Understanding Challenges and Delivering Results

Thibaut Mills MBA

Director, Europe

Thibaut has been a member of the senior management team with Oxford HR since 2013. He brings 20 years’ experience of working in both the private and international non-governmental sector. He has worked in a wide range of organisations ranging from dot.com start-ups to FTSE100 companies and multinationals.

Thibaut worked for several years with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Myanmar and Haiti, where he had overarching HR responsibility for over 1500 staff during the post-earthquake response of 2010.

A native French speaker with professional experience in a variety of roles including Search & Selection, International HR, Operations and management in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India, he has led on over 30 Board, Executive and Director level appointments in over 20 countries.

Holder of an MBA with focus on International HR Management and Innovation. He is passionate about the INGO sector and a member of the Board of Directors for Refugee Resource.

Erik van Weert

Deputy Director, Europe

Erik is based in the Netherlands and has over 25 years of experience in international development and joined Oxford HR in 2020. He has a strong track record in organizational development, resource mobilisation (> 100 M) and building successful teams and partnerships.

He has an extensive track record in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa with SNV Dutch Development Organisation and Enabel (Belgium Development Agency) in Sudan, Bolivia and Ecuador. He worked with ERAC impact consultancies, Rutgers and RNW Media in the Netherlands as a lead consultant and business development director.

Erik has an MBA focused on organisational strategy and innovation and a Master International Development Studies and Social Geography. He is passionate about organisational transformations, the fourth industrial revolution and supporting organisations to grow their impact.

Yolanda Weldring

Principal Consultant, Europe

Yolanda is based in the Netherlands and has over 30 years of experience in Human Resources Management, 18 years of which in International Development. She was International Director with Oxfam Novib and Regional Director East and Southern Africa with Save the Children UK, as well as member of senior groups of Oxfam International and Save the Children International. In the years before joining Oxford HR, Yolanda has done interim-director and management roles in Africa and Asia and in all those jobs she was responsible for recruitment of senior roles. Yolanda has also experience at Trustee-level and as Advisor to Boards. Yolanda’s professional training as Clinical Psychologist supports her judgement on personal qualifications of candidates. Yolanda has work experience in the Netherlands, UK, East Africa, Southern Africa and South and Southeast Asia. 

Yolanda is committed to finding capable and high-performing candidates for jobs in organisations and networks in international development, as this contributes to the strong delivery of programs and quality policy development by the organisations, which helps to reduce disparity in the world. Yolanda is able to bring her own and Oxford HR’s wide networks to you as a client.

Josje Reinartz

Associate Director, Australasia

Josje joined Oxford HR in 2019 and is based in Melbourne and Amsterdam. Her focus is to develop and lead Oxford HR’s work in Australasia. She is passionate about helping not-for-profit and for-purpose organisations in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Pacific Islands through finding strong leaders and advising on institutional development.

She brings 25 years of leadership experience in the fields of health, environment and international cooperation. Josje was for seven years COO for Wetlands International. She holds a Masters in Public Health and led the Sibusiso treatment centre for mentally disabled children in Tanzania. Before that she worked 15 years for Médecines sans Frontières. As an Operations Director she was part of the strategic management team in the Amsterdam HQ and responsible for the programmes in Central Asia and West Africa. Josje lived and worked in field projects in Azerbaijan, Liberia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Democratic Republic of Congo and headed the missions in Uganda, Sudan and Angola.

Zoe Greenwood

Consultant, Europe

Before joining Oxford HR as a Consultant in 2018, Zoe spent 15 years working in the charity/NGO sector with a focus on Learning and Development, HR and Leadership for Sustainability. Working predominantly for Earthwatch, the international environmental NGO, Zoe has worked in UK, India, China, Latin America and South East Asia where she has collaborated with local organisations, community groups, global NGOs and multinational companies to deliver first-class learning programmes and conservation projects. 

Zoe is passionate about discovering and developing leaders who are dedicated to creating a sustainable, equitable and poverty-free world. She recently completed a postgraduate degree with the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability at the University of Cumbria, she is a trained coach and facilitator and has significant experience of bringing groups together in nature to consider the skills and competencies needed to tackle climate change and address the Sustainable Development Goals.

Martine Billanou

Associate Principal Consultant, Europe

Martine has over 30 years of experience in International development.   Before joining Oxford HR, she was the senior advisor to Alliance2015, a partnership of seven European NGOs. 

