Meet the Founder

My name is Finja. Born and raised in Germany, I moved to England for high school and college before relocating to the US. For my undergraduate I studied History at the University of Oxford, for my Master’s I zoned in on Medieval History at Stanford University. After graduating I moved to Los Angeles, where I began volunteering in the education department of the Getty Museum.

It was in the public education part of my work - giving tours at the museum - that I first encountered working with kids and absolutely fell in love. I was in awe of their honesty, their open-mindedness, and their unfiltered approach to art. Their questions and comments, their way of observing their world and of connecting the dots left me deeply touched. The younger the children, the more intrigued I got. I was drawn to their way of seeing and implementing values, loved how much they disregarded any academic notion for looking at art, and was deeply moved by the intensity with which they experienced it. In short: I was hooked! I went back to school to get my Early Childhood Education teaching credentials and started working in a German-American bilingual outdoor program for ages 0-5.

After a few years in LA, my husband and I moved to Chicago where I joined a Reggio school as the Toddler Lead Teacher. When Covid hit and the school temporarily closed I shifted into the private market to nanny for a family whose first child had been in my classroom and whose second child had just been born. I stayed with this family for over two years and ultimately got to accompany them through the Autism diagnosis of their first child. While the child was in my classroom the suspicion was that he might have gone deaf. About a year and many tests and assessments later, the diagnosis of Autism was given and the journey into full-time therapy began. I consider being a part of this family and the process of the diagnosis one of the greatest gifts, not only personally, but also professionally.

That said, I had the itch to really deep dive into a particular area of Early Childhood Education, to specialize my general training in the field. I started working at a Montessori school as the infant-room Lead Teacher, acquired my MACTE-accredited Montessori training, and joined the school leadership team as an administrative assistant.

A miscarriage later, my husband and I are overjoyed to just be a few months away from welcoming our own little muffin into the world and that is really what inspired me to start The Village. Parenting is hard. It is really hard. Having worked with hundreds of children over the years and going through pregnancy myself now, I appreciate the village that it takes to raise a child, to build a family, to be the parent you always envisioned, and to be your best self through it all.