Speakers

Eino Örnfeldt, Director General for the Swedish Council for Higher Education. Eino Örnfeldt began his tenure as Director General for the Swedish Council for Higher Education in May 2021. Mr. Örnfeldt has more than twenty years of experience as a manager of public operations and has worked in a number of administrative and policy areas, both at the national and international level. His most recent position was University Director at Stockholm University, a position he also held at the Swedish Defence University. From 2007 to 2014, Mr. Örnfeldt worked at the Ministry of Education and Research where he held various positions including Head of the Department for Higher Education and Head of the Department for International Affairs. From 2013 to 2014, he was chairman of the organising committee for the establishment of Stockholm University of the Arts. Mr. Örnfeldt also held management positions at the Swedish Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence. Mr. Örnfeldt has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Uppsala University and has also completed studies at IFL at the Stockholm School of Economics, the Swedish Defence University and the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

Mikaela Zelmerlööw, Director of education at The Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket), Sweden.
Mikaela has worked in the field of career guidance for many years. She started as a practitioner in school and then in different roles at national level. For instance, with an overall responsibility for guidance-related issues. In this regard, she was responsible for a government mission to strengthen guidance in schools. Mikaela was also secretary of the state inquiry into strengthening school guidance.

Nina Ahlroos, Swedish Council for Higher Education, Sweden.
Nina Ahlroos has worked with guidance related issues throughout her professional life, starting as a career guidance counsellor at Stockholm University. Today she acts as coordinator of the Swedish Euroguidance centre, hosted by the Swedish Council for Higher Education. In this role, she works to develop an international dimension in guidance. On European level, Nina is part of the Euroguidance Network Steering Group and act as National Expert within Cedefop’s CareersNet. Nina is also national correspondent for IAEVG on behalf of the Swedish Association of Guidance Counsellors.

Erik Scheller, State Secretary, Ministry of Education and research.
Erik Scheller holds the position of State Secretary since 2022.
Areas of responsibility: upper secondary school, public education, study funding, education for adults, UNESCO. Education: Postgraduate studies in political science, Uppsala University, Master's Degree in Public Administration and Economic Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, Bachelor of Economics in Business Administration and National Economics, Stockholm School of Economics. Positions and assignments: State Secretary at the Ministry of Education and research, Chief of Staff at the Liberals' Parliament Office, Deputy head at the Liberals' coordination office in the Cabinet Committee, research assistant at the London School of Economics and Political Science, OECD Paris and the research institute Forskningsinstitutet Ratio Stockholm, political expert and research officer.

Lars Lööw is Deputy Director-General at Arbetsförmedlingen, the Swedish Public Employment Service. Before that he held the position as Director General at the Swedish ESF Council from December 2015 - August 2020. He has previous experience from working with disability issues and having a position as Disability Ombudsman.

Cynthia Harrison, Villalba, Cedefop, Greece.
Cynthia Harrison manages the lifelong guidance project at Cedefop and also coordinates CareersNet, Cedefop’s network of independent experts in lifelong guidance and career development. She works closely in a team with colleagues focused on bringing new evidence to support policy for individual learning and careers, including in the fields of career guidance, financing VET/adult learning and validation of non-formal and informal learning.

Caroline Söder, CEO Swedish Job Security Council -  Trygghetsfonden TSL, Sweden.
Caroline presently holds the position of CEO at the Swedish Job Security Council, Trygghetsfonden TSL. Throughout her career, she has worked with labour market issues, including competence and career development, and has held various executive roles in both the private and non-profit sectors.

Aline Jürges, the European Commission.
Aline Jürges has been working at the European Commission since 2001. She is currently working as Policy Officer in the ”Skills Agenda” Unit within DG Employment, which is devoted to co-ordinating the European Skills Agenda, working across the Commission to make sure its 12 flagship actions deliver on the ground. Aline has been focusing in the past years on policies to empower individuals to learn, notably on career guidance and more recently on validation. Her work on validation is closely linked to the Unit’s work of making people's skills and qualifications more easily understood across borders, notably through the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).

