Petra Gippert has lived in Paris and Montreal for over ten years. As a trained IT businesswoman, she was a project manager for the development of life insurance systems and head of programming training. Back in Germany, she taught French at the Brandenburg School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Most recently, she worked as an executive assistant at a Catholic social association. Since January 2019, Petra Gippert has been working at the Mercator Institute in the administration. Here she is responsible for the organisation of the office, the administrative processing of third-party funded projects as well as the commercial and administrative support of the management. In addition, her activities cover all organisational processes in the Institute (including their digitalisation), including personnel and financial controlling, and in particular also the guidance and coordination of the IT support staff.