(c) Rueda Studio
Verena Benedict-Orlicek
Cooperations
Verena is responsible for the management of partner cooperations and fundraising. Verena makes sure that the Vienna Master provides equal opportunities regarding access to higher education.
Verena has a law degree from the University of Vienna, studied at the Faculty of Commerce at the University of New South Wales and lived many years in Rome and Portugal.
She was co-founder of the non-governmental refugee organisation at the Vienna airport in 1989. With her legal expertise and field experience in refugee and human rights law, she continued her work at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Vienna, at Amnesty International and in several specialised law firms.
The legal and social issues of female unemployment became an additional field of expertise when Verena worked with Sozial Global AG, where she developed and managed a socio-economic enterprise.
Verena was a member of the Executive Board of the American International School in Vienna from 2014-2018 where she discovered her passion for the interdisciplinary approach in school and university education. With her communications and collaborations skills as well as her diversified professional life, Verena has long lived experience in promoting the intersection of various academic fields.