TDP & AIM bring you CAREER WEEK
Career Week is a collaboration between AIM and TDP. Overall the goal is to provide PPLE students with a deeper insight into the professional world.
This year’s Career Week will consist of an opening ceremony and a mentorship programme. The opening ceremony will kick off the week by looking into the post-pandemic future. Different keynote speakers will highlight the challenges and opportunities of an adapting job market and provide guidance on how corporations will change and what skills matter in the future.
The theme of the mentorship programme is Societal Sustainability Post-Covid. Various highly qualified mentors from many different career paths will provide their mentees with a better understanding of their profession and how they got started in their current field. You can find out more about each mentor below:
THE MENTORS
Tarina Meiring
"I am the Founder and CEO of Mapula Media Group which creates and manages online experiences for global markets. Before starting Mapula Media, I started as a business and tech journalist and later joined a tech startup where I headed up the marketing department, scaling the startup to 3 continents and multiple territories. After a few years, I saw significant opportunities for other startups to break through the noise and leverage social media marketing to scale."
I used my psychology and journalism background to start an agency that prides itself on understanding customers and creating experiences. To date, Mapula Media has multiple clients on 4 continents, ranging from hotels, fintech, and more."
Linas Nasvytis
Linas Nasvytis is currently working as a research analyst for Paul Romer, the recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics, and the former Chief Economist at the World Bank. His work focuses on the intersection between economics, technology, and public policy. Linas has previously worked for the European Commission where he worked on a report on information warfare in EU Member states as an Economic Policy Reporter. He has also worked for the Bank of Lithuania and Oliver Wyman. He is a graduate of the Dual Bachelor’s Degree program between Columbia University and SciencesPo Paris, earning a BA in Social Sciences in France, and a BA in Economics in New York.
Maria Freitas
As Engagement and Programme Coordinator at FEPS, Maria is responsible for designing and leading the foundations’ external engagement programme, including its flagship annual high-level conference Call to Europe and the youth lighthouse initiative Millennials and Gen Z Dialogue on Europe. Maria divides her work between managing FEPS’s relationship with strategic partners and sister organizations and by representing FEPS externally in view of reinforcing the foundation's representation and views. Prior to joining FEPS in 2015, Maria accumulated diverse EU affairs work experiences, having worked for two S&D members of the European Parliament, the Financial Times (Mergermarket Group) and Vodafone. Maria holds a Law Degree by the University of Lisbon, a post-graduation in European Legal Practice by Leibniz Universität Hannover, and an MA in European Political and Governance Studies at the College of Europe.
Talant Sultanov
Talant is a Co-Founder and the Chair of the Kyrgyz Internet Society and Expert at the Taza Koom think tank. Previously he served in the Kyrgyz Government as an Adviser to the Prime Minister in charge of implementing Taza Koom Digital Transformation Strategy and as the Director of the government think tank the National Institute for Strategic Studies. Talant’s previous experiences include positions at the World Bank in Almaty and Washington, and at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. Additionally, he served as the Board member at the Kyrgyz National TV and Radio Corporation, the Business Council of the Kyrgyz Parliament, the Bank of Asia in Kyrgyzstan, and Humo Microcredit Foundation in Tajikistan. Talant holds an MA in International Finance from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (2006) and a BA in International Relations from San Francisco State University (1999). He has also received executive education at the Harvard Kennedy School (2016).
Jim Odenhoven
Jim has been working at Deloitte for 3.5 years in its consulting practice. Coming from PPLE with a specialization in Economics, Jim went to the Duisenberg Honours Programme of the VU for Finance and Accounting. He wrote his master thesis at Deloitte and moved into consulting. Jim has been involved in multiple different projects on a broad range of topics at an even broader range of clients across different industries. His current project is at the Municipality of Rotterdam helping their data team with the Coronacrisis. His expertise in data visualization and his team helps them with building forecasts, structuring the data, and extracting valuable insights.
Justinas Jarusevicius
Justinas Jarusevicius is a dual-qualified lawyer after passing the New York State bar exam and Lithuanian bar exam. Justinas is a partner at Lithuanian law firm Motieka & Audzevicius dispute resolution team. He has worked on projects where he advised clients in complex commercial disputes. His case portfolio includes cases directly related to the implementation of social development goals. Justinas has also worked as a lecturer at Vilnius University Faculty of Law where he taught courses on Private International Law. During Justinas’ studies at Harvard Law School and King's College London, London University he has developed a strong network of legal practitioners and the Lithuanian community worldwide. Justinas is a Ph.D. candidate at Vilnius University Faculty of Law.
