Simone Filippini is a former top diplomat. Among others she served as the Head of the Gender and Women Rights department in the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Consul-General for the Southeastern US and Ambassador to Macedonia. She was awarded the MFA Diversity Award in 2010. In 2013 she left the diplomatic service to become the CEO of one the largest Dutch humanitarian and development organizations, Cordaid. Between Oct. 2017 and Oct this year she was the interim ED of NIMD, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy. She now works with the Ambition Group and recently established the Leadership4SDGs Foundation with the aim to promote and support increased quality of governments. Simone has undertaken quite some voluntary functions, among which International Secretary of Dutch political party Democrats 66 and President of the International School in Skopje.