Staff

 

Sami Faltas is the Director of CESS. Originally from Egypt, he grew up in the Netherlands and worked in Germany for several years before coming to CESS. Trained as a political scientist, he holds a doctorate in economics and published widely on international affairs, disarmament and security. At CESS, he is not only responsible for overall management, but also for developing training programmes and materials. For use in our simulation exercises, he invented the post-Soviet republic of Croania, somewhere south of Russia.
Contact: samifaltas@cess.org

 

Joke Venema is CESS's Business Manager and deals with the financial management of the organisation. Keeping the Centre's financial affairs in good order is a challenging task, because CESS operates without the benefit of core funding. 
Contact: jokevenema@cess.org

   

Merijn Hartog is a Programme Manager at CESS. In 2001 he graduated from the University of Groningen in Central and Eastern European Contemporary History. Then he worked at the Amsterdam-based International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation, gaining international project management experience. 

At CESS, Merijn was responsible for the multi-year Starlink training programmes on democratic governance in the security sector in seven countries in Eastern Europe, the South-Caucasus and Central Asia and for a Security Sector Reform (SSR) programme on the Balkans. He currently is the leading programme manager of a multi-year programme in Turkey, aimed at developing civilian capacity for good governance in the security sector.

He has published on defence reform in Bosnia-Herzegovina, democratic governance of the security sector in the former Soviet Union, Croatia's road to NATO membership and edited a book on needs and options for SSR in Central Asia. He composed a few training modules on "democratic governance of the security sector", "the fundamentals and principles of SSR" and "SSR in the framework of EU Enlargement".

   
Erik Sportel is a Programme Manager at CESS. In 2005 he graduated from two universities. His degree in International Relations is from Groningen University, and his second MA, in Conflict Studies and Human Rights, is from Utrecht. Both theses were on the Transdniestrian conflict in Moldova.  In 2004 he was an intern at CESS’s partner in Moldova, the Institute for Public Policy (IPP). Then he joined CESS for three months as a fellow, and in September 2006 he returned to become a full staff member. Erik is responsible for CESS's parliamentary programmes in Moldova, Georgia and Central Asia.
Contact: eriksportel@cess.org
 
   
Ritske Bloemendaal is an advisor for our Turkey programme. He worked for a shipping line based in Hong Kong before joining the Royal Netherlands Navy. After serving on various ships, he was posted to the Netherlands embassy in Washington DC, the Naval Staff in The Hague and finally the Dutch embassy in Ankara, where he served as defence attaché from 2000-2005. In this job, he cooperated closely with CESS during the early stages of our Turkey programme. After retiring in 2005 as a navy captain, he joined CESS. He is not only our Turkey specialist, but also our liaison with the Dutch government in The Hague.
Contact: ritskebloemendaal@cess.org