Tjark Egenhoff - Revolutions, Democracy, and the Courage to Be Yourself

In this episode, I sit down with Tjark Marten Egenhoff, a development and foreign policy leader whose life has been shaped by movement, service, and the search for belonging.

Tjark reflects on growing up across countries and cultures, from revolutionary Iran to Argentina during periods of political upheaval. He shares how those early experiences, together with a strong sense of justice instilled by his family, shaped the way he sees the world.

We talk about his path into politics, development, and international cooperation, and the optimism of a generation that came of age believing in European integration and a more connected world.

In the latter part of the conversation, Tjark reflects on leadership, identity, and belonging. He speaks candidly about coming out later in life, navigating different cultures and institutions, and why authenticity became central to the way he leads.

Recorded on 4 May 2026.

Connect with Tjark on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/tjark-marten-egenhoff-42579246/.

Instagram: @at.the.coalface

And don’t forget to subscribe to At the Coalface for new episodes every two weeks.

Help us produce more episodes by becoming a supporter. Your subscription will go towards paying our hosting and production costs. Supporters get the opportunity to join behind the scenes during recordings, updates about the podcast, and my deep gratitude!

Transcript

Philippe Rose

Welcome At The Coalface. I am Philippe Rose. This is a conversation among friends working in international affairs. We share stories about our life in the real world, beyond the headlines, and look for lessons learned that can inspire us. If you're enjoying this podcast, please help us out by clicking the follow button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or whichever way you're listening. Leave us a review and consider becoming a supporter by visiting atthecoalface.buzzsprout.com. And a shout out to our current supporters. Thank you for making this show possible. In this episode, I sit down with Tjark Egenhoff, a development and foreign policy leader whose life has been shaped by movement, service and the search for belonging. Tjark reflects on growing up across countries and cultures, from revolutionary Iran to Argentina during periods of political upheaval. He shares how those early experiences, together with a strong sense of justice instilled by his family, shaped the way he sees the world. We talk about his path into politics, development and international cooperation, and the optimism of a generation that came of age believing in European integration and a more connected world. In the latter part of our conversation, Tjark reflects on leadership, identity and belonging. He speaks candidly about coming out later in life, navigating different cultures and institutions and why authenticity became central to the way he leads.

Hi Tjark, thank you so much for agreeing to come on our podcast. It's been, we realized, probably 10 years since we last spoke de vive voix, as we say in French. So thank you so much. And I'm really excited about this conversation.

Tjark Egenhoff

Thank you, Philippe. It's great to see you. And as you said, it doesn't seem like a decade ago or something. So you look great anyway.

Philippe Rose

Yeah, we were saying just before we pressed the record button, how many world events had occurred actually in that last 10 years or so. I mentioned that doing a bit of research on you, I saw you giving interviews, wearing a COVID mask, and this podcast is a product of the COVID era as well. So it'll be interesting to revisit some of those foundational milestones of the last decade or so.

Tjark Egenhoff

Those are quite a few actually, right? Surprisingly, we're always taught at GMAT to expect the next unexpected turn of history and of events. But I think these last 10 years just topped it.

Philippe Rose

When I was doing my preparation, there are quite a number of media coverage where you appear in a very beautiful suit. You've always struck me in the media, but also in our GMAT events as being very polished and very thoughtful. and there's actually I never got to know you actually so I'm really glad that we have this excuse of a podcast to get to know each other a bit better and for me I'd love to find out a little bit more about you about what it was like growing up where did you grow up maybe that's a good place to start is like if you go back in time and reflect on your first memory as a kid what what comes back

Tjark Egenhoff

well um that's really far back um you know i i don't know how you and probably a lot of uh listeners and and uh friends that are listening in uh feel about this but life has been so full of events, so full of things to do to think about that, you know, I had no time acknowledging that I'm actually in my 50th first year on this earth. But going back would be going back to pre-revolutionary Iran, where I spent five and a half years. And the first memories are actually the scent of food, sitting down in the kitchen, smelling the sapsi, those greens that you always have as a side dish with Iranian food, and just sitting down and chatting with the maid and those that helped us in the household. And yes, and that stayed with me actually throughout these decades. Whenever I go back to my mom's house, the first thing we do is we cook together an Iranian dish.

