FINALISTS 2021
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#E F DA I LY MEMBERS
P R O J EC T D E S C R I P T I O N
Sonja Jost Esteban Pino Kaisa Schreck
What does UGC content look like in 2021 and how can we harness its power? #EFDaily is a hybrid content-social initiative that allows us to engage with all students to create relevant, highly engaging content and reach huge audiences organically and continuously using hugely popular platforms like Tiktok and Instagram. We will issue weekly challenges under this new hashtag to encourage students to share their EF journeys and day-to-day lives in a natural and fun way. We aim to collect, organize and categorize a library of usergenerated video content at scale with a new tool as well as a committed Community Engagement Specialist. This will enable us to effectively reach students and share this content across markets and channels, creating maximum impact at minimum cost. Not only will this build a new sense of community for students on the biggest and most popular social channels today, but it will foster this internally too, creating a direct line of communication with schools and offices, infusing the brand, both inside and out, with new life and energy.
SONJA JOST is our talented Senior Copywriter and Content Manager, based in the Creative Studio in Zurich. It should come as no surprise that writing is her greatest passion - and that finding new ways to tell compelling, impactful stories is what she loves to do at EF. She’s inspired by Laura Schurter, the founder of Green Lane, a groundbreaking clean beauty business and does a mean Borat impression in case anyone asks!
ESTEBAN PINO started his EF career in Mexico and in 2019 joined the central marketing team in Zurich as a Digital Marketing Manager, with a focus on digital marketing strategy, innovation, and local campaigns. When not at the office, you’ll find Esteban scuba diving. In addition to the ocean, Esteban finds inspiration in the work of Bill Gates, especially his philanthropy and personal generosity.
KAISA SCHRECK DANIELSSON Kaisa Schreck Danielsson joined EF in 2011 when social media was new and the team as fresh as rain, later moving on to digital marketing and content and copy, where she’s led the charge as a Director of Content & Copy since 2019. Her greatest passion outside of work is music — in her own words, “blasting it, dancing to it with my kids, and singing and performing whenever I get the chance.” Her secret talent is speaking Finnish, because an impossibly complicated language spoken by less than five million people counts as a bit of a secret talent, right?
P Q B O O S T E R 10 X MEMBERS
P R O J EC T D E S C R I P T I O N
Verena Schmidt Alexandra Lumma Kevin Kloss
The PQ Booster 10X will maximize sales by reinventing our current price quotation (PQ) tool. We in sales are facing a problem: Our customers are interested in our programs and prices but don’t convert enough to PQ requests. Too much data needs to be given on the current form in an uninspirational way. In addition, if you do not know where you want to go abroad the current PQ form doesn’t help you and you end up not filling it out and leaving the website. With the power of our PQ Booster 10X we’ll find the customers perfect and personalized language trip by using this inspirational generator. It appears like a fun quiz to the customer with the outcome of their dream trip and destination whilst giving us all information needed to create a price quotation. The reinvention of the PQ tool is more customer centric and inspirational than what we currently know. We strongly believe that our vision of the PQ Booster 10X – The Dream Destination Generator will get all markets to convert more opportunities into bookings due to tailor made offers and more knowledge of our customers even before talking to them!
VERENA SCHMIDT, as the Senior Online Marketing Manager and Assistant Head of EF Marketing, has a finger in most pies when it comes to promoting International Language Campuses in Germany. Outside of work, Verena loves to cook and bake and share her passion for tasty food. Her favorite entrepeneur may not be a household name, but should come as no surprise: Nancy Johnson, who was awarded the first US patent for a hand-cranked ice cream freezer in 1843. A true female pioneer!
ALEXANDRA LUMMA has guided the German ILSY team — and before that the LT team — as the Country Product Manager since 2018. It’s no surprise that her greatest passion is helping our students create memorable experiences abroad, but most don’t know that she also is also a passionte gardener. Her proudest achievement on that front? Growing tasty tomatoes in her own vegetable patch!
KEVIN KLOSS joined EF in 2015 as Ambassador and temporary staff member before becoming a Sales Coordinator in 2018. Today he is the Country Product Manager for APP in Germany. Kevin is inspired by Warren Buffett “because of his mode of thinking and his discipline. When he invests in a company, he is there for the long run. Daily volatility does not bother him.” Oh, to be as steady as Warren and Kevin...
