Fellows

Diego is an international business developer with 6 years of experience in business development, sourcing and sustainability within a Fortune 500 company as well as in international trade & investment in government
organizations. He holds a Bachelor’s dual-degree in International Business Management from ESB Reutlingen in Germany and Universidad de las Américas in Puebla and an MBA from Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) in Mexico City. An upbringing in Mexico and the U.S., as well as extended academic and work experiences in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and France, has given him keen cross cultural experiences and helped him become fluent in English, Spanish, German and French. Until recently, he led multi-sectoral efforts to promote Mexican exports and attract foreign direct investment as an international business consultant at the Trade & Investment Commission of Mexico in the U.S. and Germany. Previous experience includes leading Communication and PR Programs for Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility for water usage efficiency, residue management, renewable energy sources and human development within a Fortune 500 company. In 2016, he founded Xiik’ Business Accelerator, a boot camp for Mexican startups in founding stages with core businesses linked to environmentally sustainable business models. Through his experience as project leader in the public and private sector, he developed solid project management skills; enabling him to lead multiple projects and its budgets with a strategic approach while meeting strict time schedules and productivity targets. Diego is passionate about the current role of social entrepreneurship – with the firm belief of becoming a social entrepreneur himself – and would like to further pursue doctoral studies on how institutions can effectively foster economic development in Latin American countries.

Host Organization: Goodwill Industries International

Role at Host Organization: Diego will support Goodwill Industries International, Inc.’s goal to strategically expand the Goodwill social enterprise model internationally. He will join the International Development team, identifying new international opportunities, supporting existing international affiliates and partners, and contributing to broad initiatives including data collection and analysis, fundraising, the development of tools for the delivery of technical assistance and training to international partners, and other capacity-building mechanisms.

Dorena has six years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Bachelor’s of Business Administration and a Master’s of Science in Business Administration from the University of Tirana, Albania. She has been working as
Event Coordinator for around 5 months in a known company in Albania, which organizes big conferences for organizations such as UNDP, UNICEF, OSBE, World Bank, and UN Women, among others. She is responsible for organizing meetings, social programs, conferences, and similar business events in Albania. Dorena has been part of Peace Corps Albania as a short-term Medical Assistant and full time Administrative Assistant for the U.S. Peace Corps office in Albania. She has also been working for three years as Head of Human Resources at Unique Junior Enterprise, a very active student organization operating in the Faculty of Economics. She has vast experience working with people from all over Europe on different projects, since she has been involved in several activities of the Erasmus program part of European Commission, such as training, youth exchanges, seminars and conferences in Albania and abroad. Through her experiences and volunteer work, she has developed strong interpersonal and communication skills and the ability to work effectively in a fast-moving, multi- cultural environment.

Host Organization: Young Professionals in Foreign Policy

Role at Host Organization: Dorena will be responsible for conducting financial and market research, assisting the Chief of Staff to maximize volunteer effectiveness, improving the organization’s HR system, and helping manage organizational and program budgets. She will work with the Executive Team to contribute to the development and implementation of organizational strategies, policies, and practices.

Jenny has four years of experience in the nonprofit sector and earned her Bachelor’s of Arts in Communications from Trinity Western University in Canada. As a legal coordinator of the refugee organization’s International Asylum Refugee Protection team, she tackles important issues with children’s rights, women’s issues, domestic violence and legal difficulties. Jenny has experience working with other major stakeholders, such as the United Nations Refugee Agency and Save the Children, to cooperate for refugees’ rights. Since refugees are the most marginalized people in Korea, resources are limited and helping them is a big challenge. However, Jenny has discovered many solutions on how to provide for the refugees’ needs. By connecting with other networks in the area where many refugees reside, she was able to provide them with proper support and assistance. She is passionate about raising awareness of the presence of refugees in Korea and has appeared on the news channel SBS, a major broadcasting in Korea, to inform how poorly refugee children are being treated under Korea’s limited social welfare systems. Moreover, Jenny’s proposal for a program wherein refugee women instruct culinary classes, teaching their own recipes to Korean citizens, was accepted and implemented by the Korea Women’s Foundation. Not only did the program provide a sustainable option for refugee women to generate their own income, but it also allowed the many Korean citizens who participated to learn about African culture and interact with the refugees as neighbors. Jenny is a very energetic, courageous and enthusiastic person, with a strong desire to put her experience to use working in the humanitarian field.

