Irene Becker

Founder of agency 99aupairs and equality advocate

Irene has been a feminist before she knew what that word meant. When she heard she may not climb on trees because "boys may look under her dress" (sexism at its best), she started campaigning for her parents to get pants for her (girls did not wear pants in the 80s in Sowjet Union). After all 'good girl' tools failed, she succeeded by eventually rebelling and 'accidentally tearing all her dresses'!

Growing up in Sowjet Union and Germany after that, she saw and experienced multiple levels of inequality being it at home, in the community or in society. Coming from a country where a monthly salary of a teacher is about AUD40/month, she was ambitious to get all the education and opportunities she could grasp.

She graduated from a German University with a double degree in Education and Business Administration and also studied in Australia, Russian Federation. She was the first to study for a double degree at her university and the first to receive a full Business scholarship as an Education student. Irene speaks Russian, German and English at a native level, and continues to learn Hindi and French.

When working in corporate (SAP, KraftHeinz etc.) across multiple continents she felt that she had to hide the fact that she was a mother to be taken seriously or even apply for the high achiever jobs. Whilst working and seeing that the burden of mental load, care (up to 30 years in a woman's life) and housekeeping is still on a women's shoulder, she decided to do something about it.

She started, whilst working full time and expecting her second child a company called 99aupairs with the mission to help busy working mothers to get their sanity back, whilst creating quality time.

Especially during COVID-19, the demand for live-in and flexible in-home care has catapulted and Irene's expertise in the field has helped countless women to not only keep their jobs (those lucky ones who have not been affected by job cuts), support their children with remote learning and keep their new normal, as happy as possible.

For her efforts, Irene has been recognised as Leader and 99aupairs has been praised with multiple awards.

Irene is a big advocate for equality, challenging the status quote, #breakingTheBias and for women creating a life by design.

Irene is available for all online speaking events, as she is currently in India setting up a charity collaboration to support girls' education in Bhopal, India. Seeing that girls get married at the age of 13, has made it impossible for her to travel to India and not do anything about this tradition.

For further queries please use the below to contact Irene
WhatsApp: +61 468 918 536
email: hello@99aupairs.com
book a time with me: https://calendly.com/irene-99aupairs/15min

Irene would be honoured to continue waving the flag for women and paving the way in #BreakingThe Bias

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