Welcoming Nadine as Managing Director at Rehavista
We are delighted to welcome Nadine Rühmann as Managing Director at Rehavista – part of the Smartbox Family serving the German AAC community. Nadine began her career as a speech and language therapist and has been working in the field of AAC for over 20 years. She has played a key role in helping Rehavista in their journey to become the leading AAC supplier in Germany, as Sales Director. Her mission has always been to provide customers with the best possible support and to help them succeed with AAC whilst raising awareness of the impact it can have. “As the new Managing Director, I would now like to continue this approach and will work passionately with the entire Rehavista team to make AAC products and services even better for our customers. Because: communication is life.” she said. Nadine and the leadership team at Rehavista have been preparing for an exciting year ahead, continuing to drive awareness of Grid in Germany and showing people how Smartbox products can support those who need AAC. This change will be happening from 1 May 2024 as Jürgen Kohl will move on from Rehavista to pursue his next challenge. We asked Nadine what advice she would give to speech and language therapists who are just starting out in their career or looking to specialise in AAC. She shared the following advice and anecdote: “Do not be afraid of doing something wrong when it comes to AAC. Just have the confidence to try. Every little bit of time that you spend helping a person to communicate can mean the world to them, so don’t think about it, just do it and see the impact AAC can have. At REHAB 2022 when we presented the Grid Pad range, a mother came to our stand with her four-year-old daughter. She had been told that her child would not be able to understand and communicate in a complex way. I chatted to the girl and told her about my own four-year-old daughter. I had the impression that she understood very well. She smiled in all the right places and was very open-minded towards me. I decided to put the girl in front of an eye gaze camera with Look to Learn. What happened next was simply wonderful to watch. The girl suddenly sat up straighter and played all the games with full concentration. The mum started to cry as she didn’t believe her daughter was capable of operating such a complex device. It’s moments like this that remind us all again and again how important our work is as AAC specialists.” 
