FIKA Friday At the Office

Hello friends, Some guests come to this show with frameworks and theory. Ravi Nanduri comes with parking complaints, cold coffee and a story about getting lost on his first week in a new role. Ravi Nanduri is Vice President, Real Estate Services at HSBC GSC, based in Hyderabad. With over 15 years of experience across corporate real estate and workplace services in Asia Pacific and India, he brings...

Hello friends, If you’ve ever wondered who actually thinks deeply about why offices feel the way they do, Corinne J. Murray is one of those people. Corinne is a work futurist and workplace strategist based in Long Island, New York, with a career spanning WeWork, American Express, Gensler, CBRE and RXR. She is also co-author of ‘‘Work Then Place: Navigating Modern Work & Where it Happens’’, a newly...

Hello friends, Finance professionals don't usually show up on podcasts talking about Culture, Leadership and the soul of an office. But, Soundar Raj too is not your typical finance professional. Soundar is CFO at NXP Semiconductors India, a Chartered Accountant by training who has spent the better part of two decades navigating the explosive growth of global tech giants — from building Qualcomm's...

Hej Friends, A very first for Fika Friday…This episode, I didn’t have one guest. I had two amazing leaders from INGKA Group, whose core business is the eponymous IKEA Retail. Jette Jørgensen is Managing Director at Managing Director for Ingka Group Multifunctional Hubs responsible for their global offices across 32 countries. Thomas Olofsson who works in Jette’s team is Multi-Functional Hub Manage...

Hello friends, Yes, you read that right. This week, your host Ram (I) sat down with another Ram. Ram Viswanathan is Global Head of Digital Employee Experience at Philips — and if you want to understand what it actually takes to keep a global workforce productive in the hybrid era, this is your episode. Over coffee at the Philips Innovation Campus in Bangalore, we covered AI adoption, the generatio...

Hej friends, It’s been a few weeks since the last episode went on air. Some conversations just flow. This was one of them. I recorded this towards end of last year! For this episode, I sat down with Rupa Thakrar Bagoon, Market Manager Bangalore at Business Sweden — and honestly, I could have kept the recorder running for hours. Born and raised in Sweden with Indian roots via Uganda - Africa, Rupa...

Hello friends, In this episode of Fika Friday at the Office, my guest Katja Larsen traces a geography of work across cultures and decades: what makes Scandinavian “hygge” feel at home in India, why coffee corners beat conference rooms for building trust, how data and behavioral signals are quietly reshaping offices, and where AI belongs when the brief is still profoundly human. If you build workpl...

G’day mates, When Eve Wilkinson-Bell describes her office, she does not start with headcount or floor plans ! She starts with coffee & the hum around the coffee machines in Amsterdam. I caught up with Eve on a quiet Friday in her Eindhoven office when the occupancy was just about okay and people deliberately chose the office for focus work. Eve is the Workplace Regional Manager for Western Europe...

Hello friends, When I listened to Anshul Agarwal talk about his morning routine, I expected discipline. What I didn’t expect was how seamlessly he’d connect tennis footwork, coffee conversations, and CFO strategy into a single coherent philosophy. Anshul is Chief Financial Officer and Board member of Akkodis in India, a global digital engineering company and part of Adecco Group, Switzerland. He’s...

Hello friends, Sometimes the most powerful workplace insights come from someone who’s seen the industry from every angle. Bex Moorhouse has managed serviced offices before WeWork made coworking cool, shaped the culture at Nike where “progress over perfection” was more than just a slogan, and now leads global workplace strategy at WPP, one of the world’s largest advertising & creative agencies. In...

Hola amigos, Que tal !..Como estas!! When Ricardo Chacon talks about office space, he doesn’t mention square footage first. He talks about the Energy. About the low vibe of an empty floor. About what happens when companies overspend on real estate and still fail their people. Ricardo’s path from Costa Rica to Singapore reads like a case study in cross-cultural workplace evolution. Trained as a civ...

Hola amigos, Corina Ocanto didn’t grow up dreaming about workplace strategy. She trained as an architect and designer, went on to work with some of the world’s most coveted companies, and built a career grounded in creativity, purpose, and people. But somewhere along the way, drawing buildings became less important than understanding the people inside them. In this episode of Fika Friday at the Of...

