We all know that every new year brings new beginnings, challenges, developments, and of course, sometimes new personnel changes at the IOTA Secretariat. Beforehand, we are pleased to announce a new colleague on board. Barbara Berkesi joined our team as a Specialist of Technical Activities on 1st December 2022, and from this year she will replace Laura Lempner in this key role. After spending nearly 6 years at the IOTA Secretariat, Laura has set new goals to achieve in 2023, thus she is ready to open a new chapter in her career path and expand her horizon in the field of translation. We sincerely thank Laura for her excellent performance as a Specialist of Technical Activities at IOTA. Her dedication and commitment towards the Organisation are exemplary. We wish her success in her new adventure!
Our new Specialist of Technical Activities, Barbara Berkesi studied tourism and economy at Kodolányi János University College in Budapest, Hungary. She is highly experienced in working in international environment. After graduation, she moved to Dublin, Ireland and took her experience to the US giant IBM. A few years later she came back to Hungary and started to work for a local travel agency. She was mainly responsible for managing and organising incentive trips for Hungarian companies abroad. In 2004, she took an event organiser job at a Destination Management Company, called Microcosmos DMC. At this company, she successfully carried out different size of events (e.g., meetings and conferences) for international companies and associations in Budapest, Hungary.
Between 2012-2015, Barbara changed her location and moved to Bergen, Norway with her family. In the Nordic country she worked for DMC Norway, which is also known as a Destination Management Company. She continued organising events, incentive trips for groups, foreign companies as well as land-based arrangements for cruise guests arriving from sea cruise ships, tailored to specific needs. Barbara spent a couple of years at that Norwegian company and then she got a new opportunity at the Blaguss DMC in Budapest, Hungary, where she was responsible for end-to-end event management, every aspect of planning, organising and executing large annual conferences for 800+ attendees in Budapest, Athens, and Edinburgh.
Before Barbara joined the IOTA Secretariat, she spent the last 2,5 years in the United States of America. She lived one year in Louisville, Kentucky and 1,5 years in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Besides supporting her husband’s career and the studies of her kids, she took numerous environmental advocate courses and assisted as a volunteer in various environmental projects.
As Barbara remarks that, she is really into work in international environment, learn more about different cultures, discover new countries, and get know more about people around her. She is committed to persistent professional development, and she believes that the World is beautiful, not just because we human beings are so diverse, but we can always learn new things from each other, therefore we should respect each other. Her role at IOTA Secretariat will include the complete technical assistance and organisation of IOTA activities.
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The IOTA Secretariat also welcomes back Diána Schreiter, who was on maternity leave in the past years and she rejoined the team in part-time at the end of the last year.
Diána joined the Secretariat in 2020, before her arrival at IOTA, she worked as an offline and online marketing, publishing, newsletter, website content and social media coordinator and specialist for various international companies in fashion, food supplement, building and consumer electronics industries in the last 18 years. She has extended experience in PR, photo, video and commercial production, event management and translation. Her expertise includes creative writing, B2B as well as B2C communication, layout design, marketing and communication planning, comprehensive vision, and end to end campaign management. As a Publication Specialist, her role at the IOTA Secretariat will include the coordination of the IOTA publications (e.g., IOTA Papers and Reports, Books, Newsletter) as well as she will be responsible for carrying out the brand new corporate identity of the Organisation.
Our members also meet and connect Erika Szabó in the new year.
She will continue to be the Specialist of Communications at IOTA, and will focus on managing the external and internal communication processes of the Organisation, supporting the IOTA’s event communication (on-site, social media channels), liaising with members, writing various news items, conducting interviews, and also, coordinating the developments of the newly designed IOTA Blog. In addition, she takes over the leading role of the next IOTA Forum on Communication from this year. Find out more about Erika’s professional background at this link.
We wish everyone the very best for their future endeavors. Keep up the good work!