The Office supports the Board of Directors by independently delivering agreed management tasks. It plays a critical role in organising the IE coordinators and in coordinating the annual planning and quarterly reporting of the management. The Office Team takes care of the members and deals with all administration processes.
Members of the Office Team are:
- Office Manager: Inesa Sulaj (Albania)
- Membership Care Manager: Vít Březina (Czech Republic)
- Accounting Manager: Lucija Gudlin (Germany)
- Design Officer: Daniela Ruçi (Albania)
- Webinar Officer: Heidi de Maine (Switzerland)
Inesa Sulaj (Albania)
Office Manager
I work closely with the director, manage the office team and different operations. I will gladly answer all your questions and send you news and announcements.
Inesa Sulaj holds a bachelor’s degree in archeology and management of cultural heritage from the University of Tirana and a master’s degree in urban designing and landscape from Polis University, Albania.
Inesa has been working for more than eight years in both public and private sectors in Albania, the Balkans and the United Kingdom. She began her career in the Ministry of Culture in Albania, working for the Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology. She has worked for USAID and USA embassy projects in the tourism and the cultural heritage field, and as a consultant for different projects in Albania.
She was offered a job at the National Gallery of Arts where she worked as a museum educator until she continued her second master’s at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, in museum studies. During her time in the UK, Inesa worked as an educator at Attenborough Arts Centre a socially and civically engaged public art gallery based at the University of Leicester producing visual arts, live performances, learning, community and research programmes. She also worked at the King Richard III Visitor Center, another significant location not only for the city of Leicester city but for his former kingdom as a whole. Inesa is a co-founder of MuZEH Lab, a community centre and museum-based approach based in Durres, Albania (www.muzehlab.org). Inesa works as a consultant in different projects for organizations such as Cultural Heritage without Borders, the Institute of Education, Heritage and Tourism etc.
Since 2019, Inesa has been part of IE’s team, firstly as deputy manager. In 2020, she was promoted and is currently the office manager.
Vít Březina (Czech Republic)
Membership Care Manager
I’m here to assist you with any enquiries, requests and resolving any technical difficulties you may have regarding your membership status or the payment of your membership fee. I also work closely with the training department so if you attend any course or become certified, we might e-meet during the process.
I specialise in tourism management and have been involved in tourism since 2004 as a resort manager. I live in the Czech republic and am currently the chairman of a non-profit organisation in a delightful part of the country – the Beskydy mountains. Part of my work is to introduce the most beautiful and interesting places to tourists who visit the area.
I’m deeply involved in the improvement, development and sustainability of tourism in the surrounding areas.
I’m married with three children. In my free time I play the saxophone and I also enjoy skiing and hiking in the beautiful Beskydy mountains. I’m happy to offer my expertise to Interpret Europe and to being a part of IE’s team.
Lucija Gudlin (Germany)
Accounting Manager
In the IE Office I am responsible for all things concerning accounting and finances. So if you have a question regarding membership fees, payments, travel reimbursements, invoices or tax authorities, feel free to contact me.
I was born in Zagreb (Croatia) where I studied and graduated in art history and pedagogy. Since 2011, I have been living in Germany where I mastered in world heritage studies in Cottbus. I have a strong love of nature and the outdoors and enjoy hiking and travel. I also enjoy singing in a traditional Sorbic choir.
My first encounter with Interpret Europe was back in the halcyon days of 2014. Studying in Cottbus at the time, I happened upon an engaging tour guide belonging to the Slavic minority of Eastern Germany. She performed the tour in her traditional Sorbic garments (similar to the one I am wearing in my picture), and created a unique experience for us visitors.
Later that year I attended the Interpret Europe Conference in Primošten (Croatia). My presentation topic focused on the interpretative tour given by the afore-mentioned Slavic tour guide. I was immediately hooked on the atmosphere and the openness of the conference participants and I fell in love with the Interpret Europe community.
Toward the end of 2015, Thorsten Ludwig had three Christmas wishes, one of which was asking for someone to take over accounting tasks for the IE organisation. He sent out an email to our mailing group and since I had some background in the field, I offered to help out and I have been assisting ever since. Though my current position as a consultant for sociocultural centres in Brandenburg Germany is only indirectly related to cultural interpretation, I still really enjoy being a part of this engaging community.
Daniela Ruçi (Albania)
Design Officer
For me design is fun. It is an intermediary between information and understanding, and so I would be happy to help any of you, however little, to understand better the mission of Interpret Europe.
I am Daniela, mother, wife, daughter, sister, biologist, nature lover, friend, Certified Interpretation Guide, Climate Leader creative, women, aunt, citizen, Albanian, Mediterranean, European, citizen of the Earth, and … many other descriptions.
I was born in a city on the coast of the Adriatic Sea but I grew up near Lake Ohrid, one of the world’s heritage sites, carrying high natural and cultural values. In my childhood, I was attracted by the beauty and magic of nature, a reason for me to continue my studies in biology. For about 20 years I worked as an education expert for sustainable development. Education for sustainable development is a very broad area which guides people in several directions, such as the environment, the economy and social sciences.
Sustainable tourism and ecotourism have been a challenge in my work, showing how a place can be attractive to tourists by developing tourism packages based on heritage, nature and archaeology but also spiritual and cultural values, which are many in Albania, my country.
Throughout my work over the years, I have had the opportunity to work with experts in the field of tourism to prepare teaching materials for tourist guides and for tourism vocational high schools, which has enabled me to know much more about the profession and the importance of a tourist guide in promoting a country and also in creating a citizen who travels and visits different places seeking to become a better person.
In 2018, I registered as a member of IE without knowing that I was entering a ‘path’, that would lead me to a colorful landscape. It was a week full of emotions in September 2020, in the middle of the global pandemic, when I participated in the first IE CIG course in Albania. The ‘path’ on which I had taken only a few steps, enabled me to stand in front of the magic of nature and revealed to me the whole spectrum of colors that are portrayed in our Albanian, Balkan, European and overall world heritage.
Although I was a newcomer in this group of people, full of passion and values, and I have physically met only three or four of them, I feel as though I have been with them for a long time. So, it is an honour for me to offer some help to the IE Office in fulfilling its mission for a better world and to ensure our children inherit this culture, as pure as possible, in all the sense that the word purity carries.
Heidi De Maine (Switzerland)
Webinar Officer
As a member of the IE Office team, I organise and host the monthly heritage interpretation webinars. If you have an interesting topic that you would like to present, please contact me, otherwise, see you online!
Heidi de Maine is an experienced consultant who specializes in creating immersive, innovative, and memorable experiences for free-choice learning centres such as zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens and museums. She started her career in the public aquarium industry where she learnt first-hand about the needs of the animals, the staff working with them and the visitors. Her experiences with visitors, and her creativity and passion for teaching, led her to exhibit design and signage with a master’s degree in interpretation. She now uses stories to allow visitors to take a journey through an experience that involves them and helps them to make their own meanings as well as to form a connection with the local heritage.
Heidi is a member of Interpret Europe, the National Association for Interpretation (NAI), the International Zoo Educators Association (IZEA) and the Visitor Studies and Interpretation group of South Africa (VISSA).