Beyond Abroad Team
Get to know the faces behind Beyond Abroad! Altogether, we are a multinational team of around 15 people with vast experience and skills in international relations, international networking, sales, marketing, content creation, administration and customer service. Besides the above mentioned, all our team members are former exchange students themselves.
MANAGEMENT
HARRI SUOMINEN
MANAGING DIRECTOR, CO-FOUNDER – harri[at]beyondabroad.org
Passionate entrepreneur in education since 2007, big ice hockey fan and inspirational speaker. Feels privileged to make his living with businesses that make a difference. Grateful for being able to help people find their goals and live their dreams.
Harri studied abroad in Athens, Greece and in Shanghai, China.
TUOMAS KAUPPINEN
DIRECTOR, CO-FOUNDER tuomas[at]beyondabroad.org
Sharp-minded and big-brained Finnish Hongkongian with ambitious goals. Refuses to give-up and encourages everyone around him to reach to excellent results while still cheering the spirit up. Midwifes are gossiping that the first word from his mouth was entrepreneurship, the second perseverance and the third optimization.
Tuomas studied abroad in Greensboro, USA and in Shanghai, China.
JOONAS SALO
SALES AND RELATIONSHIP MANAGER – Joonas[at]beyondabroad.org
Joonas can be described as the pitbull of the Tampere team. He has a burning desire to make things happen and will never give up – for him, every problem is an opportunity. A true problem solver who always keeps going even when others are ready to give in. As a manager, he always takes care of his team and his constant enthusiasm is genuinely infectious. In his free time, you can find Joonas brewing some craft beer, travelling the world or dragging his wife to a heavy metal concert.
HANNES BORGWARDT
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER & CHIEF REPRESENTATIVE ASIA - hannes[at]beyondabroad.org
High-spirited, growth-minded, and caring team player who focuses on upscaling our Business and creating dream teams. Hannes is an Asia Exchange Alumni, that fell in love with Asia during his studies and never returned home. Part of his job is to constantly upscale our business and to take care of business relations, mainly inside Asia. In his free time, you will find Hannes on the beach chasing the wave of his life. Hannes studied abroad in Rouen, France, Auckland, New Zealand and Bali, Indonesia.
ADMINISTRATION & STUDENT ADVISING
LINTANG
ADMISSION COORDINATOR - lintang[at]beyondabroad.org
Lintang can be described as the face behind our application processing team. He is from Java in Indonesia and started his journey with our team in 2020 when he supported our website team with various projects. Today, Lintang is a true professional that loves new challenges and learning something new every day. In his free time, you will find Lintang around friends while practicing his guitar and singing skills.
CA
invoicing specialist - ca[at]beyondabroad.org
Meet our invoicing expert from the Philippines. CA is a perfectionist and constantly having an eye on details. She is leading all invoicing matters at Asia Exchange and supporting our Management in daily matters. CA has a marketing and Human Resource background and is part of the team since 2019. In her free time, you will find CA strolling through downtown Manila, enjoying life to the fullest with family and friends.
GINO
INTERNATIONAL COORDINATOR – gino[at]beyondabroad.org
Gino is part of our talent hub in the Philippines and defines positiveness and happiness at work. He brings joy to the whole team on daily basis and always has an inspiring quote in mind. Gino is part of our administration team, being mostly involved in our customer service and admissions team. He always focuses on service excellence and is not satisfied before our students feel perfectly prepared for their time abroad with Asia Exchange. In his free time, Gino is all into photography and anything creative.
NADIRA
INTERNATIONAL COORDINATOR – nadira[at]beyondabroad.org
Nadira is our newest team member located in Bali, Indonesia. Nadira has a master’s degree in international Relations and has been in touch with Asia Exchange for years. Nadira is a world traveller and loves to work in international environments. As a result, she spent a lot of time overseas in the United States and Australia. At Asia Exchange, Nadira’s main roles are in customer service and admissions. In addition to that she is the main contact point for our students in Bali. In her free-time, Nadira is all into studying languages, dancing, and cooking.
lourdes
International Coordinator – LOURDES[AT]beyondabroad.ORG
Lourdes is the newest member of our team, and she is based in the Philippines as part of our Talent Hub. She earned her bachelor’s degree in administration and customer service from Bulacan State University in 2018 and has worked in these fields ever since. Lourdes is a true specialist in her domains, and she pushes the boundaries of service excellence in our day-to-day operations. Lourdes is active with our Destination Korea and the main contact point for our full degree students, in addition to her core position as an administration and customer service professional. Lourdes enjoys seeing the city, socializing with friends, and simply having a nice time in cinemas and restaurants in her spare time.
SALES & MARKETING
Michelle
Partnership SPECIALIST - michelle[at]beyondabroad.org
Michelle is our newest addition to the sales team and focuses on Germany. Michelle studied Tourism and spent her abroad Semester in Tampere. Before joining our team, Michelle worked in various sales and marketing departments of international companies. Michelle is a true expert in her fields, and her high-spiritedness is genuinely superb. Aside from her primary role as Partnership Specialist, Michelle is involved in our sales activities in the German-speaking market and supports our customer service team by guiding our German students. Michelle loves to cook and do various sports in her free time, such as fitness and ice swimming.
