A Renaissance man on a mission to fight blindness – Björn Stenvers
Mr. Stenvers works as a CEO at the Eye Care Foundation while also working for the International Council of Museums, advising at UNESCO World Heritage and teaching at the Amsterdam University of the Arts and the Presidential program for Ministers of RANEPA in Russia. In this episode, we discuss how those seemingly distant roles are actually somehow related, and the skills he acquired during the years are being used to help the +200 million people with visual disabilities in developing countries.
About the guest:
Björn is CEO of the Eye Care Foundation. He combines this role with his many museum activities via the Manus Brinkman Fund (in honor of ICOM’s first Dutch Secretary General). Before he developed his museum activities as CEO at the ICOM Endowment Fund of the International Committee of Museums (ICOM/ UNESCO) Stenvers has been director of the Amsterdam Museums Foundation from 2013 up to 2017. He also set up several Museum Academies for museum staff trainings in Amsterdam, Rostov, Aruba, Altai, Ekaterinburg and the Russian Zoo Academy.
Björn Stenvers worked as director of marketing at the Amsterdam Public Libraries (2003-2007) and Amsterdam Heritage Museums (2008-2012). He was in the Cultural Leadership International program of the British Council 2010-2011. For 2012 and 2013, he coordinated the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Canal Ring together with Amsterdam Marketing. From 2013, he set up and worked on the development of the Amsterdam Museums (Foundation). He has several degrees in Marketing, Management, Art History and Communications.
Stenvers lectured in Rome at the prestigious Universita Roma Tre Post Doc program. Today he lectures in Amsterdam and in Moscow where he is the only foreign participant in the Presidential program for all Russian Ministers at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA/ MSSES).
Internationally he advices Ministries of Culture on working together for better returns.
He holds a number of board positions in Amsterdam: chair of the supervisory board of the People’s University of Amsterdam, chair of the Diamond Museum Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Light Festival. Abroad he is in the board of ICOM MPR, the Russian Art Museum and the Sarian Museum (Yerevan).
He is Trustee of the World Heritage Site of Brest Fortress (Belarus) and Honorary Trustee of the Altai Museums (Republic of Altai). He is official Advisor of the Rostov Kremlin Museum, the Moscow Zoo, the Komi Republic and the Erasmus House (Jakarta).
Leave a Reply