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Meet the VVOB team based at head office in Brussels, Belgium, and reach out through the contact form.

Global Leadership Team

Sven Rooms

General Director
Sven Rooms is leading VVOB as General Director since 2018. He has more than 20 years of experience within the international development cooperation sector, working with governments and partners in more than 25 countries across Africa, Asia and South America. Sven Rooms joined VVOB in 2011 as International Programmes Director. Before he was Programme Director at Plan International Belgium.

Tom Vandenbosch

Global Director of Programmes
Tom Vandenbosch is an education leader with more than two decades of practical experience in 22 countries on 4 continents. He joined VVOB in 2001, and is currently responsible for the formulation, effective implementation and continuous improvement of the educational content of VVOB's projects.

Koenraad Van Den Steen

Global Director of Finance
Koenraad Van Den Steen is responsible for the management of the financial risks, the preparation of the financial administration and the implementation of financial policy within VVOB. He joined VVOB in 2020 after a career of 19 years as financial manager and chartered accountant.

Jasmien Claes

Global Lead of HR
Jasmien joined VVOB in 2020 as HR Lead after 5 years of HR experience in the private sector. She is responsible for a variety of HR-related topics, both locally & globally, including the HR strategy, HR processes and policies.

Christine Redmond

Global Lead of Engagement and Communication
Christine has over a decade of experience working in communications and media production across four continents and joined VVOB in 2022. She's responsible for the formulation and implementation of VVOB’s external communication strategies, content management and social media.

Programme Department

Maud Seghers

Maud Seghers

Global Strategic Education Advisor
Maud Seghers provides technical support to VVOB country teams that are active in secondary technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and contributes to expanding the portfolio by formulating new projects and programmes. She's a driving force behind VVOB's thinking on scaling education initiatives through government systems. Maud joined in 2014, after 2 decades of work with implementers, donors and Ministries of Education.

Stefaan Vande Walle

Global Strategic Education Advisor
Stefaan has more than 20 years of experience of working in education, development and research. He advises on primary education programmes, particularly those linked to foundational numeracy and primary math, ICT in education and educational leadership. Before joining the team at VVOB HQ, he held positions within the organization as education advisor and online learning manager in the country teams of Cambodia, South Africa and Rwanda.

Inge Vandevyvere

Global Strategic Education Advisor
Inge advises on secondary education programmes at VVOB and is focal point for integrating environment into programming and organisational aspects. She studied pedagogical sciences and joined VVOB in 2020 after several (international) experiences related to education and development.
Hans De Greve

Hans De Greve

Global Strategic Education Advisor
Hans De Greve monitors and provides support to VVOB's early childhood education programmes. As VVOB's gender focal person he also watches over and supports VVOB's gender programming. Before joining VVOB's head office in 2018, Hans managed and implemented education programmes for VVOB in Suriname.
Jef Peeraer

Jef Peeraer

Global Strategic Education Advisor
Jef Peeraer holds a PhD in Education Sciences and has 15+ years' experience in education for development in Asia and Africa. His focus is on education change processes in general, and school leadership, teacher professional development and ICT in education in particular. Currently based at VVOB's HQ, he supports country teams in the formulation and implementation of programmes. He also coordinates VVOB's flagship programme on school leadership in Africa.
Asmita Rajaram

Asmita Rajaram

Asmita Rajaram coordinates the SchoolLinks programme and S-Cool-Links platform. She rejoined the organisation in 2019, after a two-year career at VVOB in Suriname as a national M&E/Education Advisor. Her educational background includes education and research for sustainable development and she also has experience with quality management in higher education.

Marije van Breda

Marije van Breda joined VVOB in March 2020 as Educaid.be coordinator, the Belgian platform for education and development. Marije is from Rotterdam, but has lived and worked in Belgium for a long time. After a period as external communications manager at Plan International Belgium, a career switch followed as a geography teacher in a French-speaking secondary school. Those different experiences come in handy now.
Steffi Vermeire

Steffi Vermeire

Steffi Vermeire has been eNSPIRED coordinator since April 2022. This is the Belgian programme that wants to inspire teachers and teacher trainers with interesting educational practices from countries in Africa, Asia and South America. Steffi is a sociologist and previously worked mainly as an education officer in various NGOs.

Lisse Moons

Communication & Events Officer

Belgian Programmes

Lisse Moons is responsible for the external communication of the programmes in Belgium (eNSPIRED, SchoolLinks & Educaid.be). She joined VVOB in 2019 after obtaining a master’s degree in Communication Sciences and gaining experience in the private sector as a communications coordinator.

Arne Willems

Professional Development and Partnerships Advisor
Arne Willems coordinates the continuous professional development within the organisation and manages the VVOB Academy, our learning platform. He is also responsible for managing the partnerships in which the organisation engages and he organises and coordinates VVOB's internship programme. Previously Arne worked for UNESCO in sub-Saharan Africa.

Oyindamola Johnson

Global Proposal and Project Developer
Oyindamola has over a decade of experience in developing as well as leading social impact and innovation projects in sectors including education, nonprofit management, youth development and talent management in Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and North America. Oyindamola joined the VVOB HQ team in 2023 and serves as a Global Project and Proposal Developer where he works on the formulation of new high-quality projects across our portfolio.