Per-Åke Rosvall, Professor, Umeå University, Sweden.
Rosvall is a researcher within the field of sociology of education. He has worked with focus on transitions and career guidance and counselling in projects such as ”Rural youth” and “Counselling to stay or leave”. He is a leader of the network Nordic Research Network on Transitions, Career and Guidance (NoRNet) and the PhD research school To find paths in a time of future challenges – Graduate school focused on career learning, career guidance and transitions (FindPath). 

Ilse Jensen, E-Guidance counsellor, eGuidance, The Danish Agency for IT and Learning, Denmark.
Education and working experience: Teacher, Full Diploma in Guidance Counselling 2010, ICT-summer course, University in Jyväskylä 2017, Master in Guidance counselling, Aarhus University 2020. Ilse Jensen has been working in eGuidance, the Danish Ministry of Children and Education 2013-2023, except for 1,5 years working as leader of the development in the National center of guidance, Greenland.

Margrete Haldorsen Nygaard, Senior advisor/Career guidance counselor, Department of career services in the Norwegian directorate for higher education and skills, Norway.
Margrete is one of the career guidance counsellors in the Norwegian eGuidance karriereveiledning.no, provided by the Norwegian directorate for higher education and skills . She has been working there from its launch in 2020.

Eirik Øvernes, Head of department, Department of career services in the Norwegian directorate for higher education and skills, Norway.
Eirik Øvernes is head of department of career services in the Norwegian directorate for higher education and skills. The department is responsible for the national digital career guidance service, Karriereveiledning.no. Eirik has led the department for three years, and just before the launch of karriereveiledning.no in September 2020. 

Karin Asplund, senoir advicer, The Career Guidance Centre, City of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Karin Asplund has a back ground as Career Guidance Counsellor and development manager. She had the possition as Head of unit at the Career Guidance Centre from 2014 until her retirement 2022.

Giulio Iannis, CEO at Pluriversum Italy. He is the coordinator of several international and national projects in the field of career guidance and career learning. He has a Phd in Education Science at University of Florence Italy.

Anna Nygård, Director of Education at the Swedich National Agency for Education, Sweden. Working in the field of guidance and validation.

 

Maiken Skarðenni, Career counsellor at the National Center for Career Guidance and Student Counselling, Faroe Islands. Works with guidance and validation.

 

Fjóla María Lárusdóttir, R&D at the Education and Training Service Centre (ETSC) in Iceland. Working in the field of validation and guidance for adults.

 

Tristram Hooley, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences / University of Derby, UK.
Professor Tristram Hooley is a leading international researcher and writer focusing on career and career guidance. His work explores the relationship between career, career guidance, technology and public policy and is informed by a commitment to social justice and sustainability. He has written 11 books and over a hundred articles and reports exploring this topic. He divides his time between the University of Derby in the UK and the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. He is a lover of all things Nordic and may occasionally be heard speaking in bad Norwegian. When he is not working he can mainly be found listing to Warren Zevon and trying to become a faster runner and a better guitarist. You can find out more about Tristram Hooley on his blog.

Jiri Branka, expert, Cedefop, Greece.
Jiri Branka is a Cedefop expert in the Department for VET and skills. He leads the agency’s Skills intelligence project and is also responsible for data quality and analysis in Cedefop’s work on using big data to understand skill needs in online job advertisements. Jiri also works on connecting of outcomes of various Cedefop’s projects in agency’s skills intelligence products and visualisations. His prior working experience includes an assessment of labour market outcomes of skill recognition systems for the ILO and during past 15 years he has been involved in many projects focusing on skills and labour market analysis across Europe.

Daniel Hailermariam, (MA), Career Counselor, Hailemariam Consulting, Sweden.
Daniel Hailemariam is originally from Ethiopia but have been living in Sweden since 1984. His training is in the field of Theology, Education, and Career counseling. After working for a church as a pastor and senior administrator Daniel shifted to the field of Education and worked for over 20 years as a career counselor at all school levels and as a university lecturer. Currently, he is self-employed and provide services such as career counseling, general counseling, lectures, and competence development seminars.

