The fields of lifelong learning, sustainable employment, international mobility and guidance have been my daily working environment for the past 20 years. Within the EU and the Finnish policy and strategy context I have been involved in cross-sectoral network-based collaboration, academic and applied research, EU-funded project cooperation, development of guidance services and training modules, production of publications, as well as in contributing as a presenter to numerous national and international conferences.
Multicultural working environments as well as international project and research teams have strongly featured in my professional life. All this has contributed to developing a nuanced cultural literacy and diversity awareness. My experience is that in the current economic circumstances competitive advantage is based on ability to mobilise efficiently the positive contribution that talented people from diverse cultural backgrounds make as well as to support an open dialogue and mutual understanding between them.
In the project management positions that I have had, managerial (i.e. EU project management) and leadership capacities (e.g. coordinating European working groups, project teams) have always been in high demand. The related strengths that I possess are, among other things, my organisation, coordination, cooperation and decision-making skills; my strategic and analytical thinking; strong goal-orientation and good time management capacity (including great respect for deadlines without jeopardising the quality); and high level of diplomacy.
Communication is the key to delivering targeted messages to diverse audiences. I am an experienced speaker and presenter at national events and international conferences; a well-liked trainer and educator on further training programmes; an author with excellent drafting skills (including articles in journals and publications, policy and strategy papers, writing on the Internet, etc.), and simply an individual with highly developed human interaction/interpersonal and negotiation skills.
Marketing is needed for positioning a product/service and communicating its value to existing and potential clients and stakeholders. Thanks to my Master’s degree in Marketing, I have an understanding of how marketing best can be utilised for promotional purposes as to create public awareness and visibility for services, to convince decision-makers and to launch new activities. In my experience, marketing contributes to building long-term relationships, which are crucial for success in any business as well as in mainstreaming results generated by EU-funded collaborative initiatives or any other joint action.