Sharon Schroen

Global Strategic Advisor Research
Sharon is our Global Strategic Advisor Research. Before she started at VVOB, she worked at Innovations for Poverty Action Liberia, coordinating research projects in the areas of education, gender and agriculture. She also worked as an M&E officer in Ghana, focusing on projects in the areas of SRHR, skills development and quality education.

Kristine Smets

Global Strategic Advisor M&E
Kristine Smets supports country teams in the development of M&E systems and practices. She also overlooks the evaluation process of VVOB’s programmes and projects. She worked as M&E expert in various countries in the Global South for over 10 years, before joining VVOB in 2009.

Anna Murru

Strategic Advisor Partnerships
Anna Murru is a development practitioner with over 20 years of experience in project conceptualisation and implementation, particularly in the field of accountability and education. She joined VVOB in 2012, as Country Programmes Manager for Zambia and currently supports VVOB grow its global programming through partnership development, mobilisation and engament both at international and country levels.

Sofie Tack

Grants Coordinator
For projects financed by VVOB's institutional donors, Sofie is committed to coordinate donor compliance and reporting processes accross different VVOB departments. By doing so, she aims to continuously improve the donor readiness of VVOB. Sofie joined VVOB in 2018 after her studies in social work, public management and business economics.

Esther Goldschmidt

Global Strategic Advisor Partnerships
Esther co-manages global partnerships with a focus on North American partners. She develops VVOB's engagement vision and strategies, supports its organisational recognition, and nurtures relationships with strategic partners. Esther closely collaborates with VVOB education experts and uses her analytical, advocacy, and communication skills gained from her previous career in law. She joined VVOB in 2020.

Dimitrios Charmpis

Grants Coordinator
Dimitrios Charmpis cooperates with country offices and head office departments to ensure that VVOB meets his donors' expectations on reporting and compliance. He manages projects funded by international organisations and country donors. Dimitrios joined VVOB in 2022 after his working experience in both formal and non-formal education.

Finance Department

Jan Janssens

Jan has been working at VVOB since 2000. He is responsible for monitoring the accounts at our head office. In addition, he is responsible for the organisation of the accounting package worldwide, the preparation of reports and the IT of our head office.

Han Dinh

Finance Officer
As a Finance Officer, Han does the verification of the financial data and provides coaching and support in accounting guidelines to the finance teams in the countries. Before joining VVOB in 2018, Han gained experience in finance, HR and administration for 15 years in several international companies. Han has obtained different degrees in International Business Management, Human Resources Management, Finance and Accounting.

Erik Crabeels

Erik has been a financial manager and controller of EU funded programmes in Africa in the domains of rural development, intra-ACP migration and the construction of schools and health care centres for many years. He joined VVOB in 2018 to assist the financial teams at head and country offices.

Nguyễn Phương Anh

Financial Controller
Phuong Anh supports both Head Office and the country teams in enhancing the internal control on financial aspects. She has been working for VVOB more than 17 years through several positions. Before joining the Head Office team as the Financial Controller, she was the Operations Manager of the VVOB Vietnam office.

Ester Joosten

Legal Advisor
Ester Joosten joined VVOB early 2022 as our Legal Advisor. After obtaining two Masters degrees in Law, she gained experience as a lawyer for several years. She supports both head office and the country offices in corporate matters, international contract management and public procurement related issues. She further actively develops and implements all data protection policies and follows up on GDPR related questions.

Sijal Kumar Joshi

Sijal is the IT Advisor, passionate about making tech work seamlessly for organizations in today's digital world. He provides strategic IT guidance, troubleshoots issues, and sprinkles a touch of innovation to boost our digital journey.

HR Department

Sarah Laevens

Sarah joined VVOB in June 2023 as HR advisor. In this role, she will be supporting Uganda, Kenya, Cambodia and Vietnam VVOB country offices on HR related topics. She will also support VVOB globally in learning and development and in other HR projects. Prior to joining VVOB Sarah worked primarily in the humanitarian field in the HQ and as HR manager in the field.

Charlotte Perrichot

After her studies in environmental & prevention management and conflict & development, Charlotte worked for six years at an external prevention organization. She is one of the HR Officers at head office and follows up the HR administration for head office staff. She's also the prevention advisor for head office and supports the country offices regarding wellbeing policies.

Liselotte Van de Casteele

Liselotte joined VVOB as an intern in January 2024 after completing her Masters in Organisational Psychology. Following her internship, she now takes on the role of HR Officer. Her primary focus is on managing the personnel administration of our international staff.

Communication Department

Nataša Ivačić

Communication Advisor Global Projects
Nataša joined VVOB in 2023 as Communication Advisor Global Projects. She has more than ten years of experience working in various communication and project management roles in multinational organisations in Belgium and abroad. As Communication Advisor Global Projects, Nataša focuses on project-based communication strategies, communication content development and communication partnerships.

Britt Michem

Communication Advisor
Britt Michem is VVOB's Communication Advisor - Digital Media since 2022. She studied languages and communication in Belgium and Mexico. At VVOB she is responsible for carrying out digital media strategies and campaigns, and managing the digital platforms.

Naomi Goldschmidt

Communication & Logistics Officer
Naomi is VVOB’s point of contact for logistical and communication related service providers at head office. After her language and journalism studies, she worked for five years in business customer service, where she learned how to build and maintain professional relations. In her role of communication officer, she focuses on internal communication (tools) and event planning. Naomi started working for VVOB at the end of 2021.