Our team
urbaMonde Switzerland
Léa Oswald
Administrator and Project Manager
Léa is a project manager for urbaMonde-Suisse in Geneva. She is responsible for international cooperation projects in Latin America and Asia in the field of collaborative housing, with a particular focus on the cooperative housing model.
She coordinates the CoHabitat Network, organizing international exchanges of experience and helping to develop documentation and financial tools to support collaborative housing initiatives.
She is also personally involved in cooperative housing projects in Geneva. Léa holds a Master's degree in Social Sciences and Asian Studies from the Universities of Neuchâtel and Geneva.
- Email:lea.oswald@urbamonde.org
Nina Quintas
Project Manager
Nina is a project manager involved in coordinating international cooperation projects in Latin America and Asia, with a particular focus on cooperative housing and Community-Land Trust models.
She also coordinates the CoHabitat Network, which fosters international exchanges of experience, research and documentation.
She is particularly interested in innovative sustainability initiatives at local level, including the use of local building materials by communities, as well as the development of ethical financial tools to support collaborative housing initiatives.
Nina holds a master's degree in innovation, human development and sustainability from the University of Geneva.
Suzanne Lerch
Volunteer project manager and board member
Suzanne is a volunteer project manager and member of the urbaMonde-Suisse committee. She is responsible for international cooperation projects in Nicaragua.
A retired town-planning architect, Suzanne worked for many years in the town and country planning department of the Canton of Geneva, and also devoted a great deal of her time to Espace Femmes International, supporting women's movements in Nicaragua and throughout Latin America. She was also a member of the Board of the Fédération Genevoise de Coopération.
Nadia Gianoli
Communication Manager
Passionate about communication, human relations and sustainable development, Nadia joined urbaMonde in February 2024. With a wealth of experience in international non-governmental organizations, she brings valuable expertise to the team. Nadia is responsible for developing and implementing the communications strategy.
Régis Kacou
Junior Project Manager
Régis joined urbaMonde in December 2024 as a junior project manager.
He holds a Master's degree in Territorial Development of the South from the University of Geneva, and has enriched his skills through several significant professional experiences, including an internship in urban planning in a commune in the canton of Vaud, and an academic internship with a consultancy firm in Côte d'Ivoire. These experiences enabled him to strengthen his understanding of urban planning and territorial development issues.
Fascinated by the dynamics of development in West Africa, Régis is particularly interested in urban mobility, approaches centered on people's mastery of use, and innovative solutions for designing cities adapted to the challenges and transformations of the future.
Alessia Marcon
Trainee
Alessia recently joined urbaMonde as an intern after completing a master's degree in “Local and Global Development” at the University of Bologna. Passionate about participatory housing, grassroots communities and the dynamics between people and their environment, she sees this experience as a valuable opportunity to deepen her knowledge and actively contribute to the organization's projects.
Enthusiastic about learning and taking on new challenges, Alessia hopes not only to make her contribution to the organization, but also to make rapid progress in French.
urbaMonde France
Bénédicte Hinschberger
Project Manager
Bénédicte joined urbaMonde in September 2021, on her return to France after seven years in Vietnam and Morocco. Through her work on housing, the living environment and urban management, she is interested in ways of stimulating citizen participation among the most disadvantaged populations, who are sometimes overlooked by public policies.
She has worked in a variety of contexts: post-conflict humanitarian action in Bosnia and Cambodia, improvement of informal settlements in Benin, urban planning in countries undergoing post-communist transition (Vietnam, Cuba, Eastern Europe), urban policy in France...
Within urbaMonde-France, she provides support for projects in West Africa, working closely with a network of partners in the field.
Pierre Arnold
Project Manager
Pierre is one of the founding members of urbaMonde France. Now based in Rennes, he is in charge of collaboration with our partners in the CoHabitat network, in particular World Habitat and academic partners.
Trained as a civil engineer and urban planner, he has built up his expertise in housing policies and the social production of housing through his travels in Latin America, documented in the book Habitat en Mouvement, and his professional experience in the field of housing (IRD Mexico, UN-Habitat Mexico, City of Buenos Aires...).
Pierre is passionate about urban photography and co-directed an ethnographic documentary on housing policy in Mexico, which won awards at various festivals.
Pauline Leporcq
Consultant
Pauline comes from a background in political science applied to urban development projects. She met urbaMonde through the international networking activities of the “Production Sociale de l'Habitat” publication, and is involved in projects supporting groups of residents in the deployment of housing cooperatives in Greater Geneva.
She is passionate about the right to decent, sustainable and non-speculative housing. After working with urbaSEN, our local Senegalese partner, she is now responsible for monitoring the international cooperation project in Burkina Faso.
Catherine Lion
Administrative and financial manager
Catherine joined UrbaMonde in January 2025 after more than 25 years in the French civil service, during which time she was responsible for the administrative and financial steering and human resources management of several public establishments and local authorities. She has, for example, been director of finance for a department, director general of services for several municipalities, and secretary general of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo.
Her role is to act as a facilitator, doing her utmost to relieve project managers of the administrative aspects, enabling them to concentrate more on operational objectives.