Philippe Rose

And tell me more about how come you grew up in Iran. What's your connection to Iran? How did that happen?

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, nobody really asked me if I wanted to go, obviously. I went there as a baby. I was seven months old. And my parents, my dad was seconded to a school there, the German school in Tehran in 1975. And we then stayed there. Well, just up to the revolutionary events in Tehran, we were evacuated and but then decided to go back. So we got to know, I mean, I was very, very young, but we got to know Iran before and after the revolution. And Iran, I guess, is on everybody's minds nowadays. So, yes, it takes me back to my childhood every day.

Philippe Rose

And can you share a bit about what role that early life experience played and did it affect or shape your identity, your place in the world? Or tell us a little bit more about the role that I experienced playing.

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, for me, it was actually the normal life, right? My life was in Tehran, not somewhere in Germany, where I was probably supposed to grow up. And I think, you know, this connection to nature is something that really developed there in the first five years. I remember when that my mom told me when we got back to Germany and I was asking when when is the next time we go to the desert? And she just had to laugh. And my dad was kind of clueless of how to do that. But we would actually hop on our VW bus and tour for two months, tour through Afghanistan, through Kabul, through, oh, actually Bamiyan that is not there anymore, into Pakistan, into India with this little 50 horsepower VW. It looks and sounds very hippie-like. It probably was, but I think it was very, I mean, it was a lot of fun. And I think that shaped me, this really close relationship to my family being for months in a very restricted place on the one hand, like living together on this very, very limited space. And at the same time, so vast because, I mean, it was just nature and, you know, wonderful encounters. So, yes, that was sort of my reality.

Philippe Rose

And when were the times when you started figuring out a little bit the direction that you wanted to take in your life and that idea of foreign policy development, how did that emerge and when and why?

Tjark Egenhoff

Huh. You know, I actually, it's funny because when you ask me, a scene comes to my mind when I finished high school and I was thinking, well, what am I going to do with my life? And I had no idea what really what to do and in which direction to go. I knew I wanted to be helpful in shaping the world. And I will tell you why. Because there were scenes in my early childhood and in my adolescent life that shaped that perspective. But then accidentally I started studying politics and political science in Passau on the border of Austria. But to go back to those scenes, you know, I remember in the revolutionary days in Tehran, I remember the soldiers with Kalashnikovs in front of our house. That's an image that I have in my mind, although I was really, really small. And then we then transferred to Argentina in the 80s. And I experienced several attempts of coup d'etats in Argentina, where students that of my age got killed on the streets by tanks, ramming into public buses. So there are, you know, and I could go on and tell you more examples, but those were kind of shaping that vision that I wanted to be out in the world. And I didn't want to be a bystander, but I did want to change something. Now, where to go if it was more the environmental sphere or more the political? Well, that was kind of, I don't know, fate. But it ended up being the more political work. Yes.

Philippe Rose

It just caught me the way you described the situation that you went through as a very young child in Iran and then in Argentina as these big events that uplift life, end it for some, and seem to sweep through life like this undertow. you mentioned this desire to shape things and not be a bystander. And it just struck me that in the situation you described as a child in Tehran and in Argentina, obviously you were a bystander and no one could have intervened or done anything. But that seems to have shaped your desire to take action and do something about these huge forces. Is that a little bit the worldview that was kind of crystallizing itself. And you mentioned doing good and serving. So there's probably some constituencies that you felt more drawn to. I'd love if you could talk a bit about how you started orienting yourself. And I imagine also some of the opportunities that started coming your way about where you wanted to play a role as you crossed that threshold. after high school and started to look around for how to make yourself useful?

