Senior Brandt Fellows

Senior Brandt Fellows are distinguished practitioners who enrich the School with their experience from leadership positions in public policy and their extensive professional networks. They contribute to the School’s program in various ways, such as guest lectures, adjunct teaching or mentoring students.
Find our more about the School's network here.

Shakuntala Banerjee
Shakuntala Banerjee
Senior Brandt Fellow
(Willy Brandt School of Public Policy)

Biography

Shakuntala Banerjee is currently the deputy head of the ZDF capital bureau and a presenter of the weekly political magazine ‘Berlin direkt’. The ZDF is a public-service television broadcaster and ‘Berlin direkt’ the most successful political magazine on German television. Ms. Banerjee started her career freelancing at the ZDF after her studies in Philosophy, German Philology, Indology, Political Science and Public Law. She was a reporter for the daily current affairs program ‘Drehscheibe Deutschland’ and worked as an assistant to the ZDF editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender and Peter Frey. In 2015 she was awarded the Heinrich Mörtl media prize for her report ‘Drug metropolis Frankfurt - The long road against addiction’ and became a ZDF-correspondent in Brussels. Since 2019 she is at the ZDF bureau in Berlin.

Picture © ZDF

Achim von Heynitz
Achim von Heynitz
Senior Brandt Fellow
(Willy Brandt School of Public Policy)

Biography

Achim von Heynitz is an International Organizations Consultant based in Berlin. His work is focused on public finance and budgeting, results-based management and strategy implementation, risk management, and organizational change. Before his consulting work, Mr. von Heynitz was Director of the Budget and Resource Management Department at the World Bank, and prior to that Director of EBRD’s Operations Department Front Office. These assignments followed his role as policy advisor in various think tanks, including the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), and the RAND Corporation. Mr. von Heynitz has been teaching classes for 12 years at the University of Geneva’s IOMBA program on Results- and Resource Management for Non-profit organizations. He has graduated in Economics from the University of Munich and from the Harvard Business School Executive Program.

Carmen Niethammer
Carmen Niethammer
Senior Brandt Fellow
(Willy Brandt School of Public Policy)

Biography

Carmen Niethammer has a B.A. in Economics and International Studies from the American University and a M.A. in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Her career with the United Nations, the World Bank and IFC includes long-term assignments in Brazil, Egypt, Sri Lanka, the United States, and Yemen. Carmen currently is the Senior Gender Specialist at the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg where she helps EIB promote gender equality throughout their investment portfolio.