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After a two-year traineeship (2009) at the City of Amsterdam, I enjoyed working on complex issues in our capital for 11 years. Such as: reducing high impact crime, implementing multidisciplinary approaches to poverty reduction and experimenting with new democratic instruments for citizen participation. In addition to expertise in policy advice and programme and change management, I have developed myself in those years as a trainer and process supervisor. That is the emphasis in my work: bringing people and groups together and strengthening collaboration in order to make more impact together. Since 2018 I work as a freelancer for other organisations, mostly on topics such as Deep Democracy, leadership and culture change, inclusion, participation, and community building. I joined Perspectivity in January 2023.

I have experience in multistakeholder collaborations for the reduction of high impact crime and for improving the situation for households in poverty. I pioneered with the democratic instrument of Citizens Assemblies for several government agencies. One example is the project ‘The wisdom of Amsterdam’, a dialogue process with 248 randomly selected citizens (in Dutch). On the international stage I facilitated a strategic retreat workshop on international aid effectiveness with 30 leaders. And I initiated a training for facilitators called ‘Sitting in the fire’, on the verge of the Covid pandemic.

I find joy in designing and facilitating deep dive conversations for complex and large groups of diverse stakeholders and communities. When hot topics need to be addressed or when the collaboration gets stuck, I guide and support the group in finding common ground for a shared way forward. Naturally my attention goes to building a safe and open space for all voices to be heard. That’s why I am so passionate about working with Deep Democracy, Appreciative Inquiry, Future Search and other collaborative approaches.

I studied public administration (MSc.) at Leiden University, the Netherlands. During my career I took several intensive programs abroad such as Deep Democracy Winter Intensive (5 weeks) by Arnold Mindell and The Art of Public Dialogues: hosting conversations about Race & Identity (1 year). I live in Amsterdam-North with my love and our newborn daughter. I like to swim early in the morning, to read an inspiring leadership book,  and to dream away. And I enjoy deep conversations with friends and strangers (‘strangers are friends who have not met’). I am half-Dutch (Frisian to be precise), half-Persian.

Expertise

• Dialogue and Deep Democracy
• Large-scale and multistakeholder collaboration
• Creative leadership
• Diversity, equity and inclusion
• Democracy and community building