Sándor Orbán is the program director of the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM) which unites seventeen non-for-profit media development centers from twelve countries of the region. He designs, coordinates, and supervises media policy, research, advocacy and journalism training projects. His main fields of expertise include media freedom and pluralism, reporting diversity, and journalism ethics. Orbán is also a guest lecturer at the Budapest College of Communication and Business. Prior to this current position, in 2006, he managed research and academic training programs at the Center for Media and Communication Studies of the Central European University in Budapest. From 1997 to 2005, he served as director of the Center for Independent Journalism (Budapest), established by the Independent Journalism Foundation (New York). In 1983–95, he worked at Hungarian media outlets as an international news editor and reporter covering political, social, and cultural events in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Orbán was a beneficiary of several international journalism fellowships, including the Hubert H. Humphrey program at the University of Maryland in 2004–2005, and a four-month US study tour organized by the World Press Institute (St. Paul, MN) in 1993. He completed a one-year diploma program at the Bologna Center of the School of Advanced International Studies/Johns Hopkins University in 1989–90. He received his M.A. degree in international relations and journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1983.