My name is Lea Kuusilehto-Awale.I have worked for the Institute of Educational Leadership full time since 2007, first as a researcher, later also as Programme Director in the Master’s Degree Programme in Educational Leadership. I have been involved with the Institute since 2002 when it launched the first PhD programme in Educational Leadership and I was accepted to study in it. In around 2005 I was invited to plan the curriculum of the future Master’s Degree Programme and later participate in the selection process of the first cohort of students to the campus programme, which was launched in 2007.

Before the above mentioned stage, my professional background was in language teaching, then in principalship and training principals, and in NGO work as a manager of an activity and recreation centre for the elderly, being simultaneously the president of the founding association. I have also served as a municipal council member in municipal politics and as a church council member. In addition, I used to serve as a board member of several cultural associations. My objective in voluntary and NGO work has been to enhance the civil society being accessible to everyone, so that every community member would feel having a voice and being safe in our welfare society.

Another dimension in my professional and personal life is internationalization that ranges from networks of family and colleagues abroad to principalship in an international IB Diploma School to my work for the Institute, where besides the Master’s Degree Programme my responsibilities involve representing the Institute abroad in various functions arranged on the topic of educational reform and improvement of outcomes.