Karin Hei­secke 

Karin Hei­secke is the Dir­ect­or of the MaL­isa Found­a­tion since its cre­ation in 2016 by Ger­man act­or and pro­du­cer Maria Furtwän­gler and her daugh­ter, musi­cian Elisa­beth Furtwän­gler. Acknow­ledging the power of rep­res­ent­a­tion, the MaL­isa Found­a­tion is ded­ic­ated to lever­aging media as part of the solu­tion towards a just and equit­able soci­ety that cel­eb­rates its diversity. The found­a­tion forges part­ner­ships with the industry, edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions and policy makers to sup­port data col­lec­tion and the imple­ment­a­tion of evid­ence-based meas­ures to address ste­reo­types and to pro­mote diversity in the Ger­man TV and film industry. 

With an aca­dem­ic back­ground in social sci­ences, Karin is an expert on gender issues with more than two dec­ades of exper­i­ence in this field. She has worked in dif­fer­ent European coun­tries as policy and stra­tegic com­mu­nic­a­tions advisor, train­er, research­er, and pro­ject man­ager with inter­na­tion­al organ­isa­tions as well as nation­al level organ­isa­tions and ini­ti­at­ives. She is a found­ing mem­ber of the Brus­sels Women’s Film Fest­iv­al (Elles Tournent – Dames Draaien) and has ini­ti­ated, man­aged and advised numer­ous fem­in­ist cam­paigns and ini­ti­at­ives across Europe, work­ing with film makers, journ­al­ists, musi­cians and oth­er artists.