FEST MEMBERS
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Kristina Cirrincione Lauren Albero Danielle Furfaro Andrea Arakaki
With language improvement, increasing NPS & partnership building at its core, FEST is a global experience in which students independently practice authentic & exciting language with a pragmatic & fun approach. FEST programming & activities feature innovative & unique target language categorized by its function rather than its content; with fresh topics like learning to speak more diplomatically, denying a lie, haggling for a better price or even inviting someone on a date, FEST language learning is enjoyably more tangible and thus alluring to our students, both current and prospective. Our unique blended learning platform is integrated into Campus Learning, on which students may independently practice concepts that are later applied practically in full-school events which occur on the same date worldwide each quarter. FEST themes are: Food, Entertainment, Society & Technology. Each term, all language campuses will focus on one of the above themes by engaging students to practice relevant functions and meet in small groups supervised by teachers and staff members. The objective is for students & staff to collaborate to host an open-to-the-public event celebrating local specialties & subcultures. Community members ranging from partner schools to vendors are invited on campus to sponsor and interact with students. This low-cost and easily-implemented approach to curriculum is expertly designed to enhance communicative, student-centered and blended learning, all while improving retention, satisfaction & connections with amusement & funbecause life is a celebration!
KRISTINA CIRRINCIONE is our forward-thinking Curriculum Manager at EF New York and has been with EF since 2010. Her secret talent is making pasta from scratch and she looks up to the culinary legend, Julia Child. “She built an empire on love-the love of food, the love of culture... She wrote, cooked, travelled & more and lived nearly 92 years with passion, talent and celebration; one could only hope for such a gift.”
LAUREN ALBERO joined EF in 2018 and currently works as an Activity Leader at EF New York. Lauren’s secret talet, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a very “active” one: She can do a one leg squat and a head stand! She’s inspired by Barbara Corcoran: “She wanted to be her own boss and worked super hard her whole life and paved the way for so many other entrepreneurs!”
Being the Campus Manager for EF New York means constantly facing new challenges and having exciting new encounters. In other words, it requires DANIELLE FURFARO to stay on her toes at all times. Danielle is also extremely passionate about nature and the outdoors and she believes that any problem can be solved by walking/running a trail or going on a nice, long hike.
ANDREA ARAKAKI started her EF career in Brazil and in 2019 moved to the US to the EF New York campus. Today she is the Senior Director of Operations for EF New York and EF Boston. Anyone who’s ever met Andea will agree that she is a small bundle of energy and enthusiam. When asked about her greatest passion her answer is without a doubt her twins: “They teach me something new every day.”
EF EPL MEMBERS
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Elias Deceuster Hugo Honore Hugo Lullier Erwin Decharneux
We will create an international competition between schools on English proficiency and develop an application that will be like a Ranking contador! First, students from each school must take the EF Set. They will have to enter their results in the EPL app to feed the Ranking. In addition, the app will ask the student some questions about the level of English they want to reach, and personal questions as well. With these answers, the application will be able to submit a project of where and how long the student should travel with EF to reach his goal. At the end of the competition, the top 5 schools will receive this Label which will allow them to stand out from other schools and be more attractive. Win-win situation! Thanks to the EPL, we expect to bring a maximum of leads and opportunities to the different markets to convert them into bookings but also it is a way to enter some schools and universities.
ELIAS DE CEUSTER joined EF Belgium this year as a Sales Coordinator. He has jumped in head first, joining the EF Entrepreneurial Summit — and making it to the grand final! Like most of us, Elias loves traveling and discovering other cultures, something that comes in handy also in his role at EF. During last year’s lockdown, Elias passed his international captain’s license.
HUGO HONORÉ joined EF Belgium as a Sales Coordinator in Brussels in 2020. When he is not busy introducing students to inspiring EF schools, his biggest passion is music. His secret talent is cooking and an entrepreneur that inspire him the most is Philip Knight, the founder of Nike.
HUGO LULLIER has been with EF since 2018 and is a proud member of the high-achieving Belgian sales team. Hugo’s passionate about music and considers his cooking skills a bit of a secret talent. He’s inspired by Sean Parker, one of the cofounders of Napster and the first president of Facebook.
ERWIN DECHARNEUX joined EF in 2019 and is currently the ILS Country Product Manager. Erwin loves discovering new countries and cultures and has made it his mission to add at least one new country to his list every year. In addition to travel, he’s rather fond of mixology and can whip up an amazing cocktail in no time (just ask!).
MY JOURNEY MEMBERS
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Ewelina Lacey Jon Oakes Emma Walton Thomas Westerman
My Journey: Becoming Travel Fluent. A digital journal housed on our new EF Learning Campus platform. This is designed to enable our students to capture not only linguistic but also experiential moments of their EF Journey from start to finish. These are not necessarily iconic Instagram moments but those from the everyday to the personally extraordinary. The medium will be text, photo, video and recordings and the students will have the autonomy to decide who they will share some/all/none of these moments with. This could be family members, friends, other students, a school class or cohort and EF Staff. This digital diary will create a personalised account of the experience, allowing for a goldmine of student generated testimonials for EF to use in marketing and sales. This initiative also will provide the means to capture relevant parts of their experience to be converted into visual additions to a future CV or college/university applications. Our students will be able to fashion a personalized “memory box” to have and to hold and to share: Live it, capture it, share it, cherish it.
