The Comenius Team
Managing Director
Drs. Sandra Roelen-Hendriks has been working for Comenius since 2002 and she has been the managing director for seven years. She is a public administrator and worked earlier for several educational organisations as well as a commercial manager for Horizon Training and Development. “The Comenius concept touched me and I carry it out with a lot of passion. The changes I see taking place in many of the participants stimulate me time and again to win both individuals, lecturers and organisations over to the Comenius ideas. ‘Science as a source of inspiration, meetings between people as valuable gifts, and combination as a new impulse for individual growth and wisdom’.”
Course Managers
Every course is managed by a Course Manager who is responsible for the content and the organisation. In most cases, this Course Manager is also the person who has the first exploratory talks with the candidates.
Drs. Cathelijn Timmers has been working at Comenius since 2010. In her role as Senior Course Manager she is responsible for the American Course, the Financial Ethics Course and custom-made programmes. Before her present job, Cathelijn worked as a Manager Business Performance at KPMG and as a Publishing Manager at Malmberg Sanoma WSOY. Cathelijn’s professional drive is the development of the human being and the organisation. “Personal growth is closely related to organisational growth. The Comenius courses offer the participants a way to broaden themselves and to start looking at the world with different eyes. The topical diversity and the presentations by prominent teachers are major sources of inspiration in this. It is quite special to be able to work on this inspiration.”
Carla Loog is the Course Manager behind the National and European Comenius Courses. She has a working experience of 25 years as a line manager, trainer, and career and education consultant in both the public and the private sectors, both at home and abroad. Carla worked, for instance, at KPN, where she was a Project Bureau Manager, as a Training & Competency Manager for the Mobile Services Directorate of the Dutch police force, and as an education consultant for Woonzorg Nederland. “I am proud to be allowed to develop leadership programmes at Comenius that offer different views and can create new connections. I am deeply interested in the attention to education as a life principle, the way Jan Amos Komensky preached. It is inspiring to shape these principles together with the Comenius team in both courses and topical modules for the Comenius Society.”
Drs. Monica Bakker has been working at Comenius since 2009. She is a Sinology graduate from the University of Leiden and, as such, is responsible for the Chinese Comenius Course. After her graduation Monica worked as a market analyst for Red Cap Real Estate Investment Agency in Beijing in 2007/2008. Since her intrinsic motivation lies primarily in people’s personal development and academic research, she moved to Comenius. Besides the Chinese Comenius Course, Monica is also responsible for product development and all the activities of the Association. “It is a daily source of satisfaction to see how contacts with inspiring scientists and other worlds can expand the mind frame and give a new hue to the world, and to be allowed to contribute in this.”.
The Project Bureau
Our experienced secretariat plays an important part in the recruitment of participants, the proper organisation of the complex courses and the constant fitting in of our lecturers in an appropriate programme. It supports the Managing Director and the Course Managers and monitors the quality of both the daily execution of the courses and the first exploratory meetings.
Location managers
Every course will be accompanied on location by experienced hands. They are responsible for smooth running of the course on location to allow the participants to concentrate fully on the learning process.
