Stephanie is an HR and Change Management Specialist, having spent the last 17 years implementing organizational re-alignments, HR process reforms, HR service portfolios and regional and global advisory roles. Specifically, coaching and guiding senior management and teams through difficult transitions, change programmes and restructuring. Her experience covers the entire range of human resources management: recruitment; job evaluation; compensation, benefits and entitlements, performance management training, organizational design, development and administration of personnel policies and procedures; HR business process improvements, new business development, HR project management and consulting services.
Stephanie started her career at the UN as a Junior Professional Officer competitively selected and sponsored by the German Government and went on to work across the humanitarian and development sector supporting HQ, field and emergency operations. She has been the acting Chief of HR Services for UNFPA, established UNOPS global HR Integrated and Practice Advice and Support services, advising and guiding over 50 HR personnel responsible for 5470 personnel across 18 organizational units in 145 countries. She set up HR service portfolios that cover thousands of personnel in support of UNHCR, The Millennium Promise Alliance, Inc, UN-Habitat, ILO, WHO, UNFPA, managing 30+ projects with 1,500 employees in 24 countries in support of partners. For UNFPA, she expanded the work of the Junior Professional Officer Programme, increased surge rosters and developed fast-track procedures to deploy personnel to Yemen, Syria, Ukraine etc. As part of the transition team, she provided substantive HR advice and oversaw the implementation of recruitment and staffing in the HQ relocation from New York to Copenhagen. She has worked as a Regional HR Advisor and HR Strategic Partner for Asia and Pacific as well as Latin America and the Caribbean and raised millions of dollars from donors for additional resources for HR services for the organizations she worked for. In 2011 Stephanie was awarded the Executive Director’s Award for “outstanding contributions that have placed UNOPS at the forefront of excellence in Human Resources”.
Stephanie holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management (Culture and Change Management) and a BA in Business Studies (International Business) from the University of Westminster in London. She is a Trained Mediator from MWI based in Boston, USA and is certified in Belbin Team Coaching and the Team Diagnostic Survey (TDS). She has studied negotiation, mediation and alternative dispute resolution through Harvard Programme on Negotiation and has a strong interest in organizational development (attended classes at MIT) and organizational politics, as well as strategy consulting. Stephanie is a global citizen, with Vietnamese parents, she is national of Germany, grew up in the Philippines, studied in England and France, is bilingual in German and English. She studied eight languages and currently resides in Nepal with her husband and two toddlers.