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, I think these events and also our dinner table talks and family were very much geared towards a profound sense of justice. And yes, knowing that we were very privileged in any of these situations that we were living in abroad, there was always a consideration of somehow of justice and of a world that needed to be shaped. My dad is a theologian, so you can see where that comes from. So also Christian values in terms of, you know, not only love, but also, you know, the justice and the eradication of poverty was always present. And I think that also unconsciously led me to politics. Politics also, maybe as this, you know, for me, maybe the idealized sphere of, you know, the art of the possible, the reaching consensus, the, you know, the belief that you can come together and aggregate interest in the best of the common good was really something that caught my eye. And I actually, which is really interesting because I went, I was so shaped by Latin America and especially by Argentina that I always wanted to go back in some sense, right? Or pay back or. And so I concluded my master studies with a thesis on the foreign policy initiatives of Brazil on integration, something that nobody's interested in. Well, now we have the Mercosur, you know, the good news after what? After 30 years of having concluded the talks with Europe. But then I understood that actual integration and the design of policy beyond the nation state as a project is a very European one in the beginning. And so I decided to go back from or put Latin America a little bit on the back burner. And I decided to really get into European integration. And that's why I decided to study a master's of European integration in Berlin and then subsequently went to the European Commission. And really with this belief, I was thinking about it today because I heard another podcast of how we are in this, you know, changing of the systems. We are going through, you know, such a transition, but we don't know where we're going. So it's this unorder of the normative order that we are used to. And I was really part of this maybe naive generation of the end of history. You know, there is, for me, there was no other way. And I say naive because there was war in Europe, right? But we didn't feel like there was. And now we're at a situation where this is even more pronounced so. But I had to think about that. You know, it's like, well, I'm really part of this Europhile generation that thought we could solve everything and we are the last man standing.

Philippe Rose

I realize there's this little age gap between you and I. You're a couple of years older, but not that much. And I was also shaped by that end of history timeframe, growing up almost as if we were entering the boring age of history where things have been done. It was the Bill Clinton. How do we not long for that now?

Tjark Egenhoff

A little bit of boring in politics is not that bad after all, right?

Philippe Rose

But I found it fascinating that you approach this from a point of view of like the importance of structures, institutions and rules as a way to bring the human back in a way or safeguarding the human in the equation. I'd love if you could share a little bit more because you joined, of course, you were at the Conrad Ananauer Foundation for many years, which has that as a mission. There's also the specter of Germany's role in history. I'm also curious how that played a role as well in your drive. And it feels like today we're entering a world where suddenly all of that feels like it was a stack of cards, like we were living in a hallucination of history and suddenly realized, oh, my God, there was nothing there.

Tjark Egenhoff

I mean, I can only, you know, blame myself. I think our forefathers had an extraordinary vision. And if we talk about Konrad Adenauer, but, you know, so many others, that the reconstruction of, you know, the humankind after what happened in World War II was through European integration and the European idea and peace project. And I think they still have their merits and I would still fight for that. And I, you know, I think it's still not only valid, but it is actually a fight that we need to get into and revive. Yes, I mean, we have witnessed that maybe some of the assumptions were wrong. And I think we did not take into account what was boiling underneath. I mean, there is so much more there. And it was obviously, unfortunately, never got out of the elite bubble in a way, which is also only partially true. But if we look at, you know, how Europeans travel today, etc. But on the larger scale, I think there are so many lessons to be learned from the past. You know, this period that you described as the boring period, because I think we are told by history, well, history is never boring. Just wait for the next page.

Philippe Rose

And you also took your career in the fields. So you spent many years in emerging markets, developing countries. I'd love if you could share some of those lessons that you took, because these are countries where the day-to-day issues can be really, really practical and challenging. Governance is not always as developed or as balanced as it is elsewhere. And so on the one hand, you were representing in many cases these lofty ideas, the importance of integration and multilateralism, a very German conceptual world, but you were doing so in a world where, I mean, people have to eat and governments with a big G appears in many cases to be pretty non-existent.

