Who’s Who

Mara de Groot

Destination & Industry Conference Board

Heritage expert Mara de Groot is managing director of the Centre for Global Heritage and Development, a collaboration of Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands. The Centre stimulates multidisciplinary and innovative heritage research and education and is active in research-based consultancy.

Mara studied Archaeology in Amsterdam (VU, 1996-2001) and Melbourne (University of Melbourne, 2000). After finishing her Masters she worked as a guide in Italy, focusing on (pre)Roman heritage. After traveling six months through South America Mara started working for the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE) as an Archaeological Information Specialist. She also did a traineeship at the Centre for International Heritage Activities (2008), researching the state of affairs of archaeological heritage management in the Dutch Caribbean.

From 2009 Mara got the opportunity to work for the Shared Heritage program of the Nationaal Archief and the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency. In the case of the Netherlands shared heritage usually refers to the era of the Dutch East and West India Company and to Dutch colonialism, trade and migration in Asia, Africa, and the America’s. Ambitions of the Shared heritage policy are directed towards stimulating preservation through development, capacity building, improving access to heritage and enhancing bilateral or multilateral cultural cooperation.