Rainer Pagel is a German National who came to Northern Ireland in 1971 and made his career in Community Development. He is a grandfather of two teenagers and lives in Belfast. He has a keen interest in tourism development and the visual Arts and is a practising performance artist – time allowing!

His employment history ranges from coordinating a neighbourhood based urban community development organisation to leading the principal Northern Ireland charity for young people with disabilities, via working as Head of Training and Deputy Director for 16 years for NICVA, Northern Ireland’s umbrella body for the voluntary and community sectors and managing a European Peace Project in Co Armagh for three years. In 2013, Rainer joined Production Services Ireland, Ireland’s premier lighting and audio production business as its Head of Training.

Rainer has also worked extensively as management and organisational development consultant in Poland, Bulgaria, Portugal, and USA, and was a founder member and first president of the European Third Sector Training Network, based in Brussels. He has written a wide range of training manuals and materials and published a fundraising handbook for Central and Eastern European NGOs. He has organised and given papers at international conferences on issues of community development, youth work, training and management for voluntary sector organisations.

Rainer has represented the voluntary, youth and community sectors on a large number of committees and working groups, and has chaired the Belfast Traveller Sites Project, the NI Education and Training Consortium, the UK Steering Group for NVQs in Community Development, and a local arts group. Further past engagements were as treasurer of YouthNet and Board member of Playboard. In 2013, he was invited to join the Northern Ireland committee of Arthritis Care NI and became its chair in 2017.

Rainer enjoys guiding for German tourists and joined the committee of TourGuidesNI in 2016, taking on the role of Treasurer. His key interest in tourism is to establish a professional training framework for tour guides to guarantee the best possible experience for visitors to Northern Ireland.