Tjark Egenhoff

I mean, how do we bridge norms and reality? I think you have to, you cannot just stay on the normative level, right? you are immersed in a reality and you have to try to understand what the reality actually demands from you. And I think that's where we are not good enough. We're just not good enough. There is so much to do in terms of especially listening to the needs of those that we serve and not measure governance on, you know, worldwide on the same, with the same variables. It's just impossible. And, you know, I don't have anything against the rankings. I just take them. It's maybe an indication for some metrics, but I think we have a lot to learn. And I mean, if we look at Europe now, I think we can be pretty humbled, right, by what we have done to our governance. And maybe also the notion that democracy is, you know, sort of you can reach a certain level of democracy and then that's it. It's, you know, it's a self, whatever, propulsion of the same and the same and it gets better and, you know, we get wiser, which is not the case. And I think there are a lot of, especially from my experience in sub-Saharan Africa, I think there are a lot of very good examples of how community actually comes together, of how very basic principles of democracy are lived every day. And then, and I think we have forgotten some of these, you know, some of these treasures of our own history in the North. So what I really think is that a North-South dialogue on, you know, on governance is absolutely necessary and it's nowhere to be found.

Philippe Rose

And I'd love if you could share a bit more about how you did that at an individual level, like you found yourself representing these European institutions, and then working closely with local stakeholders. How did you bring in that listening capabilities and to be able to learn about these dimensions, like how democracy takes root at a local level, at a community level? I'd love if you could share a bit how you balanced the two and maybe some anecdotes or stories that come back to mind.

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, maybe it's more of a story of imbalance. Because, well, in Guinea-Bissau, I was representing UNDP and for some time the UN as a whole. And so you are in those structures that, you know, demand a lot of actions that are very far from the communities that you serve. But what I try to do is to introduce a lens of design thinking, but also systems thinking, so that you actually understand what the needs of the populations are. and I try to really focus on local governance and local problems and aggregate that into the wisdom hopefully accumulated in organizations like the UN to then respond in kind. And that is not an easy task because the systems are set up in a certain way. We do design still our interventions from our desks. We mostly respond to donor requests. And the internal structure also with incentives and financial regulations do not really incentivize to do things in a different way. And I think that's really urgent. I mean, I remember being in front of my team at the UN and saying, the last thing we need to do is project management and projects. And all we did was projects. And they were looking at me, what is he talking about? And I said, well, why don't we think what is really needed in this context of constant coup d'etat, constant instability, you know, being in one of the poorest countries. And we have been working for 30, for 40 years in this country. Why hasn't it changed a bit? And, you know, and yeah, well, and I mean, there's a lot of money involved. There's a lot of time involved. There's a lot of passion involved. There's a lot of, you know, I don't want to be there to just sit out, you know, sit my time out, but actually understand of how change processes are, you know, are being designed. So in any case, I did change the way we worked. I mean, you know, in a certain degree to a certain degree. And I think that was felt also by the people. You know, I remember also once I, just maybe to illustrate of where the expectations of some of these, of the people where we visited very poor communities in the countryside. But you have to understand the country does have only maybe 10 roads that are paved. People do not have any access to water, sanitation, nor to health care, maybe to a local school where maybe a teacher who does know how to write and read teaches their children. And I asked a mother who was a subsistence farmer what her dream was. And she couldn't even answer because she had not really a dream anymore. She was in such a cycle of survival that her answer was, well, I need food for tomorrow. That was her dream, to have food tomorrow for sure. So, you know, the imbalance there is to really see, listen and understand where the needs are and to let them be part of the table that designs the intervention. free from other obligations that I personally and institutionally could then handle and adapt. But that does not happen very often.

Philippe Rose

Thank you so much for sharing that. And it sounds like such an obvious thing to do, but you highlighted all of the inertia and the organizational mechanism that work against that basic principle. So it sounds like you had to balance the two, like balance the survival and functioning within that big system with its own logic of dealing with donors and project management, while at the same time being open and sensitive enough to pick up these outward signals, and then finding a way of connecting the two to actually really achieve what the original mission was. And that requires that extremely tough double game of being outward focused, but then having that ability to navigate bureaucracies and building coalitions and convincing and all of that stuff. And I'm curious if you can share that contradiction, if you like, between the two and how you navigated that, how that changed you as well? And how did you develop your own superpowers as well in that?

