The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we are joined by Francis Hughes, from Dublin who is an Emergency Response Manager with the Norwegian Refugee Council Surge Team. Francis started his career as a nurse in Dublin before moving to London where he studied Tropical Nursing. Francis then did a Masters's in International Humanitarian Action as part of the NOHA network. Francis worked in South Sudan, Iraq, DR Congo, Indonesia, Yemen, Sudan, and Iran and his role was to deliver first-line/lifesaving assistance to newly displaced populations in crisis including Food Security, Non-Food Distribution Items, Shelter, Water, and Sanitation (Latrines, Water Treatment Pumps), setting up Camp Management and Protection (including Child Protection and Emergency Cash Assistance)

His job involves preparing conflict and crisis mapping, stocking warehouses, and negotiating access with armed groups and national authorities to access hard-to-reach and newly accessible areas where displacement occurs within 48hrs.

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.

The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we’re talking with Paul Turner. Paul serves the Fund for Peace (FFP) as the President and Executive Director. Previously, he was Chief of Party overseeing a $95M USAID mechanism on Governance and Stabilization in the Middle East and North Africa. Over his 25 year career across the national security paradigm, Mr. Turner has worked on more than 90 conflict affected countries and deployed to 45 countries as a diplomat, activist, academic, researcher, and peacebuilder. During his career, he helped launch the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations, the interagency Civilian Response Corps, and the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s International Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism Capacity-Building Clearinghouse Mechanism. In addition, he has worked across the programming cycle and led research to frame the USAID Middle East Bureau’s approach to Positive Youth Development in Conflict Contexts, designed conflict, governance, environmental security, and atrocity assessment tools, and promoted vertical and horizontal integration to advance the inclusion of local voices. Mr. Turner is also a founding member of the Multi-Disciplinary Expert Resource Group on Rehabilitation and Reintegration and serves on the board of directors of Re-imagining New Communities in Kenya, and the Peace-Led Climate Friendly Sustainable Development Forum.

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.

The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we’re talking with Casey Johnson. Casey is a humanitarian access and security analyst at US Indo-Pacific Command's Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CFE-DM) where he leads engagement on Taiwan.

Casey arrives at the Center from the Department of State's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations where he led global research on countering violent extremism and supported stabilization programming. Prior to stints in DC with State and USAID, he lived and worked in Afghanistan for eight years with the United States Institute of Peace and other local organizations, conducting research on the Taliban and advising the U.S. military on stabilization efforts.

Casey is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media, and Seattle University. His research and photography has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, and Foreign Policy.

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.

The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we’re talking with James Shepherd-Barron. James is an independent Disaster Risk Management Consultant specialising in Disaster Epidemiology and Humanitarian Financial Assistance. He is also a Founder and CEO of Aid Essentials and The Aid Workers Union, as well as Adjunct Professor at Fordham University's Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs, New York. Author of Absolute Disasters.

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.

The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we’re talking with Gerard Gomez. Since January 2022, with more than 33 years of experience with international NGO and the United Nations, Gerard is an independent consultant in Humanitarian affairs, coordination, Management, Training, and everything related to preparedness, response and nexus in Natural disasters and Conflict. From July to December 2021he was Deputy head of the OCHA Mali office. From September 2020 to June 2021 he was OCHA head of the Pacific Office in Fiji, and from September 2019 to August 2020, he was Deputy Chief of Mission of IOM COLOMBIA. Additionally to the traditional work of IOM Gerard has been also co-Leading with UNHCR the national platform on mixed migration (GIFMM for its acronym in Spanish) coordinating 60 partners to respond to the massive migrations of millions of Venezuelans.

Also, Gerard was Head of the OCHA Colombia office from 2012 to August 2019, in charge of the coordination of 11 UN agencies, 20 international NGOs and other stakeholders to respond adequately and in complementary of the government efforts to the need of the most vulnerable people. From 2004 to 2012, he was head of the OCHA regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean. In charge of preparedness and response in more than 25 countries of the region. UN team Leader in more than 30 emergencies in the region including the Haiti earthquake response in 2010.

Earlier, Gerard worked with Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) for 13 years (1989 -2002), in places where armed conflicts and natural disasters prevailed (El Salvador, Mozambique, Southern Sudan, Chechenia, Haiti, Georgia, Armenia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia).

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.

The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we’re talking with Tigist Girma. Tigist is a professional with more than 17 years of humanitarian diplomacy, complex-emergency/humanitarian aid/displacement response and development management portfolio seeking a position at coordination and technical advisory role. Excellent at networking and coordination, she has worked in places at both ends of the security spectrum. Tigist lived in, studied at and visited more than 50 countries.

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.

The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we’re talking with Rafael Velasquez. Rafael is a Senior Director with extensive experience developing and leading large-scale, complex humanitarian and development program portfolios.

• Violence Prevention and Social Cohesion Expertise: Direct oversight of violence prevention and peacebuilding portfolios in Mexico, Guatemala, Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Jordan, Lebanon funded by USAID, DOS, UNPBF, FCDO, among others.
• Country Director/Head of Mission in Nigeria, Guatemala, Mexico, Lebanon, Colombia, and Venezuela
• Peacebuilding visiting lecturer at the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica.

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.

The Career Guide Podcast is a behind-the-scenes conversation with professionals who have managed to develop long-term careers overseas with organizations like the United Nations, EU, NATO, and OSCE. The goal of this interview series is not to provide technical details and advice already covered in this course but to hear from career professionals about the experiences, challenges, and life as an international professional.

Today we’re talking with Laurent De Ruyt. Laurent is a humanitarian aid worker who has spent the last 12 years living abroad. He is currently employed as a country director by the international NGO Concern Worldwide in Chad, and from 2017 to 2019 he was Head of Mission for an international NGO based in Pyongyang, DPRK. Before this, Laurent worked from 2011 to 2016 for the Belgian Red Cross, first as a delegate in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then as a Country Representative in Burundi. In 2010, he was employed as a Diplomatic Attache for the Permanent Mission of Belgium to the United Nations in New York. And in 2009, he worked as a Project Assistant for the National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C.

Laurent's book "Lifting Another Curtain: My Life in North Korea" was published in 2021. This book is the account of the two years he spent living as a humanitarian aid worker in Pyongyang, from 2017 to 2019. It attempts to be an honest and objective account of how everyday life is for a foreigner, the debates and situations you are confronted with, the joys and pains you go through.

https://www.amazon.com/Lifting-Another-Curtain-North-Korea-ebook/dp/B09CMPL37B

Are you ready to launch your international career? Join The Career Guide Community today, at https://careerguide.capacitybuildingint.com.