Ilona Taimela is the founder and CEO of Helsinki Education Consulting Group. She is a sought-after speaker, lecturer and facilitator of educational transformation. She is an educational consultant for municipalities, educational organisations and businesses in Finland and internationally. Her expertise is on developing pedagogy into more holistic and phenomenon-based learning, in engaging more student voice and towards a more sustainable future. She was brought up in East-Africa and moved to Finland for university where she received her Masters Degree in Educational Science. During her 30 years career she has worked as a teacher of ethics, civics and history in local Finnish schools and in 2 different IBO world schools. She has been on school boards, school leadership teams. She lead a team of city-wide expert teachers in Phenomenon Based learning. Together with her team she was supporting the implementation of curriculum in schools (primary, secondary, high schools and vocational education). She has consulted other cities in Finland and lectured at different universities. She has represented all Finnish teachers on a national steering committee on Global Education and has been a representative by the government of Finland on National Ethnic Relations Advisory Board. Most recently she was an Education Consultant for the City of Helsinki consulting +100 schools and +300 daycares as well as vocational school and liberal arts education in school innovations and school development. She coordinated the benchmarking of innovation in schools. She has been the coordinator of the Helsinki Education Week in 2018 and 2019, a week-long festival of learning organised together with HundrED organisation. Ilona Taimela has been also a researcher of participation at the University of Helsinki and thus she has been in charge of the development of participatory actions in education, enhancing student voice. Now she is a researcher in a team looking at student agency in constructing utopia and alternative futures. She was the representative of educational department in Advisory board of the City of Helsinki on participation. She has also overseen the development of Agenda 2030 pedagogy and eco-pedagogy in the education department, in liaison with network of experts.