• Together with the central prison administration of Kyrgyzstan, ICRC engineers and the ICRC HQ in Geneva I coordinated the project of constructing a new prison in accordance with international detention standards.• In over 50 visits to places of detention, I established working relationships with the authorities and managed to extend ICRC services (humanitarian aid, re-establishing family contacts, medical interventions) to the detainees.• As the public affairs advisor in Brussels I managed a yearly budget of 100.000€ with which I organised visibility projects for the European Union, thus securing their funding for the ICRC.

• Having worked for five years in the public sector and with my MBA successfully completed, it was my ambition to make the switch to the private sector. I accepted the offer to work as a Business Process Management consultant at Colruyt because of the good reputation of this company in management.• I trained dozens of business process engineers in process modelling, management and improvement, and I contributed to the development of the Colruyt BPM and Business Architecture methodology.• By consequently pointing to the advantages of BPM but also getting to know the daily challenges partners were facing, I convinced many experienced Colruyt employees of the advantages of BPM and successfully introduced BPM in diverse departments such as marketing and production.

Back in Brussels, I worked as the contact point in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for all NATO-related issues. In this function, I helped coordinating the Belgian position in political-military affairs, closely working with all involved partners in the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the ministries of Defence and of Internal affairs, and the chancellery of the Prime Minister. In this role, I joined the delegation of the Prime Minister at the NATO Lisbon Summit in Portugal in 2010. This summit was attended by a.o. President Obama, President Medvedev, and the Afghan president Karzaï.

​During 1.5 years, I was dispatched by the Belgian authorities to the European Union office in the Republic of Moldova. I served in the 3-person EU Negotiation team that tried to solve the civil conflict in which this former Soviet Republic has been locked since 1990. Getting to know the situation on the ground, I helped to bring the focus of negotiations on confidence building. I suggested a number of potential projects for the conflicting parties to cooperate, amongst others the joint exploitation of railways and the mutual recognition of a natural reserve. This policy of the EU allowed recently for some breakthrough results, such as the renewal of passenger railway transport.

​Initially hired as a translator at the Belgian Delegation in Vienna, Austria, I quickly grasped the international issues and diplomatic skills required to work in a multinational environment. I earned the respect and trust of the Ambassador and was promoted to his personal political assistant in the first half year.