Karin Hei­secke 

Karin Hei­secke is a seni­or advisor in the field of diversity & media. She was the Dir­ect­or of the MaL­isa Found­a­tion from its cre­ation in 2016 through spring 2024. Acknow­ledging the power of rep­res­ent­a­tion, her work with the MaL­isa Found­a­tion was ded­ic­ated to lever­aging media as part of the solu­tion towards a just and equit­able soci­ety that cel­eb­rates its diversity. Her work involved for­ging 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 Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Film Fest­iv­al and a hon­or­ary mem­ber of WIFT Ger­many. She has ini­ti­ated, man­aged and advised numer­ous fem­in­ist cam­paigns and ini­ti­at­ives across Europe, work­ing with film makers, journ­al­ists, musi­cians and oth­er artists.