Tjark Egenhoff

Philippe, I don't know if I have superpowers, really. I, you know, I deal with what I have, but I did learn a lot, that's for sure. I mean, to aggravate this whole imbalance of the duality that you were referring to, the local needs and, you know, the way we needed to engage. I'm not saying that nobody engages like that, but I'm saying about the institutional inertia and then the other work of, as you said, like the institutional limitations. But I would add another layer, which is the political layer. And especially in those that listen in and that are in international development, they would know what I'm talking about. But there is this very artificial breakaway between the political analysis and political reality and the systemic understanding of, you know, that should actually inform your interventions and your strategy and country and the technical aspects. And I tried to have the trinity, as you may be, and balance the trinity of the political, the technical, I mean, the political, the institutional, you know, mindset and the new way of innovating that work in order to create sort of the, you know, the little whirlwind of change. and also to get institutions out of inertia. I mean, institutions, that's us, right? That's people. And that's the people that have been very accustomed to always the same, to deliver certain results, to have certain matrices, even if we don't get to all of the metrics. But on the ground, what is important is to look, is there anything that we did that was, you know, substantially of use? And I think that's the big crux. And I'm not saying there are a lot of people doing fantastic work. You know, I'm not here to criticize, but I think, you know, you asked me about the lessons learned, and the lessons is, you know, we have to have the courage in all of the institutions. And now I'm not talking about the UN. I mean, I'm talking about the European Commission, etc. We have to have people with courage to name the problems, to be maybe a little uncomfortable within the hierarchy. And I think that now that we are going through this real time of, you know, where everything that we thought was set in stone is actually questioned. So, you know, I mean, I just have to, I don't have to tell you that the international development arena is under attack, right? And maybe for good reasons, maybe for, you know, the wrong reasons, whatever. But there is fundamental change in this sphere. And I think it really calls out for fresh thinking.

Philippe Rose

Yeah, yeah. And I'd love if we could put the spotlight a bit back on you as well. We started this conversation with you, identifying, like having this emerging desire, need to serve people and not be on the sidelines. And then you had this long period of career where you were in the field, shaping conversation, shaping programs, improving delivery of activities. I'd love how you sharpened a little bit your self-definition of what Tjark does, where Tjark thrives, and how that changed as well over the years, leading to where you are now.

Tjark Egenhoff

An aspect that defined me in a way was that I was always a pretty young candidate for jobs in leadership. And I remember my first post as resident representative of the Conrad Adenauer Schriftung was in the lovely country of Guatemala. being in charge of three countries for the foundation on the Northern Triangle of Central America. And, you know, I was, I think, 31 or 32, but I looked much younger still. And somebody said, well, I overheard, oh, is that the new intern or who is that? And, you know, I was just getting in as the new resident representative. So I thought on the flight to my post, I was posted in Brazil before that, I thought, how am I going to, you know, how is this encounter with the political counterparts, how is that going to be? And, you know, are they going to take me seriously? And how do I exert certain authority? And I thought in my mind, well, either I go the formal way, you know, I will, you know, actually have my title come first and, you know, do very formal meetings. Or do I have a lesson of humbleness and dive in and just listen and hopefully then convince with ideas and contributions after a while. And I opted for the second. And I, you know, thinking back that that really shaped me. It's it's something that I have honed, I hope, in terms of vulnerability and vulnerability, not as a weakness, but vulnerability as leadership. And getting to, you know, 20 years later at the UN, I was the only UN resident representative to be coming from the outside at UNDP. This was a very special moment. It doesn't matter. And, you know, I came into this huge machine and I didn't understand the language. I just didn't understand the abbreviations. The most basic things. I probably had a cheat sheet, but even in the first meetings with all staff, I opted to say, I have no idea what you're talking about. And, you know, those are like the standards, like what's the strategic plan? And it had like a weird abbreviated. So the UN language itself and usually institutional language has different functions, right? It's a bureaucratic standardization. It has, you know, it's probably an efficient way of communicating. But it also builds up a wall between the UN and those that are in the UN and those that are outside, right? And I always thought when I saw the compound that, you know, and with the wall surrounding, I thought we should be exactly the other way around. I mean, this wall shouldn't be there. And our wall is also our language. So, yes, that's maybe more on my personal side and my personal, you know, path of getting into this.

