She started her career as a banker in the corporate private sector, at ING in The Netherlands (a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation), and has over 16 years of international development work experience with overseas residence in Kenya, Ethiopia, Thailand, Nepal, Cameroon and Lithuania; she worked directly in over 30 countries. Diana worked for UNDP’s Public Private Partnership Program in Asia and the Pacific as Regional Specialist (and Global Manager officer-in-charge) where she gained vast (government) policy expertise, supported policy design and reform, designed programs with various donors and bilateral organisations. She provided advice and technical backstopping to 20+ UNDP Country Offices in the areas of Capacity Development and Public Private Partnerships with particular emphasis on integrated multi-sectoral approaches to sustainable development that build on tripartite partnerships and dialogue mechanisms involving public sector, private sector, and civil society, including communities, for the delivery of sustainable services reaching the poor. She led UNDP country programs on environmental sustainability in integrated waste management and on urban development and engaged strongly with trade and business partners. As a member of a global UNDP team, under the Bureau of Development Policy and Knowledge, Innovation and Capacity Development Group she participated in global (Sustainable Development, Rio+20) taskforces and wrote a paper that was submitted to the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development called “Collaborative Capacities as a pathway to Capacity Development for Sustainable Development”.
