About
Vilija A. Vainaite
Founder & Principal Consultant, Calibrant Consulting
Calibrant Consulting is an independent practice helping organisations and individuals adopt AI safely and responsibly, combining Big4 consulting experience with hands-on AI-safety and governance work. It is founded and led by Vilija A. Vainaite.
Vilija holds an MSc in Crisis & Security Management and has spent her Big4 years at PwC and Deloitte, working across business resilience, crisis management, and cybersecurity fields. As a Cambridge ERA: AI Fellowship recipient, she has been actively involved in facilitating AI safety, strategy, and governance courses and trainings for international professionals while simultaneously building AI-governance tooling through Mappera.
Recognised on The Next Web (Financial Times) T500 list three years running, a St Gallen Leader of Tomorrow, and a Sir Richard Dearlove Scholar (Cambridge Security Initiative), Vilija has also co-founded Women4Cyber Netherlands and Encode Europe, where she led the team and served as European Strategy Lead.
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Available for remote engagements globally; frequently based between Amsterdam and Vilnius.
Recognised by
- The GuardianQuoted via Encode
- TNW / Financial TimesT500 list, three years
- St Gallen SymposiumLeader of Tomorrow
- Cambridge Security InitiativeDearlove Scholar
- SSRNPublished author
Evidence over adjectives
Proof of work
The practice ships governance tooling and runs the rooms it talks about - including Mappera, a separate property by the same founder.
Mappera
An AI-governance data product mapping the AI supply chain and risk landscape - proof that the practice ships governance tooling as well as advising on it.
International course facilitation
Facilitating cohorts of international professionals across AI strategy, frontier AI governance, and technical AI safety.
Encode Europe
Co-founded an AI-ethics non-profit; EU AI Pact participant, mentioned in The Guardian.
Women4Cyber Netherlands
Co-founded a cybersecurity non-profit addressing the European talent and resilience gap.
Experience
BlueDot Impact
AI Safety & Governance Course Facilitator
2025 - Present · Remote
- Facilitating cohorts of international technical and non-technical professionals.
- Guiding participants through incentive mapping, kill chains, and defence-in-depth.
- Helping stakeholders apply AI-strategy concepts in their own domains.
Deloitte
Consultant - Business Resilience
2024 - 2026 · Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Drove AI adoption for crisis, trust, and reputation management across technical and strategic teams.
- Built a proof-of-concept automating enterprise-risk processes with AI/ML and LLMs.
- Designed business-continuity solutions (ISO 22301:2019, BCI GPG 7.0); supported NIS2 implementations.
PwC
Analyst - Quantitative Solutions
2022 - 2023 · Rotterdam, Netherlands
- Delivered secure data-automation solutions for compliance projects.
- Built automated analysis pipelines (Python, SQL, Power BI) for governance reporting.
- Translated complex risk data for strategic decision-making.
Education
International Security & Intelligence Programme
Cambridge Security Initiative
Full-ride Sir Richard Dearlove Scholarship; deepfakes & societal resilience.
MSc Crisis & Security Management
Leiden University
AI & cybersecurity governance; Academic Excellence Programme; GPA 3.99/4.0.
AI Programming with Python Nanodegree
Udacity
Future Self Scholar (AWS award, 2023); ML & AI programming foundations.
BSc International Business Administration
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
Graduated Cum Laude.
Certifications
Technical AI Safety
BlueDot Impact
AGI Strategy
BlueDot Impact
Future of AI
BlueDot Impact
AI Safety, Ethics & Society (AISES)
Center for AI Safety
Strategic Risk Management in the Age of AI
University of Cambridge Online
Certified in Cybersecurity (CC)
ISC²
CBCI (with Merit)
Business Continuity Institute
Certified Disaster Recovery Manager
PECB
BlueDot Impact is an independent AI-safety education provider. Affiliations and credentials listed here are verifiable via the linked certificates.