Our Deputy Representative

Michaela is excited to join the UNICEF Viet Nam team as the new Deputy Representative Programmes starting from 1 July 2024. 

From July 2022 to June 2024 Michaela led the UNICEF Refugee Response in Slovakia -  as part of the Ukraine Humanitarian Action for Children - working closely with government, municipalities, civil society and UN partners to ensure that Ukrainian refugee children and families in Slovakia can access vital services. In 2021/2022 Michaela worked as the UNICEF Deputy Representative in Ukraine – coordinating development and humanitarian programmes - including after the full-scale escalation of the war in February 2022. 

From 2018-2021 Michaela served as UNICEF Deputy Representative in Montenegro. Prior to that she managed partnerships with the European Union for the UNICEF Regional Office in Europe & Central Asia in Brussels. Michaela joined UNICEF in 2013.

Michaela has over twenty years of experience in coordination and management of development and humanitarian programmes, public and private sector partnerships and policy advocacy with UN, regional organizations and government agencies.  She holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics and a Master’s in Political Sciences from Ludwigs-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.

Michaela, a national of Germany, will be joined in Viet Nam by her husband, their two adolescent sons and a beautiful black labrador. She loves cycling, hiking and has a passion for the outdoors. She looks forward to living in beautiful Viet Nam, which she last discovered by bicycle in 2005.