Abraham Bernharth, Senior Advisor, Swedish National Agency for Higher Vocational Education. Engineer graduated 1988 and have been working as an implementation and training consultant within computer aided design (CAD). Since 2002 working with development and government administration of Yrkeshogskolan, the Swedens education system for Higher Vocational Education. During 2023 representative in the ongoing government assignment which aim to develop a coherent data infrastructure for skills provision and career guidance.

Sara Dahl, Director of education at The Swedish National Agency for Education, Sweden.
Sara Dahl has her background in career guidance and school leadership. At present she is the Swedish National Agency for Education's representative in the ongoing government assignment which aim to develop a coherent data infrastructure for skills provision and career guidance. She also works in another government assignment to develop digital tools for career guidance, Utbildningsguiden.

Tonje F. Gravås, Senior Adviser in the Division for Career Guidance at theNorwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills, Norway.
Tonje Gravås has worked in in the field of career guidance for about 20 years. First as a practitioner at the Career Centre at the University of Oslo, and after that at systems level in the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills. She has been involved in many different projects related to developing a comprehensive lifelong guidance system in Norway. She was together with her colleauges in charge of developing the National Quality Framewor for Career Guidance in Norway. 

Pedro Moreno da Fonseca, Lifelong Learning Specialist, International Labour Organisation, ILO, Switzerland.
Pedro Moreno da Fonseca is a Lifelong Learning Specialist at ILO headquarters, in Geneva. He carries out research and provides support to ILO’s constituents in the development of national skills and lifelong learning systems, as well as career guidance systems. Prior to the ILO, he worked at Cedefop, the European Union agency for vocational education and training where he coordinated the agency’s work on career guidance and the expert network CareersNet. During his professional career he has undertaken research and cooperation in policy development in vocational training, education, skills anticipation, validation of skills, integration of migrants in the labour market as well as financing of training. He has also acted as policy advisor for employment policies and lectured on Educational Administration. He holds a Ba and a MA from the Lisbon School of Economics and Management and a PhD from the University of Porto.

Ulf Ögren, Bergby compulsory school, Sweden.
Ulf Ögren is a student counselor since 12 years and former teacher.

 

Charlotta Nordell, Bergby compulsory school,Sweden. Charlotta Nordell is a primary teacher in the field of motivation with 10 year experience from school/work interface and cooperation at Arbetsförmedlingen (National Employment Agency).

Bi Puranen, Secretary General World Values Survey Association (WVSA), Sweden and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm. She is Associate Professor in the History of Economics at the University of Stockholm and earlier professor of Future studies and Communication strategies at Sophia Antipolis, France. Her research focus on values, social norms and competence development. In her most recent years she has led projects on integration and competence development concerning non-European migrants in Sweden and Europe with a focus on communication strategies and common European values. She is also a partner in the EU-Horizon project TRUEDEM (Trust in European Democracies).

Moderators

Agnetha Kronqvist, Director of education at The Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket), Sweden.
Agnetha has worked in the field of career guidance for many years. She started as a practitioner in school, mainly in upper secondary school and for the last ten years at national level. As a Swedish coordinator within NVL (Nordic network for adult learning) she is dealing with both validation of prior learning and guidance matters in a Nordic context.

Paul Guest has worked in national and European developments in the fields of education and training for more than 30 years. Having been part of the team involved in establishing Euroguidance in the UK, Paul spent five years working in Brussels (2001-2006), helping to deliver the European Commission’s higher education and vocational training funding programmes. Paul continues to provide research, development and consultancy services to a broad range of clients, including Scottish Government and the European Commission and has a confirmed interest in learning and skills recognition. Paul regularly delivers input and moderation at a range of events in the fields of education, training, guidance and skills recognition, and works closely with Erasmus+ national agency and Euroguidance networks.