References
Bill Gordon
(CEO/my old boss, Yosemite Consulting),
February 2023
" Bundev came to our small advertising firm fresh out of college with a work ethic that needed no encouragement, a drive that was self powered, and a curiosity to learn the ins and outs of a particular industry and market vertical. In the first 6 months, we asked him to transfer from a business development role to a digital ad operations position. His willingness, and commitment to learn new skills in order to be a team player was outstanding. I will always thank Bundev for stepping into a breech and being the ideal team player. ​He is absolutely brilliant in internal settings, and, while his ad operations roles cut down the time he spent with clients directly, he would light up a room when put in front of one.
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His dedication to working on public health and political campaigns leads me to believe Bundev will shine in a mission driven organization — and the organization that he works with will shine when they hire Bundev and give him the runway to become an expert in his field. We always knew Bundev was destined for bigger and better things — and I am jealous of the company or organization that picks him up next.
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Bundev is a polymath, in the truest sense of the word. He keeps his social media account languages set in Italian or Portuguese — just for the passive immersion. He read books and trade rags on politics and advertising, just so he could contextualize the worn he was doing better. He would bridge the gap on his own when we failed to teach him something important. He made us better.
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He’s also a really funny person! Great sense of humor, and I bring this up because for almost two years, Bundev was asked to work alone (we are a remote company and he was solo in Chicago). Bringing that social energy and being able to connect with your coworkers across time and geography is not to be, in my humble opinion, under counted.
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So there it is: he’s brilliant, he’s eager to learn, he’s a good team player, he’s respectful and understands the language of constructive criticism, he’ll make your colleagues laugh and go the extra mile, and he’ll stay till the job is done. The work he did was complicated, technically challenging, and of high consequence. We would hire him again in a heartbeat and feel a twinge of jealousy for the lucky group that works with him next. "
“Bundev was my Spanish student in his junior and senior years of high school. He was one of only a few people in his grade who completed AP Spanish in his junior year, moving onto an advanced literature class the next year. He’s stayed in touch and come back to visit since then, and I’ve been so proud to see how he engages with his community and the world so naturally in his second language. He speaks Spanish with strong grammatical accuracy and fluency, and he's always been enthusiastic about trying to help people master complex concepts in the language. I know he has what it takes to share his knowledge effectively with anyone who wishes to learn!”
Iciar Niharra
(high school Spanish teacher),
March 2025
Nathaniel Van Wienen
(ESL instructor from previous work in refugee resettlement), April 2025
" ​Bundev was my colleague at the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, a refugee resettlement organization that provides various social services to clients from around the world. I am the lead ESL instructor, with many of my students also receiving intensive case management from the program that Bundev worked for.
Bundev contributed directly to our ESL instruction in various remarkable ways. His wide-ranging language skills proved highly valuable for intake processes with prospective students from all over Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. This passion for language learning has worked in reverse for Bundev to obtain a thorough understanding of the quirks of his native English. Bundev has also served as a substitute ESL instructor at times, usually with a focus on practical applications of the language such as job readiness and medical communications. His awareness of ambiguous grammar structures and even non-linguistic cultural nuances that can lead to misunderstandings have proven valuable for clients, social service workers, employers and more to improve the efficiency of translated and interpreted messaging.
Bundev is highly dedicated to every task assigned to him, but he tends to go far beyond this by voluntarily working on solutions for recurring challenges. He has gone out of his way to provide written medical orientation materials in both French and Arabic, provide multilingual info sessions on topics like interview vocabulary and avoiding scams, and assign himself to clients who face the greatest cognitive limits to literacy. His proactive problem-solving approaches made work easier for all of his colleagues and have certainly been pivotal for the livelihoods of our new neighbors from around the world. "