ALUMNI 2014

Carmen works as a journalist and author in Berlin with a special focus on cultural issues and literature from Eastern Europe, Russia and Israel. Diversity has been a central aspect in many of her articles. After her studies in Bamberg, Edinburgh and Madrid Carmen was a guest lecturer at the Babeş-Bolyai University in Romania where she taught language and journalism as a Fellow of the Robert Bosch Foundation. Afterwards she spent more than three years as an editor and reporter in Russia. She described this time in her book “Ein Jahr in Moskau” (Herder, 2010). Democracy needs diversity, she says. It is an enrichment and a challenge that we have to tackle together. Carmen is particularly interested in questions like: How does diversity change societies? How can we use its positive potential instead of seeing it as a source of conflict? And which role do journalists play in building a society that respects diversity?

Jessica serves as a project manager and consultant at EAF Berlin on a project supporting 100 companies across Germany in developing strategies and implementing measures with the goal to bring more women into senior management positions. After a Master’s degree in International Business, Jessica pursued an interdisciplinary Master’s Program in Gender and Diversity Competence at the Free University in Berlin. Further, I am an active member of the Business and Professional Women’s network (BPW) and the International Society for Diversity Management (idm). Jessica is convinced that being able to manage our society’s diversity is key to social, political and economic stability and innovations across all sectors. Corporate as well as societal structures allow asymmetric levels of participation to various marginalized groups. Against this backdrop, Jessica contributes to building a society in which diverse perspectives can be voiced, are heard and acted upon.

Filip works for Vodafone Group Services in its mobile Commerce business unit as a Manager for Mobile Wallet. Filip looks after mobile payment business development with European banks and is responsible for new product features Vodafone will be rolling out in its European footprint. Inventing new technologies in an international role means interacting with many nationalities and people of various backgrounds on a day to day basis. Therefore the theme ‘managing diversity’ was a key driver to apply for CGYPP in 2014. Filip studied business administration and sports management in Bayreuth and Madrid and is looking forward to meet exciting Czechs and Germans who share his interest in the relation of both countries.

Malte‘s mission at the German-Polish Youth Office is to assist young Germans and Poles and their educators to get to know each other on a more than just superficial level Malte is interested in finding people from all around the world who believe what he believes. His search brought him so far to Berlin, Hamburg, Lublin (PL), Münster and, finally, Warsaw. He is really curious to compare the Czech Republic to his new home country of Poland. It is now almost ten years since he first visited Wrocław. Malte likes to think that Poland shaped him and taught him all he knows. When it comes to the challenge and chance of diversity, he noticed a danger that elites in European societies perceive diversity rather as something positive, whereas the overall society does not fully share this perception. Plus, diversity is largely perceived as being limited to interculturality, which is, however, only part of the issue.

Hana has been leading the team of Compliance and Risk Management in the company E.ON Czech Republic since 2013. Within this position it is her responsibility to implement Compliance Program and Risk Management System including risk monitoring and reporting for the whole E.ON Czech Group. In 2009 Hana graduated from the University of Economics in Prague where she studied International Trade; she spent part of her studies at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. Hana decided to join the CGYPP program in order not only to broaden her horizons regarding Czech-German relations, but as a hope to get new inspiration through experience sharing with other participants. During her studies at university she worked on a project with focus on the topic “Managing Diversity”, nowadays Diversity still follows her in her business life also due to her position as a female manager.

Zuzana works as a journalist for the news website Česká pozice and contributes to the daily newspaper Lidové noviny. She gained her first professional experiences at the Czech News Agency (ČTK), the national public law news provider. She is specialized in German speaking countries. In her current position she writes mostly deeper analysis of the contemporary developments in German, Austrian and Swiss politics, culture and economy. She also occupies herself with Czech-German relationships. In 2011 she acquired a doctor degree in the field of International studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague. Her dissertation was focused on the role of culture and public diplomacy in foreign policy. She joined the CGYPP to enrich her knowledge about Germany, to gain new contacts in her field of interest and to learn more about this year’s topic Managing Diversity, which she sees as one of the biggest challenges of today’s world.

