About me

I grew up amongst strong national Danish-minded families mixed with German minorities. My own family was a mixture of German minority and Danish.  My first language was a South Danish dialect that mainly only locals understand. Second language was German, which I learnt from German TV programs and our family in Germany - third language was (high) Danish that I was acquainted with when starting school. Hence, right from birth I learnt to navigate in a community with different languages and cultural identities. Exploring the world and people and cultures was a childhood dream.

At the age of eighteen I moved to northern Sweden and then on to Australia to study linguistics, German literature, and psychology at the University of Melbourne. After my studies I worked as project manager in culture and arts. After eleven years I left Australia and travelled the world with a backpack several times - twice alone, and later with my family.

For two years I lived in Vienna whilst preparing my relief work missions to war-stricken Bosnia in the 90´ies. After the war my husband and I settled in Southern Denmark and for seven years I worked as project manager of EU programmes such as the rural development programme LEADER, Interreg projects and the Interregional Waddensea Cooperation. For two years as PhD student at the University of Twente I did research on sustainable development in National Parks. 

Expatriated to Beijing with my family for four years I worked as program manager in science and innovation at the British Embassy. Back in Denmark I spent another four years working with Europe and the world when preparing the Sonderborg bid for European Capital of Culture. Next on the map was Bruxelles where for two years I was head of the Danish Cultural Institute and then started my advisory company based in Bruxelles. Nowadays I divide my time between the metropolis of Bruxelles and the South Danish Countryside of Blans - I call it my “Countryside Metropolis”.