Hi everyone! My name is Friederike Kleijn, and I am glad to be introducing myself to the ISWA community.
From my current job as a Communications Consultant at Circulus, which provides waste and green management for 9 municipalities in the center of the Netherlands, I was offered the opportunity to take on a secondment at ISWA. A great opportunity that I grabbed with both hands.
First, here’s a little about my background. I have an academic education in Dutch language and literature, after which I worked as a teacher in secondary education for a short time. It was also the time when my communication profession developed enormously. That appealed to me more and I chose to continue with it. I have worked as a journalist and as a communications consultant for both the public and private sector. For the last ten years I have focused on the waste and raw materials sector. -a dynamic, complex environment in which ‘sustainability’ predominates. However, a lot still needs to be done in that context, and preferably as soon as possible. That makes it urgent, challenging and interesting.
The international assignments that I get to fulfill at ISWA feel to me – after years of being locally and nationally oriented – like a kind of ‘icing on the cake’. The strategic communication issues I will work on, ask for a broad view from different perspectives, but also includes pragmatism and a ‘hands on’ mentality. Working for ISWA will broadens my horizon, literally and figuratively. I hope that you, colleagues and partners, can say the same about my contribution in a year’s time!
