of the main supporters and promotors of the well known 10th August protest #diasporaacasa. In June 2018 he records himself with his mobile home at the Otopeni Airport relating his coming home after the years spent abroad in the USA, calling for the Romanian Diaspora to be present in Bucharest on the 10th of August. The clip goes viral, gaining more than 1.5 million views. Sebastian is credited by Moise Guran as the main driving force behind the idea of a Diaspora protest in Romania.

At the Centenar of the Great Union of Romanian Provinces in Alba Iulia, he inaugurates the Time Capsule „Romania 2118”, which assembled 200 messages for the future: „The monument in shape of a sphere which resembles the Earth and millions of Romanians around the world, is placed in the moat of Alba Carolina Citadel, by the Union Bridge, close to the two cathedrals and the Union Monument”. Among the authors of the letters which will be opened on the 1st of December 2118 were: Alexandru Tomescu, Moise Guran, Cristi Danileț, Cristian Pîrvulescu, Petre Crăciun, Constantin Necula, Nicu Alifantis, Nicu Covaci, Mihai Covaliu, Marcel Iureș, Lucian Mîndruță, Lazăr Comănescu, Laura Badea, Ivan Patzaichin, Ion Caramitru, Ioan-Aurel Pop, Eugen Doga, Felicia Filip, Elisabeta Lipă etc.

Sebastian Burduja is named in January 2019 for his political and civic activity by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation as „one of the six freedom fighters in Eastern Europe” within the Think Freedom Project, and his story is related in a short documentary film.

He is elected as the Vice President of the National Liberal Party (PNL) in August 2019 at the National Council of the National Liberal Party. He is named interim President of the Sector 1 Bucharest branch of PNL. Burduja held this position until February 2020 when he was elected as a full-time President.

Burduja has been chosen in the first edition of Forbes` "30 under 30".

In 2017 he becomes Managing Partner of RISE Consortium and holds that position until December 2019 when he becomes Secretary of State within the Ministry of Public Finance of Romania, an office he held until a year later.

In December 2020 Sebastian Burduja was elected as a member of Parliament in the Bucharest electoral college, an office he currently holds.

Education
In Romania he has studied at the Mihai Viteazu National College in Bucharest. He is a graduate and head of promotion of the Ion Heliade Radulescu School Nr. 11.

Sebastian Burduja graduated with the Phi Betta Kappa Society title at Stanford University USA, with a major in Politics and minors in Economics and Sociology. His GPA score placed him in the top 15% of his year and was placed in the "Honors" category, a recognition based on the endorsements of the specialized departments for his top tier paper

He continued his studies at Harvard University as a David Rubenstein Fellow between 2008 and 2011, graduating with a MBA at Harvard Business School and a MPP at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. His academic performances were recognized both in 2009 and 2010 with two honors "First Year Honors" and "Second Year Honors", titles granted to the best students at Harvard Business School

In 2016 he becomes a doctoral student the Academy for Economical Studies in Bucharest and in 2019 graduates with the title "Summa Cum Laude".

Published Articles and Papers
Sebastian Burduja has published articles in journals in the United States, focusing on the subject of democracy in Romania and the necessity of its consolidation. In 2016 he releases "Între speranță și deziluzie. Democrație și anticorupție în România Postcomunistă" at the Curtea Veche Publishing House, a book which relates "in his own vision, the post-communist course of the Romanian democracy, having as reference point the aspect that represented - a personal opinion - the main obstacle in the way of this evolution: the political corruption" The book is based on his A+ Stanford license degree paper. The preface is signed by Larry Diamond and the afterword by Vladimir Tismaneanu.

Professional Affiliates
He is the founder and Honorary President of the LSRS (League of Romanian Students Abroad) and founding member of the CAESAR Foundation (Center for Access to the Expertise of Romanian Students and Graduates).

Sebastian Burduja is a member of the Washington D.C. branch of Global Shapers, a community developed by the World Economic Forum for high potential youths which show the ability to become leaders of society. In 2017 he was chosen by Junior Chamber International as one of 10 most valuable youths in Romania. He was selected in 2018 as a Millennium Fellow by the Atlantic Council. In 2019 he was chosen as a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshal Fund, a program dedicated to high potential youths from Europe and the United States of America, with Emmanuel Macron and Federica Mogherini among its graduates