Host Organization: Meridian International Center

Julie has six years of work experience in the nonprofit sector. She earned a Master’s of Science degree in Project Management from the University of Bolton, and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Economics and Public Administration from the University of Zambia. Julie has worked as Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning Officer for Pact Zambia in Ndola since November 2016. She supported the Zambia Community HIV Prevention project (Z-CHPP) focusing on community HIV prevention. Julie’s main role was ensuring a functional monitoring and evaluation system to catalyze innovative sustainable, accessible and quality health solutions. She supported Implementing Partners to ensure that data was collected from health service delivery points, analyzed and reported, conduct data quality audits, identify success stories for organizational learning, and participated in all research work. From March
2016 to October 2016, Julie worked as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in Lusaka, Zambia for Society for Family Health (Population Services International). Her project portfolio included; Sexual Reproductive Health Initiative for all, Department of Defense, Expanding Effective Contraceptive Options and HIV self-testing. From February, 2012 to March, 2016 Julie worked for World Vision Zambia as Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in Eastern province. She contributed to World Vision Zambia’s mission to work for the poor and oppressed through the implementation of area development programs aimed at enhancing transformational development by reducing poverty and empowering communities. At World Vision, Julie’s project portfolio included Health, HIV/AIDS, Sponsorship, Water and Sanitation, Education, Food Security and Livelihood. Julie has assisted programs with planning, managing information
systems, reviewing performance against targets, identifying and addressing implementation challenges, documenting lessons learned and most significant success stories, report periodically and, oversee research activities, program assessments and designs. Julie has acquired skills in activity scheduling and tracking, design and implementation of project monitoring and evaluation plans and, conducting both qualitative and quantitative research.
Julie is interested in development programming, research and policy formulation and implementation to improve development outcomes. She enjoys traveling, site seeing, meeting different people from all walks of life and dancing.

Host Organization: Save the Children

Role at Host Organization: Julie will work with the HIV & TB technical team to support the technical aspects of program implementation. She will assist with program oversight, operations, logistics, and monitoring and evaluation functions and will also support the technical and M&E teams in reviewing program documents/reports and ensuring their timely submission to the relevant quarters. She will also contribute to the development of new proposals, program innovations, knowledge products and various other technical tools and processes.

Mohammed has eight years of experience in the nonprofit sector; he earned MBA from the Islamic University of Gaza, and a Bachelor’s of Information Technology in Computer Information Systems from Jordan University of Science and Technology in Jordan. Through his job as Research and Evaluation Officer – UNRWA Community Mental Health Programme (CMHP), Mohammed works in the monitoring and evaluation of the results and impacts of CMHP projects’ and programmes’ implementation. He gathers, standardises and maintains data on different structured programs through databases for internal and external use for M&E and summary reporting purposes. Before his current position, Mohammed worked for CMHP as Training Coordinator where he helped in planning, organizing, and developing capacity building strategies for staff members who provide psychosocial support and counseling services to Palestinian refugees (children & adults) at both UNRWA schools and primary health care centers. Previously, Mohammed worked for UNRWA Khanyones Training College as Technical Instructor, he provided semi-professional training to students of Business Diploma Programs; in addition to his academic experience in delivering a number of management and business administration modules, he contributed practically in delivering different ICT, MIS & Information Management modules. As part of being initiative, Mohammed had a voluntary role during 2014 summer hostilities in Gaza, he worked as a collective centre member in providing PFA, logistical, and emergency preparedness support for internally displaced people (IDPs) in the emergency shelters, which as a result contributed in enhancing IDP’s coping and resiliency. Mohammed is passionate in supporting youth development in different aspects such as training & capacity building as well as entrepreneurship initiatives.

Host Organization: IBM

Role at Host Organization: Mohammed will work closely with the Corporate Service Corps (CSC) Program Manager in Armonk on a number of projects to support the ongoing operations and deployment of CSC teams, in addition to developing new models for community engagement.