Financial Director for 57th Agora AEGEE-Europe
With the Agora right around the corner we at The AEGEEan are interviewing the candidates to give you an small insight into who the person is behind the face. Here we have with us Refik Barış Özçelik , running for the Financial Director position of AEGEE Europe.
What brings you to AEGEE? Tell us about your AEGEE experience?
I’m Baris, from AEGEE-Istanbul, 21 years old, joined AEGEE in late-2016 in Izmir. I’ve been an active member, both in the local and European level since then. I’m currently an active member of AEGEE-Istanbul, Network commissioner of Kebab Locals, and Vice speaker of Network Commission.
Responsibilities of a Financial Director are a crucial position in any organization, how are you preparing yourself for the task?
The experiences I’ve gotten so far gives me confidence to deal with those tasks- the position is in line with my studies (business administration), my internships (2 of them related to finance), and my AEGEE experience (local board position, organizing European events, Managing the budget of European body).
I am aware of the great responsibility and am eager to learn about everything, I think that will come later in the knowledge transfer period. Apart from that, I’m trying to improve my general knowledge on the general financial conditions for Erasmus+ grants, since that’s a crucial knowledge for the FD to have.
How do you plan on organising the Financial budget of AEGEE? Where will the finance will come from and where should it be invested mostly?
I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, this depends on the structure AEGEE already has, you can’t change finances just because you feel like it.
About your question on where the finance will come from, I think every member can imagine where our finances come from and where they are going. And about where it should be invested, it would really be irrelevant for me to say a topic or project or anything, since it has to be considered with the whole team in the CD. But some of my main points are financial sustainability, stable internal organization, increasing the visibility of funds/grants, you can check my program for detailed explanations.
What things would you look for before approving a budget for an AEGEE body?
It would have to make sense, and also last terms budget could be useful to see exactly where and how the body is spending its budget. Being reasonable overall should be enough, as I observed and experienced in budgeting.
You spoke of grants visibility for the AEGEE networks, how do you plan for it?
Good promotion strategy and detailed further explanation on advantages would be enough, I believe.