Philippe Rose

Because often we hear these statements from leaders like, yes, I chose to be vulnerable and all of that, as if it's like the obvious choice. But behind this story is something very uncomfortable. And I'd love to ask you how you felt, because if you show up as a 30 year old looking young and then you're in a setting where your authority, your experience is questioned. And to some extent, it's fair. Like, yes, you experienced, but not all that much. And then to adopt a posture of humility and agreeing that, you know, you're new and you listen, it takes a huge amount of personal strength to accept to be uncomfortable and not have those doomed thoughts saying, oh, I'm an imposter, I shouldn't be here and end up in that spiral of kind of disintegration. So I'm curious how you manage that. Say, okay, let me go the tough route and show up vulnerable and accept to be deeply uncomfortable there, but have that trust that it'll work out or like what was going on? What was the story you were telling yourself?

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, I think, Philippe, there was no other way. I wasn't being courageous. I thought the other option was just absolutely ridiculous. And ridiculous to myself, right? This is not respecting myself. If I am going and throwing around my title and they know that I can make certain decisions that are financially important to them. So I think there was not really a choice. Now, there was a choice for me when I was older, right, with the UN, that I did very, very carefully choose vulnerability. And that has also to do with, in a country that is, you know, politically pretty conservative, being gay, right? and admitting that at least in a medium-wide circle, but in places like Guinea-Bissau, there is no secret. And that was actually used against me, very much so. But I didn't think I could be myself without showing some of my so-called vulnerabilities. The same goes for, you know, I was a very young representative. I was also, you know, from outside the system. So there is a lot of ingredients of non-conformity in a way. And I'm not saying at all that I'm at all revolutionary. I'm a very institutional character. But I do think that it is always important to have, you know, intelligent people just always, I presume, are looking for the next opportunity, for the next, you know, opportunity to change, to see, okay, there is, you know, more in here to push things in the right direction.

Philippe Rose

Because you talk about that courage, but you were doing courageous acts also in an environment where there's a lot of, you talk about some information being used against you. And also these organizations where there's a lot of internal politics of like internal jockeying for resources, for promotions, for who gets to be posted where. So it's very much a dog-eat-dog, shark tank type environment. So that authenticity can be very, very costly. And you need your own defense mechanism as well. So you have to straddle, I imagine, that desire to be an authentic, open leader with the fact that behind the scenes, wheels are turning and weakness, in inverted comma, can be exploited.

Tjark Egenhoff

Yes, and especially in a very politically charged environment, right? So that can be very easily exploited against you. And people will probably not stand up, especially when it goes to sexual orientation in West Africa, right? And not only in West Africa, but I'm just, you know, that was the environment. Yes, I think. And as you rightly pointed out, I mean, it's a fine line of how you, I don't think you carry the vulnerability in front of you, but I did want to, let me put it differently. I don't think I could have really gone into a profound process of changing the institution on the ground and without being more vulnerable. without being more reachable on a human scale, without saying, look, I don't know. You're supposed to be the representative. You're supposed to know. And I often said, well, let's find out. And that sounds very colloquial, but at that hierarchy level, it is expected that you know. And saying that you don't and exposing some of your doubts exposing even some of your, you know, lack of knowledge is not always, you know, without consequence.

Philippe Rose

And you talked about disclosing the fact that you were gay. How much of your sexuality played a role in the background throughout your career as something you always have to be mindful of? Do I share? Do I not? Is it going to catch me by surprise? Is this a liability? Did you even regret that? Can you share a little bit more about the role that that played throughout your career?

