Board Members
Patrick Kersten
CEO
Patrick Kersten is Program Director at Computrain, the largest and leading IT training provider in the Netherlands. Computrain was founded in 1984.
After having studied Biology in Amsterdam Patrick specialized himself in Education. He started in the professional IT Education and joined Computrain in 2000 as a product specialist and instructor. A few years later he became responsible for Computrain’s extensive End User training portfolio.
In 2008 he became a member of the Management Team of Computrain, becoming responsible for Training & Development. Since mid-2011, when Computrain merged with other IT training institutes, Patrick is responsible for the full IT training and services portfolio of the new organization and for managing the partnerships with delivery partners and the big software vendors.
Cristina Ratiu
Antonio Carrasco Ruiz
Finance
Antonio Carrasco is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in strategy formulation, execution, and product innovation across the telecommunications, publishing, banking, and government sectors. Currently, he serves as the Director General, Co-presient and shareholder of StreamingLearning.com, Inc, a holding company that includes industry leaders at IT College and CompuEducación. Under his leadership, CompuEducación has solidified its position as a premier training partner for global technology giants such as Microsoft, AWS, SAP, Red Hat, and Oracle, training over 15,000 professionals in Artificial Intelligence.
Prior to his current roles, Antonio spent a decade as the CEO of PLM, where he spearheaded a digital transformation by developing a business model centered on cloud computing, big data, analytics, and AI. His expertise has made him a sought-after speaker and consultant for international organizations, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Federal Reserve Bank.
In addition to his responsibilities at StreamingLearning, Antonio is an active member of the Leading Learning Partners Association (LLPA). He also contributed his expertise to the Mexican Association of the Information Technology Industry (AMITI) within the AI chapter and the HealthTech Mexico Association. Antonio is a certified instructor for AI Certs, focused on preparing executives for the era of artificial intelligence.
Antonio holds a Master’s degree in Management from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).
Ahmed Al Hujairy
Marketing
Group CEO of Gulf Future Business Group of Companies and its training arm ThinkSmart for Development and Training, with its headquarters in the Kingdom of Bahrain and Operations in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Morocco. He also holds the position Chairman of the ARAB ICT UNION, focusing on the development of ICT sector in all Arab countries.
Ahmed holds an MBA from DePaul University and was the CEO of Bahrain’s largest hospital and Advisor to the Minister of Health. A few years later, Ahmed was the Board Member of Bahrain’s Largest Telecom Company BATELCO for 6 years, where he led the organization to tremendous growth in terms of revenue and expansion.
Past member of the Microsoft Learning Partner Advisory Council (PAC) for 3 years, Ahmed is an integral part of Microsoft’s Learning’s strategic planning for the growth of skilling and certifications globally.
Successfully launched several ICT skilling initiatives to cater for the national needs to train university students and fresh graduates to fill the gap between education and the job market. In addition to strategic ICT and AI Skilling projects targeting the public and private sector.
Valentina Taseva
Members
Valentina Taseva is the CEO of Semos Education – a renowned ICT training center in North Macedonia and Serbia, as well as co-owner of Certiadria, a certification center for ICT skills certificates in 12 countries of the region. Her formal education includes a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering – “St. Cyril and Methodius” University – Skopje and a Master of Business Administration at IECD Bled School of Management. Valentina is one of the founders and a member of the board of directors of the LLPA.
Founded in 1995, Semos Education quickly evolved into one of the biggest training centers in South-East Europe and led by Valentina it became the leading training center not only in North Macedonia, but also regionally, provining official IT certification and changing lives of thousands of individuals and businesses. With 50 employees and 209 certified trainers who conduct training in 24 countries around the world, Semos Education is constantly growing and transforming the IT training map by keeping in pace with the latest trends in IT education, supported by its official vendors Microsoft, AWS, Cisco, Oracle, Adobe, ITIL, ISTQB and many more.
At the global LLPA ceremony which took place in Cancun, Mexico in November 2023, Semos Education deservedly received the title of LLPA Member of the Year, unanimously chosen as the best of the best training centers from 55 countries worldwide, and Valentina was awarded the prestigious status of LLPA Board Member.
Her successful leadership and enterpreneurial set of skills have brough her many prestigious awards, both national and international, such as:
First Woman in Business Award – Outstanding Achievement in Industry – 2011 in Astana, Kazakhstan, within the framework of the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) Annual Meeting and Business Forum
“A woman manager who has been successfully running a company for 20 years.” – from Marili Agency
Female entrepreneur for 2021 – award from the National Platform for Female Entrepreneurship and the Ministry of Finance of RSM
“Creative female entrepreneur of the year for the Western Balkans – 2022 in Tirana, Albania at the international ceremony “Women who launch”, organized by the Regional Cooperation Council | Initiative for female entrepreneurs of the year from the Western Balkans.
Jorge Lopes
Vendors
Experienced Director with a robust background in the IT industry, including roles at IBM, Informatica El Corte Inglés, Investronica, and Rumos, holding a Degree in Chemical Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico.
I began my career at IBM as a System Engineer in 1989 and then joined Informatica El Corte Inglés, an IT Services company, in 1993, where I held various management roles in the Technical Department. A major achievement during this time was serving as the Ticketing and Access Control Systems Project Leader for the Lisbon 1998 World Exhibition.
In 2001, I moved to Investronica, an IT Distributor of the same group, as Assistant General Manager and returned to Informatica El Corte Inglés in 2003, serving on the board until 2006.
After a sabbatical year in 2007, I joined Rumos in 2008, starting in sales and leading the sales team from 2009, and joined the board at Rumos in 2018.
I joined the LLPA as the Rumos representative in 2015, contributing to the Financial and AI Committees, and was elected to the Board of the LLPA in October 2024 at the LLPA Summit in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Passionate about developing teams and driving performance, I take pride in nurturing talent, enhancing communication skills, and achieving organizational goals. After 18 years of IT Services and Products related roles, I found in Training my real work passion, in the way that it really can impact people, individually or as part of their organizations.