Meet our trainers and speakers!
Alexis Hoyaux is a senior specialist on skills development (SD), working at E2 DG-INTPA. Viewing SD in a broad sense related to education and employment, he combines technical skills on TVET, with the appropriate aid modality. Having worked for bilateral and multilateral organisations, with several long-term postings overseas (Africa, Oceania, Latin America, Caribbean), he focusses mainly on the macro and micro elements of SD, with a keen interest on policies/strategies SD, legislation, organisation and financing of SD, management of VT Centres, next to evaluation and project management. Fervent defender of sector wide approaches and sector budget support, he puts ownership and sustainability by the local counterpart of each intervention as the key challenge to assure. He has worked in similar positions at LuxDev, ITCILO, ILO-Cinterfor, ENABEL, DG Europe-Aid (EC) and NZaid for a total of around 30 years, next to short missions for BMZ-Germany, Sida-Sweden, ETF and private consultancies. He has a law degree.
Jordi Prat Tuca serves as Regional Technical and Programme Coordinator for the Skills for Prosperity in South-East Asia Programme at the ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. In this role, his current work centres on developing national and regional capacities to achieve sustained and inclusive growth through the enhancement of skills and TVET systems in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Prior to his current position at the ILO Regional Office, he worked from ILO Bangkok on enterprise development and skills initiatives in South-East Asia, including Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. His work focused on creating innovative approaches to ensure higher entry, retention, and advancement of women workers in STEM-related industries and, through this support, enterprises’ ability to respond to technological advances including automation and robotics. Mr. Prat Tuca previously managed enterprise development programmes in West Africa, Latin America, and South-East Asia.
Before joining the ILO, he worked as Brand Manager at LG Electronics and in the financial sector at BBVA. Mr. Prat Tuca studied at the University of Michigan, as well as the Polytechnic University of Madrid and Rovira i Virgili University, where he graduated in Law and earned master’s degrees in Public Policy and Business Administration.
Julien Magnat has been skills and employability at ILO Regional office for Asia and Pacific since 2018. He provides Technical Assistance on skills development to Government, Employers and Workers associations from the region. For the last 17 years, he has been working on Skills development and Decent Work in more than 20 countries for ILO in Africa, Americas, Asia and Middle-East. Including 6 LDC and Middle income countries of Asia. For the last four years, Mr. Magnat I support Asia's governments, employers, and workers organizations to strengthen and innovate their skills development systems.
Considering Digitalization, Decarbonization and Demography megatrends impacting the Future of Work and Covid 19 pandemic, my main areas of support relate to Digital and green transformation of TVET, skills and migration, workplace-based learning and youth employment.
Khairul Islam has more than 20 years of experience in International Development in the field of value chain/market systems/enterprise development. Currently working at the ILO, as the Project Manager for Rural Employment Promotion project in Lao PDR. Applying human-centred approach to decent work promotion, addressing root causes to poor functioning of market systems, designing innovative and inclusive business models to offer win-win solutions - build the foundation of my work.
Mattias Larsen manages the Learning and Knowledge Development Facility (LKDF) at UNIDO, and a number of public private development projects (PPDP) in skills development, agri-business value chain and cluster development using the Market Systems Development (MSD) approach. Before joining UNIDO he worked as a development researcher at the Department of Economic Sociology, University of Vienna and the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg focusing on rural development, financial access, reputation and information in markets, inequality and gender
Olga Strietska-Ilina is an Area Lead for Skills Strategies for Future Labour Markets at the ILO, Geneva. Her work focuses on anticipating skills needs for the Future of Work, skills for trade and economic diversification, skills for environmental sustainability and climate action, and skills for technological change and digitalisation.
Before 2008, Olga worked at the European Centre for Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop). Earlier on, she was a Head of the Czech National Observatory of Employment and Training and taught International Relations at the Central European University (CEU).
Olga holds post-graduate degrees in Economic and Social Sciences from the University of Manchester, Society and Politics from the CEU, and History and Ethnography from the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov.
She published extensively and is the main author and/or editor of several books, including “Skills and Jobs Mismatches in Low- and Middle-Income Countries” (ILO, 2019), “Skills for a Greener Future” (ILO, 2019), “Skills Needs Anticipation Systems and Approaches” (ILO, OECD et al, 2017), “Parallel Cultures” (Routledge, 2017 2nd edition) and “A Clash of Transitions: Towards a Learning Society” (Peter Lang Publishing 2007).
Pasqualino Mare has been employed by the European Training Foundation (ETF) since 2010 as Senior Human capital expert (HCD), Country liaison for Egypt and INTPA-ETF contact point for activities for Sub Saharan Africa. At the ETF Pasqualino has been working in various thematic areas like Qualifications, Governance in VET, Entrepreneurship, worked based learning in mainly the north African and middle East region. In Egypt Pasqualino has mainly been supporting the European Delegation in monitoring and formulation of VET projects. From 2019 until 2021 Pasqualino has worked as VET policy advisor at the European Commission, DG international partnership as VET covering the mainly the Sub Saharan African region. Before joining the ETF Pasqualino was active within the European Union and has worked for 15 years in a sector skill council in the Netherlands managing international activities.
Stefan Thomas is a Senior Human Capital Development Specialist at the European Training Foundation (ETF) in Turin, Italy. The ETF’s mission is to help transition and developing countries to harness the potential of their human capital through the reform of education, training and labour market systems in the context of the EU's external relations policy. Mr Thomas’ responsibilities at the ETF include working with governments, social partners, international organisations and development agencies to improve work-based learning systems. He also works on Centres of Vocational Excellence and is part of ETF’s Africa team.
Ummuhan Bardak is a senior specialist on labour market and migration at the ETF for more than 15 years. She has been involved in several projects related to the labour market, migration, employment and human capital development in the European Neighbourhood Regions. Her work on those topics encompasses research and analysis, policy dialogue, project management and capacity building. Highlights of her work have been labour market reviews, the skills dimension of migration, youth not in education training or employment, and future skill needs in selected sectors - mainly in the South Mediterranean, Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership regions.
Wouter Van Damme is currently Policy Officer/Education Expert at the European Commission's Directorate-General for International Partnerships. He is also a project leader, partnership manager, capacity developer, change manager and knowledge broker. The fields of (vocational) education and training are his habitat. He brings more than two decades expertise and experience in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific to his current role where he advises on education system strengthening, teaching and learning, digital education and education financing. He also advices on EU investments in the Global Partnership for Education and EU support to SDG4 global coordination. You can find him on LinkedIn.