Transferable Skills
As especially important for my advisory work and teaching activities I consider the following skills:
- Global Perspective
Working for the European Union between 1996 and 2008 and for the UN between 2008 and 2024 I developed a strong ability to understand and navigate complex international environments.
- Program and Project Management
I managed programs and projects with sometimes more than 1000 partners from more than 15 countries. I got to know the entire cycle of Programs and Projects and all perspectives from the program manager and team leader to the author of project documents and funding applications, and to the technical assessor and evaluator.
- Cross-Cultural Communication
Working in more than 50 countries and with International Organizations including UN, EU and World Bank I demonstrate on a daily base my ability to work with diverse teams and cultures. In addition, countries where I worked in the past have been often in a transition period when my advice was requested. That began with Eastern Germany during the unification process where I faced both the culture of a socialist country in transition to a market-oriented democracy. Other countries where my ability for cross-cultural communication where much required included eg Afghanistan, Belarus, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Mali, Myanmar, and the countries of the Middle East. For my communication I use English, German, French and Italian language.
- Policy Development and Analysis
Development of analysis of policies was probably an element of all my assignments since I left university. Even where I was just in charge of implementing a program, eg an EU intervention on multi-country cooperation I always had to monitor and analyse the development of the policy environment and to propose actions to adapt programs, projects or other initiatives to emerging issues and relevant policy changes.
- Advocacy and Stakeholder coordination
Besides cultural diversity different stakeholders usually had also different interests, capabilities and they became active in a diversity of constellations. Thus, I also developed the ability to coordinate eg steering and monitoring committees with a high diversity of political, financial or other interests.