EWELINA LACY joined EF in 2017 and is currently a Director of Operations in the UK. A passionate, the glass always half full kind of person, Ewelina also shows an uncanny attention to detail. Always giving it her all, she now faces her newest role as a first-time mom!
An academic at heart, JON OAKES brings joy, passion as well as a certain steady sense of calm to his role as Director of Academic Management for the UK and Ireland. Jon is inspired by Sir Alan Sugar “because of his humble beginnings and not letting failures stop him on his quest.”
EMMA WALTON — a legend to many within EF and beyond — has proven her versatility of academic and operational roles over the years. Passionate and knowledgeable, she shares this in her many trainings and visits to offices and schools in her current role as Director of Academic Affairs. Outside of work, Emma is passionate about music and you might not know this, but she speaks fluent Hungarian!
THOMAS WESTERMAN is our Student Services Coordinator at EF London. He is loved equally by students and staff for his dedication and presence in the school, throwing himself into his role with unparalleled enthusiasm. Thomas is inspired by Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the outdoor apparel company Patagonia. Chouinard has not only put a focus on workplace welfare, but he has emphasized the importance of environmentalism from a business standpoint from day one.
E F L I V E B O OT H
MEMBERS
P R O J EC T D E S C R I P T I O N
Tibet Montano Paulina Pacheco
In order to amplify our greatest asset: the student experience, we aim to place a physical booth in all our schools. This will be a place that students can and will access at all times and share their most memorable moments. In a nutshell, it’s a place where students who already blog, post, tik-tok dance and journal their whole lives with be able to post this via a camera, computer and software interface directly to our social media accounts back in their home countries. The challenge we face is having firsthand accounts of what its like to be at an EF school, what it represents to have an experience abroad and live on your own learning and understanding a new culture. By weaving the live booth experience into our student journey collecting their first impressions on arrival, their thoughts after an awesome activity or their most cherished memories on graduation we will have captured vital information to relate back home. Our sales coordinators will have referral-quality testimonials on hand everyday directly from the source, no better way to book.
TIBET MONTANO joined EF in 2017 and in 2020 he became the Country Product Manager for ILSY in Chile. Tibet believes knowledge is the key to everything: solving world problems, self-realization and onnecting with others. His personal goal is to read at least one book per month. When he is not selling language courses — or reading books, of course — he enjoys playing the drums.
PAULINA PACHECO SILVA is a top-selling Sales Coordinators in Chile where she has worked since 2019. She is passionate about leading and inspiring teams to do more and achieve their goals. Paulina admires Oprah Winfrey for her unparalleled communication skills and incredible business empire.
T H E G RA N D TO U R O F I TA LY MEMBERS
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Monica Uwaifo Flavia Di Gangi Federico Mari Cristina Pinti
The Grand Tour of Italy is a new EF competitive product for customers who want to travel across the country and learn as much language as possible in a short time! Starting from Italy and inspired by The Grand Tour, with EF‘s unbeatable experience, both in academic, travel and student’s satisfaction, we can easily bring to market a unique product that is much more than a classic cultural trip. Our goal is to turn every experience and activity into the opportunity to learn and practice the Italian language “learning by doing”! A 7-day EF language trip with its own brochure to be replicated later in each relevant country will expand our business! A great opportunity for our company to fill a gap in a market where thousands of people cannot spend weeks in our EF schools and want to experience more than just visiting a country. They finally have an amazing opportunity from EF to go local and open their minds with a new language and cultural experience. In just one week!
MONICA UWAIFO secret talent “is the gift of being a very optimistic person.” And she has the power to transmit this energy to people around her as well. Monica puts her talent to great use in Rome, where she guides and supports EF students in her capacity as an Accommodation Manager. Monica’s greatest passion apart from travelling is playing sports, which she says gives her the chance to be and give 100% of herself both mentally and physically.
The person who inspires FLAVIA DI GANGI the most is not famous — it is her grandmother. In Flavias words: “She was an elementary school teacher, she loved her work and she did it in a difficult time for a woman who wanted to have a career in a small town in southern Italy. She reminds me of how important our mission to “open the world through education” really is. Flavia carries on that tradition and passion for edutcation in her job as an Activity Manager at EF Rome. FEDERICO MARI joined the school team in Rome in 2014 . He is passionate about building a supportive community with both students and staff at the school and this helps him excel as a Director of Studies. He also loves nature, music and culture — and sharing all this with others, of course.
CRISTINA PINTI joined EF in 2011 and has guided and nurtured our beautiful Rome school to the great success it is today. Her secret talent — to be able to really visualize her goals — helps her be enthusiastic, react quickly and excell at problem-solving, all handy skills for a School Director. Cristina finds inspiration in a variety of people and things, but the person who has inspired her the most has been her mother. Her strong sense of right and wrong continues to guide Cristina to this day.
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