SIM Alumni

Vanessa Buvens

Senior Consultant, MzN International

Vanessa is a firm believer in the power of contagious optimism and idealism to drive change and dream big. Her passion for understanding change and global challenges has led her to work at the UN in New York, with a grassroots community-based organisation in rural Uganda, and a private investment company raising capital to deliver large-scale infrastructure projects in West Africa.

After working in the Child Rights space for almost 10 years, raising funds and managing a portfolio of inclusion and justice programmes for children and young people for various NGOs, she has recently moved to social consultancy MzN International, providing funding strategy and change management advice to social impact organisations and non-profit.

She is interested in Future Thinking, Organisational Development and trends in philanthropy, and how these interact to help create the world we want to see. Vanessa is an avid reader, but when not with her nose in a book, she can also be found hunting down gigs and exhibitions. She loves meeting and learning from new people from different backgrounds; she is a fluent speaker of French, English, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese.