Alumni Country Presidents

Liisi Org

Estonia

Liisi is currently the Startup Ecosystem Development Manager at Startup Estonia, a goverment initiative aimed to supercharge the Estonian startup ecosystem in order to be the birthplace of many more startup success stories to come. 

After returning from BAFF she worked in an Estonian startup called Scoro, where she managed customer success. She created strategies and processes and ensured positive customer experience by proactively managing and growing customer relationships. She also was one of the head organizers of Startup Week Tallinn, which is a startup community festival and consisted of 62 events in 35+ locations for 2500 attendees with a team of 7 people. 

Liisi spent her BAFF year in New York, where she had the opportunity to work for two different edtech startups. Firstly in Fluent City, where she took the role as a Private Lessons Coordinator and her main tasks included creating the process for running private language lessons, managing and coordinating lessons in 10 languages, 4 cities with 300 teaches and over 500 students. After that experience, she took a role at StartEd – an edtech accelerator/incubator in NYU. She considers organizing and managing all the accelerator events (in total 80+ in 5 months) and managing 300 speakers at the NY Edtech Week (one of the biggest education technology festivals on East coast) her greatest accomplishments. 

Before the BAFF internship, Liisi worked and studied mainly in the education field. She has a Batchelor’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Project Management and Master’s degree in Educational Management, both from the University of Tartu. She has over eight years of experience in project and events management. 

Kristina Belikova

Lithuania

Kristina currently holds a position of a Project Manager at “Create Lithuania” – the first and the only program for professional development and the applicability of best foreign practices to Lithuania. She is managing a project on strengthening the resilience of Lithuanian diaspora to disinformation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, which aims at suggesting innovative tools and solutions in the area, based on an in-depth analysis of the current situation and the best practices worldwide.

Kristina is also a part-time communication adviser at the European Union Department of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She provides recommendations on how to communicate about the European Union to young people and is responsible for developing a framework for teaching about the EU at school.

Kristina spent her BAFF year at Freedom House, working in both of its offices – in NYC and in Washington DC. In NYC Kristina worked for Freedom House’s program “Nations in Transit”, which monitors democracy developments in formerly communist countries from Central Europe to Central Asia. Her duties included research, editing and managing program’s social media accounts. In Washington DC Kristina worked for Freedom House’s Eurasia Program, which supports human rights and democracy advocates in their efforts to promote open government, defend human rights, strengthen civil society and facilitate the free flow of information and ideas in Eurasia region. Her duties included working with partners on the ground, writing articles and assisting in the implementation of the projects in the region primarily focusing on Moldova and Russia. Kristina has also provided occasional help on research and published articles at Freedom House’s blog.

Prior to joining BAFF Kristina has built a strong professional portfolio ranging from work as a Brussels correspondent for international media to crafting communication for UN representation at the EU. Kristina has previously worked and interned at such organizations as public relations’ company Burson Marsteller, European Journalism Center and the United Nations’ WHO Representation at the EU.

Kristina has graduated from Vilnius University with a Journalism Bachelor. She spent a part of her Bachelor studies at the Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Kristina also holds a Master of Science degree in Communications and New Media from a Free University of Brussels and a Master of European Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of Europe. She has been awarded a prestigious European Neighborhood policy grant for her studies and research at the College of Europe.

Katheriin Liibert

Estonia

Katheriin Liibert holds the role of Product Owner at Fleep, the leading messenger for work. At Fleep, Katheriin is responsible for Fleep for Business, the paid version of the messenger. Prior to the current Product Owner role, Katheriin led Fleep’s marketing.

Katheriin is also the co-founder of #muhoov, a lifestyle clothing brand that lets people show off where they’re from. #muhoov is currently available in Estonia and Latvia, and expanding more soon.

Katheriin served as the second Estonian President of the BAFF Alumni Association, from Nov 2015- Nov 2017. During these years, she built the BAFF Alumni community with Alumni Stories events, and hosted the Thanksgiving Dinner of 2016 in Tallinn, Estonia.

Prior to Fleep and #muhoov, Katheriin did a BAFF professional internship at The Creative Coast, Inc, in Savannah, GA. Katheriin worked as a Program Manager on The Creative Coast’s programs targeted at tech companies and early stage businesses. The main focus was on re-inventing the innovation conference Geekend (geek-end.com) to welcome 350+ attendees and 40+ speakers from across the USA. During her year in Savannah, GA, Katheriin also gave a talk at TEDxCreativeCoast.

Before the BAFF internship, Katheriin worked with several European universities in project management roles. Katheriin holds an BSocSci Social Anthropology degree from the University of Manchester. During her university studies, she served as the Social Officer, and later as the President of the Estonian Society.

Kamile Gimbutaite

Lithuania

Currently Kamile is a Senior Analyst – Strategic Capital Intelligence at Nasdaq. She consults listed global corporates on their Investor relations program, investor targeting and financial communication.

During the BAFF Professional Internship Program in 2012 – 2013 Kamile worked as a Hedge fund analyst with Lloyds Banking Group in NYC. She assisted in hedge fund due diligence and manager selection, handled hedge fund portfolios’ performance analysis and reporting and wrote monthly market reviews.

Kamile’s professional experience includes an Investment analyst position with MC Wealth Management, a Lithuanian investment boutique, where her duties included both research and analysis of investment solutions and vehicles as well as business development.
Kamile graduated BSc in Economics, major in Finance, from Vilnius University and MSc in Corporate and Financial Management from Lund University in Sweden.

In the period 2013 – 2016 Kamile was an active member of Global Shapers Vilnius, a World Economic Forum’s youth network focused on developing the leadership potential towards serving the society and undertaking local projects to improve the communities.
Kamile also was a BAFF Alumni president in Lithuania during the 2015 – 2017 term. Among the most memorable moments she recalls the year 2017 when Lithuania got to organize the two most important BAFF community events – Sports Camp and Thanksgiving dinner, bringing many challenges and a lot of fun.

Maarit Cimolonskas

Estonia

Maarit Cimolonskas is the Program Manager at VUNK where she drives innovation at Telia Estonia. It supports Telia’s goal of becoming the next generation telco through organizing open innovation programmes, improving collaboration with startups, and boosting internal entrepreneurship through various activities.

She has held various positions in communication, marketing, social media, and business coaching. At her latest role at Bigbank, she managed the global employee experience through digital initiatives, implemented LEAN and 4 Disciplines of Execution methodologies, encouraged employees to use design thinking and improved the bank’s employer brand in general. Additionally to private sector and startups, she has worked in public, non-governmental, and also inter-governmental sectors.

From 2012-2013, she spent a year at the institutional advancement & marketing team of the United Way of New York City, building a city of possibility. Her biggest effort went to supporting the local United Ways with social strategies after the hurricane Sandy destructed many homes on the East Coast.

Maarit is a committed volunteer and is currently involved with the self-evolving community-wide Opinion Festival in Estonia, to provide an open platform for alert and active people who can discuss issues and relevant topics in society. Maarit holds a Master’s degree in Communication from Tallinn University and a Bachelor’s degree from Tartu University in Romanistics. She considers herself a global citizen, having lived in Estonia, France, Georgia & USA.

From 2013-2015, as the first BAFF alumni president in Estonia she helped to launch the alumni platform, and was the driving force behind the annual #baffcamp.