Fulbright Leaders for Global Schools Program Speakers 2022

Tapio Lahtero (Ph.D., Adjunct Professor) has been making his career both in the education departments of municipalities and at the universities. He graduated as a primary teacher at the University of Turku in 1993 and made his doctoral theses at the University of Jyväskylä in 2011 with the topic “Leadership culture at schools”. eMBA exam in Leadership in the public management he finished in 2015 at the University of Tampere. 

Tapio Lahtero has worked for over twenty years as a principal, as a regional principal and as the head of the comprehensive schools in the education department in City Vantaa. Since 2015 he is the Administrative Principal of both Teacher Training Schools of the University of Helsinki – Viikki Teacher Training School and Helsinki Normallyceum. 

Tapio Lahtero has been educating principals and leaders of education departments of municipalities at the Universities of Jyväskylä and Turku. Currently he works as the leader of the principal training program in the university of Helsinki. He has published several research articles about leadership culture, strategic leadership and pedagogical leadership.

Marja Martikainen has made her career in the teacher education at the University of Helsinki. She studied at the University of Helsinki, graduated as a German and Swedish teacher. She has been working as a language teacher, university lecturer, researcher and developer of the Subject Teacher training. At the University of Helsinki she has also taken part in the quality assurance process, research projects in language education and assessment, curriculum processes and several international projects in teacher education. Currently she is part of the Leadership team at the University of Helsinki's distinguish Teacher Training schools and active principal of the Secondary School.

Beside her university career she has been working as a textbook author, as an external evaluator in international mobility programmes, as an expert in language education for the National Agency for Education and as an in-service teacher and principal educator.

Another remarkable international work experience for her was to lead the work of a local team to create the new national core curriculum for German and other languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2004. Since 2015 she has been cooperating with Beijing Normal University affiliated schools in China.

In 2008 Marja Martikainen was rewarded by the FIPLV (Fédération internationale des professeurs de langues vivantes) with the International Award Certificate of Honour.

Ms. Kristina Kaihari is Counsellor of Education at the Finnish National Agency for Education. She is Head of the National Curriculum section for History and Social Studies/Economics subjects including Citizenship Education in Basic and Upper Secondary Education and has been involved in the Future Competences development process during the recent curriculum reform. Kristina Kaihari is, in addition, the representative of Finland at the Council of Europe Education Policy Advisers Network (EPAN) and was the coordinator of Finland in the previous Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) -project of the CoE. She has also worked as an analyst at the OECD/Education in Paris. 

Work experience

City of Espoo

• Director of Education and Cultural Services, 1 Feb 2019–
• Deputy Director of Education and Cultural Services, 10 Dec 2018–31 Jan 2019
• Principal, Etelä-Tapiolan lukio upper secondary school, 2001–2018
• Deputy Director of Education at the Finnish Education unit, 1 Sep 2014–31 Aug 2015
• Censor, Matriculation Examination Board, 2001–
• Full-time teacher of History and Social Studies, Etelä-Tapiolan lukio upper secondary school, 1996–2000
• Full-time teacher of History and Social Studies, Karakallion yläkoulu secondary school, 1988–1996 

Anne-Marie Rapo is currently working as the Principal of an international, comprehensive English-language school in Finland. Earlier in her career, she worked as a teacher, an education planner and mentor teacher. She is a popular presenter on Finnish education. Ms Rapo holds a Master of Arts degree in modern languages from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Mr. Petri Lehikoinen was appointed Counsellor of Education and Head of Unit to the Finnish National Agency for Education in March 2018. He has been executive leader of the national core curriculum revision process of general upper secondary education since then. Before that he served over 20 years as headmaster at two Finnish general upper secondary schools – one of them also offering International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme education. During his leadership career he has worked as an educator of school leaders in 15 long lasting leader training programmes. He holds a Bachelor degree in History and Social Sciences (teacher specialization) from the University of Eastern Finland. He also holds two Specialist Vocational Qualifications: one in Product Development and another in Leadership.

Principal, CEO Ms Tiina Immonen has been in Mercuria Business College for over 30 years. She has worked as a vocational teacher, student counsellor, vice principal and since 2011 as Principal. Ms Immonen is an enthusiast of young people, and she has achieved creating a genuine working culture of care, appreciation and trust. She has been working actively to increase the appreciation for vocational education. Ms Immonen has been a trailblazer for the ideas of competence-based evaluation and that of personalisation. She was awarded as The Leader of Vocational Education of 2018.

Vice principal Mr Markus Oedewald is currently in charge of developing pedagogy of young students in different learning environments (school, eKampus, work). His work consists mainly on management and leadership including strategy planning, pedagogical and curriculum management, supervising development managers and student counsellors, and co-operation with companies and other stake holders. As he has extensive experience and education in International Business Cultures and Tourism Business his area of responsibility includes many international and domestic projects.

Salme Sulander started her teaching career as a foreign language teacher, but has already 25 years of experience as a principal. She has worked at all levels of education, from elementary to adult education. She has a passion for international cooperation and has a lot of experience of organizing both student and teacher exchange projects with schools abroad, for example, in England, Germany, Chile and Australia. 

Eeva Lumiaro is Head of the Friisilä primary school in Espoo, Finland. Eeva is the special education teacher of Friisilä school. She has a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Helsinki. She works also as a pedagogical expert of multicultural teaching and the preparatory teaching in Espoo city. Her international career includes work as a special education teachers’ mentor for the Abu Dhabi Education Council.

Master's degree on Education, and special teacher's degree from University of Helsinki.
Worked as a principal or in school administration since 1996 in primary schools, secondary school and vocational education, both mainstream and special schools. 
International career includes teacher training in Kosovo, Pristina University and mentoring school administration and teachers in Montenegro about multiprofessional work and inclusion.
Degree, and experience about counselling working communities, mainly schools. Degree and experience also working as a mediator with interaction problems in schools.

I have worked in the educational field for about 20 years already. At first as a Swedish and English teacher and later on as a principal and vice principal. I am eager to develop our school and the educational field so that social cohesion is reached more widely. In my free time a like to spend time with my family and friends. I also like to travel a lot. I have a masters degree in English and Scandinavian languages and I have also studied pedagogy and pedagogical leadership for many years. 
 

I have graduated as a mathematician and I have worked as a teacher of mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science over 20 years. I have also worked in administration in education field and last 9 years as a principal. 2016 I was elected as a director to Hiukkavaara community centre, where I also work as a principal in Hiukkavaara school. My expertise are co-operative methods in management and shared leadership, I am a mentor in peer mentoring and Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming. I train headmasters and teachers in Finland.

MA in Finnish Language and Literature
Teaching in Finnish state schools over 30 years. Since 2002 in Oulu International School MYP coordinator and deputy head of the school. Acting principal at Oulu International school 2013-2015. Involved in curriculum development work in 1994, 2004, and 2016. Member of National Board of Education curriculum team in 2016 for CLIL schools and Oulu city education department curriculum team. Board Member of AFIB (Association of Finnish IB schools) 2009-2011. Chair person of the Finnish Association for Bilingual schools in Finland 2015-. Lead the IB MYP implementation at OIS starting 2002 and coordinated the Student Welfare Team work of OIS since 2004. Has lectured and led workshops at STEPS (Sharing tools for English public schools in Finland) seminars and abroad in IB conference and training Ukrainian teachers in Donetsk about ICT in classroom. Planned, established and started a comprehensive school in Liminka municipality 2018. Principal of the school since 2018 to present. School has a pre-school students and primary years students. School is specialized on bilingual education, flexible pre-primary and primary years education, and extended special education.