What do you do at polyspektiv?
Together with the team, I look for ways to make politics clear and comprehensible. I am interested in new approaches and challenges. As Managing Director, together with Heidi, I also have the task of developing polyspektiv further and keeping an eye on everyone’s cooperation and quality.
How did you join polyspektiv?
As a student and young professional, I worked at an institute for political consulting in Munich. There, I came across political education projects together with others rather by chance. We wanted to do some things completely differently. This gave rise to the idea – initially as a joke – of setting up something of our own. Like me, Heidi actually took it seriously, we kept in touch loosely and years later we both ended up in Berlin, rather by chance. There we initially had two major joint projects, from which first x3 and then polyspektiv emerged.
What do you enjoy most about polyspektiv?
New approaches. And new topics that interest me. Fortunately, there are a lot of them. When dealing with those, I don’t even realize that I’m working. But I also enjoy the challenge of further developing routines and forming an ever better team from different personalities.
Why are you involved in political education at all?
I consider myself very lucky to be able to live in a democracy. It means freedom, but it also creates a lot of work. At its best, this work is fulfilling and fun. Making it tangible that democracy suits us humans, that we should think and be allowed to argue about our ideas and interests, that is a very rewarding task.
What do you do when you’re not working for polyspektiv?
I am interested in politics beyond polyspektiv and political education. European unification is particularly important to me: Organizing the continent so that we can get along with each other and achieve more together – this has been with me for almost three decades. The challenge of making our democracy strong and resilient also interests me beyond my professional work.
What do you do specifically in this context?
When I was a student, I got to know “Europe” in a very practical way during a stay abroad in Sweden. As part of the AEGEE student network, I continued to look for such contacts and organized events on a voluntary basis. Later, I co-founded an association – Citizens of Europe – through which I worked on European projects for 10 years and established and facilitated many contacts. I was then appointed to the board of the Europäische Bewegung Deutschland. There and at the European Movement International, I work with many people who have a positive attitude towards European unification and who are looking for ways to advance it together.