A day with Estefania Salazar, Acquisition Manager at AMBERO
Estefania Salazar is currently in the final stages of her master’s degree in “Moving Cultures – Transcultural Encounters” at Goethe University Frankfurt. Born in Venezuela, she has been living in Germany for seven years and is working at AMBERO as an acquisition manager since November 2022.
Join Estefania on a working day at AMBERO and get an insight of what our acquisition team actually does, and how to successfully manage stressful phases.
7:30 a.m.
In the morning at 7:30 a.m. I take the train at Mainz Central Station. It takes me about an hour and a half to get to the AMBERO office in Kronberg – that’s why I often work from home. However, when I commute, I know how to make good use of the time on the train: I take time to read a book, catch up on the news, listen to my favorite podcasts or simply enjoy the view as we cross the Main.
9:00 a.m.
My working day starts at 9:00 a.m. Upon arriving at the office, I first greet the colleagues who are already there, drink a glass of water and prepare my desk for the day ahead. The first thing I do is to create a to-do list of my tasks for the day. These usually include attending meetings with colleagues, preparing various documents, declarations and forms for our projects, and a follow-up of the communication with our donors*.
*[Editor’s note: in development cooperation, the term “donor” refers to a country, organisation or institution that provides financial, technical or material support for development cooperation projects]
9:30 a.m.
Today we have our weekly IC-Cluster meeting with the colleagues from Business Development and Acquisition of our sister companies Dorsch International Consultants and AHT GROUP. Together with Frauke Goldmann, Franziska Shießl and Ushi Quick (Dorsch) as well as Carola Kiesel and Pascale Brockhaus (AHT), we discuss the projects published on the Market for International Development and weigh up possible cooperations. We also report on recent successes and challenges of submitted and evaluated applications by each company.
Since AMBERO has been part of Dorsch Global, we have been able to exchange ideas with the other companies involved in international cooperation, and some joint projects have already been carried out.
10:00 a.m.
Afterwards, we have our AMBERO Acquisition team meeting. At least once a week my colleagues Natalia Camacho, Sophie Thoma and I sit down and decide who is responsible for which of the various tasks and projects. We discuss updates and share current lessons-learned. The three of us are responsible for many different tasks on a daily basis, such as updating our news ticker, which informs the technical sections about potentially interesting tenders, but also meeting deadlines, leading our weekly acquisition meeting with the project managers, or updating the sales funnel for our management.
11:30 a.m.
Today I am responsible for leading the acquisition meeting. Every Tuesday we bring project managers, acquisition managers and our managing director to a (virtual) table. This meeting is a bridge between the three AMBERO sections: “Climate, Environment and Biodiversity”, “Regional and Economic Development” and “Good Governance and Civil Society”. It is a platform to exchange ideas, support each other with information and advice on experts or references, and always be up to date on the AMBERO acquisition processes.
12:30 p.m.
Today continues with good news! We have won a GIZ tender: ‘Access to Justice for Women – strengthening evidence-based case Management in Bangladesh courts’. Together with the responsible project manager Delia Oros, we take care of the internal process of turning the tender into a project.
Next, the message goes out to all colleagues – it’s the fourth project we’ve won this month. If that’s not a reason to celebrate! So we invite everyone to raise a glass to our successes together in the kitchen on the ground floor.
1:00 p.m.
Everyone has a lot to do, but there has to be time to celebrate successes!
Project acquisition can be quite stressful due to deadlines. So it’s all the nicer that we always create the time to be happy about the successes together at AMBERO. That motivates and it’s always nice to exchange ideas with colleagues.
Today, we are toasting two new projects for the Good Governance and Civil Society group, the project in Bangladesh and another GIZ project in Ecuador (Ecuador SinCero II), and two new projects for our Climate, Environment and Biodiversity group, namely a GIZ project in Kenya (AgSys) and a global EU project.
1:30 p.m.
After this short break, I go back to my laptop. When it comes to essential work tools, my laptop is certainly at the top of the list. For this job, however, there is also a soft skill that is particularly noteworthy: the ability to deal with stress. This skill is absolutely necessary, as we prepare the tenders for the three technical sections at AMBERO, and on some days we have up to four submissions at the same time. Good stress management is particularly important here.
My stress management strategies?
Take breaks: Take regular short breaks to recover. A few minutes of fresh air or a short stretching exercise can work wonders.
Setting priorities: If the workload is overwhelming, prioritize your tasks according to urgency and importance. Concentrate on the essentials.
Boundaries: Say “no” when you’re already working to capacity. It is important to know and communicate your own limits.
4:00 p.m.
Estefania Salazar
wanted to gain experience as an AuPair in Germany. A bachelor’s degree in cultural management and seven years later she now lives permanently in Germany and is writing her master’s degree on “Racism and Memory in Venezuela from a Postcolonial Perspective”.
As a working student, she has been with AMBERO Consulting Gesellschaft mbH since November 2022 and is responsible for the acquisition of projects together with Natalia Camacho and Sophie Thoma. The three acquisition managers are responsible for processing, planning, managing and following up tenders for various clients in different countries and regions. Her responsibilities include supporting business development and tendering processes, managing the expert database and project personnel, and managing internal information and knowledge management.
In 2023, the acquisition team supported 40 pre-qualifications (PQ) and 40 tenders in four languages: German, English, French and Spanish. The focus is on PQs and tenders for countries in Central and South America, East, Central, North and West Africa, South Asia and the MENA region.
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