Tjark Egenhoff

Yeah. I would say I'm a late comer in that. I came out in my mid-20s, mid to end-20s. And I, in the beginning, especially in the years of the foundation, I did not disclose it at all. I actually hid it, which is not a very healthy habit. But I think I just wanted to fit in. I really, which is a little bit paradoxical, if you wish, because I was just portraying myself as this, you know, guy that wants to change things. but I think I needed this time to accept myself and then have the strength to confront the world with it which in the end was, I mean, I'm very privileged in concerning my support network but yes, that took a while And then once you have done that for the first time in your professional environment, you will never go back. Or at least I cannot imagine how you would ever go back. I'm not putting a flag on everything just to demonstrate that I stand for LGBT inclusion, but I will also not shy away. So what I did, for example, in Guinea-Bissau was to, you know, to mark the UN compound as all inclusive, which was not really, what do you say, not really welcomed by everyone. But that was then the policy imposed. But, you know, but you have to be very careful. I mean, we started the first approaches to the LGBT community in Guinea-Bissau, but you had to be very, very careful of not, you know, exposing or so it was very low key. But it's not something, I mean, it is something that really, really marked me, but I think it is, and it's a profound journey, of course, but it makes you sensible to a lot of other issues of exclusion or, you know, of struggle in a whole. But I mean, to be really fair, I again, I am very privileged to have had not only a wonderful family, but also very respectful colleagues overall. But yes, not to be naive of not looking at this as a possible political weapon when you are at a higher leadership level.

Philippe Rose

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And can we zoom in to where you are now today? What's on your mind? Who are you today?

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, since I left the UN, I have been working exactly on the questions that we already talked about, which is I created a platform called Redesign for Development, which actually is a place for people that are thinking about the future of development, especially at a time where development is under siege, where development needs to have better results. And so we're a group of people that think about development. We try to come up with new integrated methodologies of systems thinking, of futuring, of design thinking to make sure and to also show that development can be made differently.

Philippe Rose

Tjark, I've really enjoyed our conversation. And we have this tradition at the end of the podcast of three quick fire question and answers. So the first one is, is there anything that you've read recently, a book, an article, or even a billboard in the street of DC that has shifted the way you see the world?

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, I was actually, I started reading maybe again. I'm not sure if I ever read it. And if so, it was a long time ago. Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern, The World of Yesterday. And it is just amazing because it brings you back to the world of yesterday, right? The world of the interwar of the wars in Europe and somebody very, very intelligent reflecting on it. And I think it says so much about where we might be going, where our thoughts should be and where our passion and our energy should lie.

Philippe Rose

Tjark, I'm very interested in habits, life hacks, rituals. Is there any of those that you practice that has improved your life?

Tjark Egenhoff

I have not been very careful about my mental health during all these years. But I did start some years ago. I went to a mental health retreat and I started meditating a lot. I think this is a, it's not a life hack. It's just something, but what I try to do is to do two things. One is meditation on the go. So you hone your presence wherever you are. You're in the supermarket, you are walking, you look at the leaves. You really are focused on what is around you and what surprises you. And I think that focus on the present is absolutely crucial to be really present and to be listening and to be understanding of what we're confronting. And the second is Tonglen, which is the more compassionate form of inhaling the sorrow of others and wishing them well. It's a wonderful practice that actually connects you to not only the people that you know, but to a wider audience, wishing well and hopefully cleansing, if we all do cleansing, the world of some of the evils.

Philippe Rose

Thank you. Thank you. And last one is, what's the first thing that comes to mind if I ask about a place that has a special significance for you?

Tjark Egenhoff

Well, there's one country that has a very special place in my heart, and that's Brazil. I was not even considering Brazil as, you know, one of the many home countries, but it just swallowed me for the first time I was there. and there's this wonderful painting of Tarsís de Amaral from the Semana de Arte Moderna in 1922 in São Paulo. And she painted the anthropophagos. So it's the man-eater, yeah, the cannibals, right? And she said, well, Brazil really swallows you, digests you, And you become, you know, Brazil becomes a little like you and you become a little like Brazil. I was not even in for that, but it happened.

Philippe Rose

Thank you so much, Tjark. This was fantastic.

Tjark Egenhoff

Thank you so much, Philippe. That was wonderful talking to you and seeing you again. Thanks for listening.

Philippe Rose

If you're enjoying this podcast, there are a few ways you can help. Please click the follow button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And also consider becoming a supporter by visiting atthecoalface.buzzsprout.com. Thank you.