CHRISTOPHER
ENGAGEMENT SPECIALIST - info[at]beyondabroad.org
Christopher joined our team in January 2020 and quickly got involved with our sales team. Today he is leading our sales operations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. As a true sales expert, he makes himself always available for any inquiries, resulting in him being most of the time on the phone or in individual consultations with future Asia Exchange students. In his free time, you will find Christopher in the gym, surfing or exploring new exotic cultures. Christopher is an Asia Exchange Alumni and studied abroad in Phuket, Thailand.
Nele
CONTENT MARKETING SPECIALIST - nele[at]beyondabroad.org
Nele recently joined our marketing team. Nele has a strong background in content creation and social media marketing and on top of that, she was one of our students in the past. Throughout her life-changing experience with us, she gathered valuable knowledge that makes her a true study abroad expert. Nele focuses mostly on our social media content and is always eager to share the most interesting stories, interview our students and show you how amazing studying abroad can be.
PAUL
ENGAGEMENT SPECIALIST - paul[at]beyondabroad.org
Paul joined our team in 2021 to support our sales team in our French-speaking market. Paul has a Master’s degree in Business from Rennes School of Business in France. During his studies, he went abroad twice, spending a semester in Canada in 2015 and Finland in 2017. Paul knows what it needs to make abroad studies a true success. His experience and team player skills make him an excellent team player for our French partnerships, in which he supports both institutions and individual students. In his free time, Paul is a huge football fan, likes to ride his bike, go to the gym, go fishing, or watch movies. It all depends on the weather and time of the year.
Cindy
ENGAGEMENT SPECIALIST - cindy[at]beyondabroad.org
Cindy is one of our Partnerships Specialists. She excels at creating great synergies between the sending institutions in Germany as well as in America, and with us. Cindy’s passion for cultural exchanges has always been a driving force in her life. You can tell by her career path that she has a burning desire to make studying abroad possible for everyone! Cindy has an academic background in East & Southeast Asian Studies, has worked in student exchange organizations, and previously engaged in a study abroad program with us back in 2017. Therefore, it is no surprise that she is a sucker for the Asian region, primarily its food, but also its (especially Japan’s) pop culture.
OUR STORY
CREATING LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCES FOR STUDENTS WORLDWIDE
Beyond Abroad was established in 2020 in Finland by Harri Suominen and Tuomas Kauppinen, founders of Asia Exchange and Edunation. Both of them studied abroad in Asia in the mid-2000s, and the experience left a deep impression on both of them – so deep that they wanted to help others do the same.
After establishing several businesses in the education sector focussing on Asia and sending more than 10 000 students abroad, they decided to leave their comfort zone and to expand their operations to a global scale. Beyond Abroad was born.
Today, Beyond Abroad offers the chance to study abroad in Europe, Asia, North America and South America.
Throughout their journey and due to a remarkably simple and fast application procedure, we helped young people from all over the world to study abroad and enjoy life-changing experiences.
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THE BEST OPTION FOR STUDYING ABROAD IN A DREAM DESTINATION
Many students are interested in studying abroad, but not everyone can find a right option through their home institution. Others are simply are simply unlucky and miss the early application deadline and tight placement quotas. Normally, a student would need to wait for the next intake to get another chance.
But first, they would have to find a suitable university abroad, contact the university, find out about courses offerings, and then finally apply. The whole process can end up with countless of hours of work, dozens of emails sent back and forth and piles of documents to fill out.
Moreover, the student would also need to take care of travel arrangements, such as finding accommodation and applying for a student visa. What is worse, there’s still no certainty that it will all work out for the best.
Beyond Abroad takes a different approach: We offer easy and affordable ways to study abroad in the destination of your dreams. We act as an intermediary between our students, their home institutions, and their future host universities. We guide them through the application process, communicate with the foreign university and make sure that they have a convenient and worry-free experience.
We provide all the information needed, help with course selections, travel arrangements and generally make the most out of the semester abroad. We are proud to have the best customer service in the industry that is obsessed with our students, helping and taking care of them at any time of the day.
But we do more than that, we take as much as possible off the shoulders of any involved institution as well.
WIDE RANGE OF COURSES IN ENGLISH FROM 65+ FIELDS
All the courses and programs offered on our website are part of the official curriculum of our partner universities. The courses consist of lectures, workshops, visits to local businesses as well as charity organizations that we sponsor. Students from all backgrounds can apply with Beyond Abroad. While not every student may be able to find courses perfectly matching their study fields, there’s still the possibility to take interesting elective courses or minors to complement your major.
MORE THAN 10 000 STUDENTS FROM OVER 900 UNIVERSITIES AND OVER 100 COUNTRIES
Since 2007, a lot has happened. New destination countries, new universities, and new programs have joined the portfolio of Asia Exchange and Beyond Abroad. We are proud to send roughly 1000 students abroad each year. It is in our DNA that studying abroad is one of the best decisions anyone can make. You will grow as a person and you will open countless doors and career opportunities later on. The experience of foreign cultures and international friendships brought about by studying abroad can help to create a more tolerant, harmonious world for everyone.
HERE’S WHAT SOME FORMER STUDENTS HAVE SAID
