Sybren Kooistra

Campaign Manager, European Greens

Sybren believes that saving the world isn’t a childish dream, but a real goal to work towards throughout our lives!

Sybren began his career in investigative journalism and twice won the Tegel, the most prestigious journalism prize in the Netherlands, first for his exposés of a hypocritical populist politician and later for his role in founding the crowdfunded journalism platform Yournalism.

He then moved into the world of progressive politics, starting with the Obama campaign in 2008, before returning to his home in the Netherlands to become the creative lead for the Dutch Greens, GroenLinks. In the 2017 federal election, with Sybren directing the party’s field organizing operation and its wildly popular social media campaign, Groenlinks surged from one of its lowest points to an unprecedented 14 seats in the Dutch parliament, making it the largest progressive party in the country.

Sybren went on to run GroenLinks’ campaign in the 2018 Dutch municipal elections, where the party succeeded in electing the first Green mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, and helped to form government in nine of the Netherlands’ largest cities.

Now the Campaign Manager for the European Greens leading into the 2019 European Parliament elections, Sybren remains inspired to save the world by advocating for Green, progressive values of equality, sustainability, and justice.