Milan works as Project Manager in European Project Center by the Universtity of Sciences in Dresden, where he manages international European projects. Previously he worked for Development Bank of Saxony in Dresden; he was responsible for the Czech-Saxon and Polish-Saxon cross-border projects. Before that he worked for CzechInvest Agency firstly in AfterCare Department in headquarters in Prague and later on as Director of foreign office in Düsseldorf where he was responsible for Germany, Austria and Swiss operations. He worked also for Robert Bosch on different positions. He studied Business Administration at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem and now he is finishing his next Master Studies in Investment Promotion and Economic Development at Edinburgh Napier University. He applied to the CGYPP in order to get the opportunity to discuss current theme – Managing Diversity in view of his and other participants´ experiences.

Armin has been the North America Representative of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt since 2013. In this capacity, he coordinated the cooperation with the Taproot Foundation in New York and San Francisco; the aim is to bring professional Pro Bono Services to Germany and create a global Pro Bono network. Armin completed a Master’s degree in Eastern European Studies with a focus on politics and economics at the Free University of Berlin. Starting as an intern in the Asian Relations Department of the BMW Foundation, he was a Fellow from 2010 until the beginning of 2012 and then a project manager in the social innovations department. For Armin diversity has many dimensions like age, gender, culture and social background; he have found working in diverse teams extremely rewarding. Working in diverse environment requires important abilities like the listening, being patient and open to come to a solution anyways.

Jenda is Social Media Maniac. Jan works for companies and non-profit organizations as a free marketing consultant specialized in new media. In 2011 he graduated from Masaryk University in Brno with Bachelor degree from digital media and journalism together with European studies; he focused in thesis on Czech political parties on Facebook. Jenda is interested in politics for a long time; he also run the campaign for Green party in the 2013 general election. Concerning of CGYPP Jenda believes that we can manage and develop diversity in Europe only in close cooperation with others. Knowledge, understanding and cooperation are the keys. It’s better to utilize diversity in Europe, than fight each other or trying to unify us all. Little curiosity about him: he’s also a floorball referee.

Ingrid is a desk officer at the German Federal Ministry of Finance in the Department for European Policy. Currently, her main areas of work are related to the European Central Bank, EU- enlargement issues as well as to the Western Balkan Investment Framework. Before moving to Berlin, Ingrid was a policy consultant in the Munich office for the first German governmental report on gender equality, based at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. After her Master in Gender and International Relations at the University of Bristol, Ingrid completed her PhD-thesis on pre-accession assistance and gender equality during the EU enlargement of 2004, focussing on the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Afterwards she worked for two years as a research fellow within the European project QUING (based at the Peace Institute, Ljubljana). For several years, Ingrid has been working in the field of European and gender issues and diversity, often in an international context. Diversity means to be aware of differences, to accept each individual for who they are, respecting and valuing their individual qualities and backgrounds.

Susen works as research associate at the Institute for Research on Higher Education (HoF), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. After completing an M.A. in History and Slavic Language Studies, she worked as a lecturer at universities in the Czech Republic and in Russia. At HoF Susen assists in coordinating a cooperation project between various educational institutes in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, dealing with increasing heterogeneity in student populations. Besides this academic work, she serves as a volunteer in a programme supporting refugees in the city of Leipzig in dealing with public authorities and with health care.Diversity is, in her perspective on higher education systems, is a major challenge, because students with a variety of starting conditions should also have access to suitable learning environments and be supported towards a successful degree.

Pavlína joined UniCredit SpA Permanent Establishment Vienna in December 2013 after having an internship at the Bank Austria (Product Management) within her doctorate studies. Pavlina is working as a consultant and her main activities are related to process management and projects of Chief Operations Management. Pavlína studied Economics and Management at the Mendel University in Brno with particular focus on EU market. She has been dealing with the issues of international relations, EU external policy and projects of development cooperation since January 2008 when she became a member of the Ministry of Finance team responsible for International Financial Institutions and later of the Czech Development Agency. Because of interconnected economy and common EU policy she believes that the way how to reach this goal is among others to be able to cooperate, agree proposals and deliver results together despite of diversities of our cultures; therefore she joined CGYPP.