Amber de Been

YEP period 2022 - 2024, batch 26

YEP Role

As Key Account Manager West Africa, my main role is to strengthen solar business partnerships of Spark in West Africa. This includes the operational, business innovation and admin work. In the long term, my goal will be to increase the efficacy of Spark and their distributors in realising the goal of universal access to sustainable energy.

Spark delivers smart and simple solar energy solutions that are owned and operated by the people who need them most. While Spark works behind the scenes to build the energy network of the future, they empower emerging markets to take control of their energy needs with systems that are smartly distributed, viable and sustainable.

Skills

• Project management
• Stakeholder management
• Business development
• Process optimisation
• Economic policy
• Languages: Dutch, English, Spanish, andFrench

Background

• Nationality: Dutch
• Education:
  • MSc International Economics, Erasmus School of Economics.
  • BSc Economics and Business Economics, Erasmus School of Economics.

Experience before YEP

• Consultant Business Operations – Deloitte (09/2020 – 06/2022)
  • Worked on technology-driven business process transformations, with a focus on analysing and designing operational processes.
• Reporter and Editor - The West Wing (10/2020 – 06/2021)
  • Worked on policy advice on how Dutch trade policy can be better aligned with the SDGs, as part of the youth think tank of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Project Officer Humanitarian Assistance – Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Amman, Jordan (09/2019 – 02/2020)
  • Responsible for humanitarian assistance, social protection, mental health and psychosocial support. Co-responsible for an EUR 80 million partnership between the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The World Bank, IFC, ILO, UNHCR and UNICEF in Jordan.
• Student Consultant - AEclipse International Research Project (03/2019 – 05/2019)
  • Research on the impact of Venezuelan refugees on the Peruvian labour market, in cooperation with the Inter-American Development Bank.
• Working student Business Operations – Deloitte (09/2018 – 02/2019)
• Volunteer - Nour Project (AIESEC) (07/2018 – 08/2018)
  • Six weeks of voluntary work at 26 Letters, an NGO in Beirut, Lebanon. Teaching English and mathematics to Syrian refugees.
• Intern – Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Buenos Aires, Argentina (03/2017 – 08/2017)
  • Full-time internship at the Economic and Commercial Department.
• Student Consultant - EFR Involve Research Project (03/2015 – 08/2015)
  • Research project for IFAW Netherlands that looked at the human-wildlife conflict in the Amboseli region, Kenya.