Previously, Martine has worked with SNV and Save the Children UK as country director in Cameroon and DRC, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Eritrea. She developed strategies and structures that supported innovative and successful development and humanitarian response programs. This involved the set-up, selection and development of successful teams and included addressing key issues of ethics, accountability and safeguarding.   

Martine’s expertise in the set-up and support of Consortia or other forms of inter-agency cooperation is supported by her strong understanding of organizational cultures and dynamics.  She worked with a wide range of INGOs in Alliance2015, in various Commonwealth inter-agency initiatives both in Cameroon and in Tanzania or, earlier in her career, as general secretary of the Eritrea Inter-Agency Consortium.   

An economist, graduated from Grenoble University, Martine started to work on performance analysis in the private sector. 

Lenze Pekelsma

Executive Assistant, Europe

Lenze is based in the Netherlands and studied Organisation and Labour Psychology. He has a background in Human Resources Management and Career Development having worked with refugees in the Netherlands and with disadvantaged youth in Africa. He supports the Oxford HR office in Amsterdam with Business Development Management and various tasks.

Carolien van Bremen

Associate Principal Consultant, Europe

Carolien brings 20+ years of management experience in HR and is especially skillful in change management, growth and downsizing scenarios, culture programmes, HRD and talent management, performance management and organisational development. Individual paths such as coaching and potential- and talent definition and management complete her broad profile.

She has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Balkans and lived in Europe, (The Netherlands and United Kingdom), Africa (Kenya and South Sudan) and Latin America (Ecuador). For SNV, she was the Regional HR Manager for East and Southern Africa for 450 fte in ten countries, then joined SNV Latin America to support SNV’s then new business model and finally became Chief HR Officer for SNV worldwide. She has worked for Save the Children International as their HR Director in South Sudan and most recently was Adam Smith Internationals’ HR Director. As a consultant she has fulfilled assignments with KIT, KNCV, Mama Cash, CTA, SCI, and various profit companies.

Working together with Oxford HR she can use her HR knowledge in profit and not for profit sector for Oxford HR’s clients. She runs her own company and works on HR consultancies and combines this with her mediation and executive coach practice.

Emer Byrne

Researcher, Amsterdam

Emer joined Oxford HR in 2018, having completed an MA in European Interdisciplinary Studies at the College of Europe in Warsaw. She has a BA in French from the University of Southampton and is now based in Amsterdam.

Lisanne Schut

Researcher and Project Manager, Oxford

Since joining Oxford HR in 2018 Lisanne has worked on senior-level roles within, but not limited to, justice and security, conflict resolution, conservation, housing development and agribusiness across 4 continents. A Dutch/Swedish national she has visited 36 countries, and speaks English, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch and is currently learning French.

Previously Lisanne worked within the Security Sector in Stockholm, as Team Leader in a monitoring Centre. She has an MSc in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development.

Erica Turley

Researcher, Amsterdam

Erica joined Oxford HR in 2019. She holds an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law, a certification in International Criminal Law and a B.A. in International Relations and Modern Languages. Erica is driven by a commitment to human rights, and has worked extensively with refugees and victims of conflict from all over the world. Erica has lived and worked in Europe, North America, South America and the Middle East, and is passionate about foreign languages.

Claudia Cordova

Project Administrator, Amsterdam

Claudia joined Oxford HR in 2018. She holds a BA in Philosophy and completed a thesis in Critical Theory focused on the characteristics of the advanced industrial societies and its main consequences for human development. She worked for more than five years at her university in Peru in different positions and has experience as a teacher in multiple philosophy subjects.

Claudia has volunteered with the Peruvian Ombudsman in the anti-corruption office. Her main areas of interest are Politics in Latin America, Education and Human development. She hopes to complete a master’s degree in the future.

Collins Muhadia

Project Administrator, Amsterdam

Collins is a Project Administrator, based in Amsterdam. His background is in soil, water and environmental engineering. He holds an MSc in Environmental Science, with specialization in Environmental Science and Technology from IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. Collins’ MSc thesis evaluated human health risks due to water contamination by livestock in semi-arid systems in Kenya. He is passionate about globally-important water and environmental issues that influence humans, directly or indirectly, such as waste management, climate change and water supply. Collins prefers adopting an interdisciplinary approach to solving environmental and societal problems and is ardent to develop his professional expertise in a broad range of disciplines.