Founder
FOUNDER

Mrs Andreea Willmott

Founder & Executive Director

Originally from Romania, Andreea moved to the United Kingdom at a young age and experienced first-hand the transformative role education can play in building confidence, independence, ambition, and global opportunity. Having completed both her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the UK, education became the foundation upon which she built not only her career, but also her perspective on the power of international exposure and lifelong learning.

Following her academic journey, Andreea began her career within British higher education as a lecturer at UK universities before progressing into senior leadership roles across international student recruitment, global partnerships, institutional internationalisation, and strategic market development with leading universities in the United Kingdom.

Her professional experience spans academia, institutional strategy, cross-border education partnerships, global recruitment ecosystems, and international market development across South Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and emerging education regions.

"International education should be agile, connected, strategic and purposeful. Not built around transactions, Built around transformation!"

Turning Experience into Impact

Throughout her career, Andreea recognised a growing challenge within international education:

Students and families today face more choices than ever before, yet often with greater uncertainty, pressure, misinformation, and complexity when making decisions that will shape their futures.

Athena GESDA was created to help bridge that gap.

The organisation exists not simply to support recruitment or institutional internationalisation, but to create meaningful global education ecosystems that place students, long-term outcomes, ethical engagement, and future workforce readiness at the centre of decision-making.

At the heart of Athena GESDA is a belief that international education should represent far more than obtaining a degree. It should empower students to build confidence, broaden perspectives, access global opportunities, develop future-ready skills, and contribute meaningfully to their communities, industries, and societies.

Andreea is particularly passionate about widening participation and improving access to global opportunities for students from regional cities, and underrepresented backgrounds, ensuring that international education becomes more accessible, informed, and impactful for both students and families.

Through Athena GESDA, she brings together strategic international education expertise with a deeply people-centred approach grounded in long-term impact, meaningful partnerships, and a vision for globally connected education systems designed for the future.

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