Board Officers
Every year, Mercury club members elect our board to a one-year term beginning July 1. If you’re already a member, why not consider running for office? Every year brings exciting new opportunities to support and develop our club.
Viktor Dychko – President
As an IT-person, I spend a significant part of my time “talking” to machines, so developing soft skills is extremely valuable to me.
Mercury Toastmasters is an amazing place not only to improve public speaking skills and certainly gain confidence, but it also gives something much more valuable — an environment with people that surround you, inspiring and genuinely helping to improve. Furthermore, it opens a door to connecting with like-minded people almost anywhere in the world, having hundreds of thousands Toastmasters members worldwide.
Hanjo Lu – VP Education
Being a salesperson in IT for work and passionate sports person in my spare time requires me to constantly step out of my comfort zone to improve skills (which isn’t always easy, but rewarding). Speaking in public, expressing thoughts and exciting the audience has been one, which I always wanted to work on. Seeing people at toastmasters mastering that skill, and having heard from, how they started have inspired me to follow that path and join the community.
Francesco Pini – VP Membership
Krisztina Linka – VP PR
Jump in! Be crazy! Improvise! Or prepare the speech of your life and change the world!
Mercury gave me a safe place to do it all and to be creative, have incredible ideas and be a better speaker every Wednesday evening. This is a great opportunity for me and besides that, I also enjoy the multicultural atmosphere of the club that I have always really appreciated as someone who likes to get to know other cultures and different ideas. This club is the best place to learn, to grow and – most importantly – to have fun!
Treasurer
Lars Siegert – Immediate Past President
At Mercury Toastmasters Berlin I found a fun and safe place to work on my communication and leadership skills. As a consultant and business development manager conveying my thoughts and concepts effectively is a key to a successful collaboration with clients and colleagues. Beyond that, I met wonderful people with the curiosity and lifelong learning attitude I appreciate.
Introducing More of Our Club Members
Therese Pitt
Mercury is like a playground where you actually learn tons while having fun! I have been on stage as a professional actor and singer for over 20 years and continue to be pleasantly surprised by all the new tools I gain through my Mercury experience. In my work as a Performance Coach, both acting and my Toastmaster skills really come in handy. Mercury has the added bonus of being a great place to make new friends.
Stephanie Haight-Kuntze
Believe it or not, this picture is of a former institutional equity investments advisor with 35 years experience! Much of that advice happened over the telephone or in writing where communication relied mostly on the voice. Toastmasters is allowing me the chance to enter an expanded comfort zone of not only voice and writing but also visual and stage communications to enhance that content. AND most importantly, I am able to explore other areas of interest in a multicultural setting and carry on climbing a learning curve to infinity. There is nothing more rewarding than meeting and conquering challenges, a constant feeling of achievement! No wonder we refer to Mercury as the “Incubator of Confidence!”
Nadezhda Gogova
At Mercury, I have the great opportunity to develop my communication and presentation skills. But not only that… Mercury is a family to me, a safe and unique environment in which I can improve my soft skills and grow supported by the fellow members. It’s a unique experience I can highly recommend.
Pooja Ghosh
An architect, new to Berlin and transitioning into writing; in short, I was in a pickle. My burn-out from work rendered me paralyzed in social settings, to the extent that I felt I had forgotten how to talk to people. I needed a supportive community and to rediscover myself. With Mercury, I found exactly that. I found people who believe that self-love is not dunking into rose petal baths but watering the buds. It’s challenging, goofy and makes me constantly reinvent my comfort zone.
Three levels into my Pathway, I’m still stoked that the stage is the safest place for forging a profound connection with large audiences. Within a year, I got my writing on track and served as VP Public Relations. That’s Mercury, it can take you places.
Svetlana Kokalarova
The best public speakers started from the bottom. It is a skill that everybody can master. If you experience fear to speak, come to Toastmasters. There is a magic pill called practice and you can get it at Mercury. But not only this. You get confidence, become a leader and make friends.
Joining Toastmasters was one of the best decisions in my life because “Speech is power, speech is to persuade, to convert, and to compel” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ronald Czachara
As an entrepreneur and in private I love to learn and I love to grow. For me, Mercury Toastmasters is about public speaking, it is about listening and it is about leadership. But it is so much more. Mercury Toastmasters is an inspiring place where you can grow and where others want you to grow. You meet exciting people from all over the world. Oh, and it is fun, too.
Katerina Apostolova
“Speak and feel on stage like Oprah” – this was my goal at the start of my Toastmasters journey with Mercury. I believe public speaking is a superpower and I was ready to work towards it. The club turned out to be so much more!
Joining the board was the best decision ever since it allowed me to engage even deeper in the insides and outs of the club and keep my eyes on the goal.
Chandrasen Rajashekar
I work in a startup as a Business Intelligence Manager and I am looking forward to becoming a budding business owner in order to achieve freedom and make the lives of people better.
The environment at Mercury is very welcoming, all the members are passionate about developing public speaking skills and the senior members always lend their helping hand to the starters so that they can improve and thrive. Joining Mercury was one of the best decisions that I have taken so far and I couldn’t recommend more to someone who also is really passionate about developing public speaking and leadership skills.
