Brussels, 15 November 2025

New board members elected for the 2025–2028 mandate

The ECSWE council voted for the new board during the online annual general meeting on 10 May 2025. Three members were re-elected and were joined by three new board members.

The three re-electees kept their roles

Mar­gare­ta van Raem­don­ck from Bel­gium renewed her man­date as the pres­i­dent of the board, con­tin­u­ing her respon­si­bil­i­ty of rep­re­sent­ing the organ­i­sa­tion. The vice-pres­i­dent, Wil­fried Bia­lik from Ger­many, also kept his role of keep­ing in mind the full scope of the work, stay­ing in touch with part­ners, and advo­cat­ing for our con­cerns. Pedro Miguel from Por­tu­gal renewed his man­date as the trea­sur­er, tak­ing a lead­ing role in finan­cial analy­sis and plan­ning. Togeth­er with the man­ag­ing direc­tor, he makes informed deci­sions about the bud­get and is respon­si­ble for the finan­cial aspects of the organisation.

Three capable and experienced new members were elected

The coun­cil elect­ed Andrea Soós from Hun­gary, Hilde Lengali from Nor­way, and Kath Brans­by from the Unit­ed King­dom as the new board mem­bers. Lat­er in 2025, Andrea sad­ly had to resign due to health issues, and the board miss­es her val­ued input. Hilde took on the role of sec­re­tary of the board and, with her exper­tise in organ­i­sa­tion­al mat­ters, will be able to advise on the oper­a­tional work car­ried out by the team. Kath brings insight into cur­ricu­lum, knowl­edge of the aca­d­e­m­ic world, and expe­ri­ence in lead­ing Wal­dorf UK through chal­leng­ing times. Welcome!

Thank you to the board members whose mandates finished

Two board mem­bers’ man­dates fin­ished in May 2025: Pia Pale from Fin­land, and Iztok Kordiš from Slove­nia. Pia had served the organ­i­sa­tion as board sec­re­tary since 2019. Her colour­ful approach to this task has left a last­ing impact on ECSWE, and her exper­tise remains avail­able to the board through her role as the Finnish rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the coun­cil. Iztok joined ECSWE as the Sloven­ian rep­re­sen­ta­tive in 2003, and served on the board from 2013. His long expe­ri­ence helped keep the organisation’s his­to­ry and her­itage rel­e­vant, which made his per­spec­tives on the issues dis­cussed by the board valuable.

Further reading