Viva, amigos! In this freshly brewed episode of Fika Friday at the Office, I’m joined by Rodrigo Rolim , a Workplace Strategist with an Architect’s eye and a People-first mindset. Rodrigo trained as an architect in São Paulo, Brazil. However, it didn’t take long for him to realize that what he cared about most wasn’t the space itself; it was the people moving through it. That shift in focus, from...

Hello friends, This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Elizabeth Nelson, researcher, engineer, and author of ‘‘ The Healthy Office Revolution’’ . "Your office design might be affecting your biology more than you realize." 🧠 I invited Dr. Elizabeth for a coffee chat to explore the science behind how workplace environments impact our bodies at a cellular level⁠. Have a listen and discove...

Hello friends, In this episode , I sit down with Denise Brouder , founder of The Future of Work Alliance , to talk about how AI, autonomy, and trust are reshaping the work world. There’s magic that happens when people are together. Creative sparks fly. That’s still essential. Tune in to this to hear how Denise went from Wall Street to the frontlines of workplace transformation, and why she believe...

Olá amigos, What does a company without bosses look like? On this latest episode of Fika Friday at the Office , I head to Porto, Portugal to talk with Luis Simões, the force behind Mindera a 1200 person software company built around the core principles of Self-management, Autonomy, and Human Connection. * No org chart x * No approvals x * Just teams figuring it out together to create magic Take a...

Hello friends, 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵, 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻-𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻? You get Emmanuel Daniel , Former Global Head of Smart Buildings at Microsoft, Current CEO and Founder of Alosanar . He’s always thinking five steps ahead. In our latest podcast episode, Emmanuel shares how he led the transformation of Microsoft’s campus experience, and why he belie...

Hello friends, By the time you hear Jason Shearer describe his work, you get the sense he is designing something much bigger than the Workplaces. As the Workplace Field CTO at Cisco Systems, Jason bridges technology and real estate, helping global companies rethink how environments support people and purpose. Jason doesn’t believe technology should be layered on at the last minute. He argues that...

Hola Hola Amigos, In this first of my US trails, I sit down with Luis Morejon, Head of Global Workplace Operations at UBER. By the time you’ve visited three of Uber’s offices across three continents, one thing becomes clear: someone is thinking deeply about how we show up to work-and why we bother coming in at all! That someone is Luis Morejon. He drives workplace operations across 68 countries wh...

Hello Friends, In the last of my Nordic trails across Stockholm & Copenhagen, I sat down with Anne Sofie Fedders , Partner & Licensed Business Psychologist at Kløgt , for a powerful conversation about Leadership, Workplace Culture, and why Well-being is more than a buzzword. Anne Sofie brings sharp insights from her time at LEGO, Deloitte, and now her own practice-where she helps leaders make wise...

Hello Friends, Continuing my Nordic trails, I’m pleased to bring you yet another fascinating episode of ‘‘FIKA Friday At the Office’’ from Denmark. In this episode, I catch up with Claus Sneppen, Associate Partner, Author & Futurist - Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies after doing a long bike ride and a longer fika. During our conversation, Claus spoke about Work, Trust, AI, Coffee badging, a...

Hello Friends, Welcome back to yet another episode of ‘‘FIKA Friday At the Office’’. In this episode, I catch up with the FIKA OG (short for Original - Gen Z lingo): Henrik Jarleskog, Head of Future of Work, Sodexo Europe based out of Stockholm, Sweden. Henrik brings a unique perspective to workplace transformation. His journey has taken him from playing ice hockey in Sweden to leadership roles ac...

Hello Friends, Welcome back to FIKA Friday At the Office. In this episode, I catch up with Sabine Spoelstra, Global Program Manager - Workplace and Real Estate at Adyen, Fintech giant from The Netherlands. In this insightful conversation, Sabine shares her perspectives on creating localized workplace experiences across different cultures while maintaining Adyen's distinctive identity. She discusse...

Hello Friends, In this freshly brewed episode of FIKA Friday At the Office, I catch up with Ashwini K.T, General Manager of Research and Design at Vestian. She brings a unique perspective to workplace design. With her background in architecture and over twelve years of experience, she has witnessed the evolution of office spaces from traditional hierarchical structures to modern, people-centric en...

Hello friends, In this fabulous episode of Fika Friday at the Office, I catch up with Anjali Raghuvanshi, Chief People Officer of Randstad India. Anjali brings extensive experience in leading people and business transformation. Recognized as the CHRO of the Year by Business World People in 2022, she has been instrumental in shaping workplace policies and employee experiences at one of India's larg...