Heske van Doornen is Director of Operations (People & Platform) at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). She leads people operations and the core systems that support INET’s programs and global community.
She began her work at INET by leading operations and platform development for the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI), a 25,000-member global network of early-career economists. Working closely with engineers and collaborators, she helped build the systems and processes that enabled a small team to support more than 200 scholar-led projects each year.
Heske has played a central role in modernizing YSI’s digital infrastructure, streamlining international payments, and developing impact reporting systems that strengthened organizational capacity across INET.
Before joining INET, she worked at an edtech startup supporting adoption across U.S. business schools. She holds an MSc in Economic Theory and Policy from the Levy Economics Institute and a BA in Economics and Global Studies from Bard College.