Jinane Araqi
Jinane Araqi graduated from PPLE in 2020 as a Politics major. “Upon graduating, it was quite clear to me that a master's right away wouldn’t be as beneficial, so I took a gap year. After a brief experience with Corporate communications, I am currently working as a democracy consultant intern at Sapient, a large network of social businesses. The one I work for is Oview, a consultancy service tailored for small and medium businesses. With my team, we focus on organizational democracy consultancy. I find this field fascinating and super relevant for meeting certain social challenges with tangible solutions. So, I am looking forward to sharing more about it with you next week.”
Laura di Santolo
Laura Di Santolo is the co-founder and Managing Director at Forward Incubator. Forward is a foundation supporting newcomers and people with a refugee background to launch, grow and fund their business via our entrepreneurship and business programs & events. She has also worked as a Research Analyst at Luxembourg's Ministry of Economy and has experience in business consulting.
"I hope the mentees get inspired to follow a career that has a positive impact on the world we live in. I want to give an honest depiction of what it means to be an entrepreneur, leading an organization, and working not for profit."
Ole Villund
Ole Villund is a Senior Statistical Analyst in Statistics Norway, with a background of having been a Statistical Expert in the European Commission. In the EC, he was a national expert in crime and criminal justice statistics. He joined the statistical office of Norway in 1999. Here, he worked on development projects in official statistics, such as quality analyses of interview data from the labor force survey, analysis methods for overqualification among immigrants, and new statistical methods for administrative data sources. From 2016 to 2020, he was seconded to the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, as an expert in the field of official crime statistics. In addition to the experience of living and working in another country, this brought on an interest in international relations and security studies.
Wiebke Brinner
"During my first 2 years at PPLE, I was working part-time at a Dutch Start-up called BizzCloud as a Marketing assistant. My tasks included revising the marketing strategy to create a coherent corporate image and conducting market research for expanding to the German market. I also improved Google Adwords and produced content for the webpage to build the brand and attract new customers. After being in Singapore, where I focused on marketing and communications, I joined the American bio-diesel company REG for a year (Renewable Energy Group) as a working student in legal and HR. Here, I consulted and researched for the European legal team to ensure the company’s compliance. For the past 6 months, I have been working full time at Porsche as an intern in brand strategy and partnerships. In August I will be moving to the US to follow the Behavioral and Decision Science Masters at the University of Pennsylvania."
Mark Koelman
As a Sustainable Area Development Advisor, Mark Koelman translates the municipal ambitions, municipal policy, and legislation and regulations in the field of sustainability into the area of development, in the Nieuw-West district and the rest of Amsterdam. He previously worked as a consultant and environmental manager at Ruimte & Recht for 2 years, taking care of work regarding space and law for various large-scale (>15KM long routes) and complex reconstruction cable and pipeline projects and the realization of substations. Mark was also a Graduation Intern at ING and researched trends and developments in the student housing submarket for ING's Economics Department.
Renata Kereselidze
Renata Kereselidze is deputy director at Georgian Institute of Politics, where she worked since 2012. She is an alumna of the On Think Tanks Fellowship Program “Integral Leaders for Global Challenges” (2017). Before joining GIP Renata has worked as a journalist covering foreign policy and European issues in Lithuania and was the recipient of Heinrich Boell's fellowship to research EU strategies in conflict resolution in Georgia. Her interests include collective identities, European integration, and Eastern Partnership. She earned her MA at Central European University (CEU), Nationalism Studies department (2009); and received BA in Political Science, Institute of International Relations and Political Science (IIRPS), Vilnius University (2008).
Lukas Bodenstein
As a native of Hamburg, Lukas Bodenstein connects the international Appical team in Amsterdam with the German market. In his role as Product Marketer, he is responsible for understanding customer requirements and market trends, developing go-to-market strategies, and launching new features. Lukas is also involved in organizing and running regular "How To" webinars together with clients or other HR influencers. Having just entered the job market a few years ago, he aims to guide students through the process of entering the Dutch job market. He has a background in Business Administration and can provide insight into working in and with start-ups in the Netherlands. Furthermore, he also has experience in assistance of Backend Data Maintenance and is currently in charge of leading future releases and product launches at Appical.
Rita & Lauranne
Rita Mendes is the Recruitment Lead of Nmbrs and part of the Employee Experience team. She recruits people from all over the world to the offices in Amsterdam and Lisbon. Whether she is working together with internal stakeholders or using data to analyze behaviors within the recruitment process, she consistently finds ways to create a positive candidate experience. Besides that, she's a Coaching Psychologist in private practice. Rita has a Bachelor in Psychology, Masters in Organisational and Work Psychology, and a specialization in Coaching Psychology. Lauranne is working in the Employee Experience Squad at Nmbrs. She is responsible for all HR-related topics, for instance: the onboarding of new employees, low-performance cases, sickness, employee engagement, but also helps people who are having difficult personal circumstances.