SPEAK LIKE A CEO

With so many urban mobility solutions on the market, how do you decide which one to use? René Braun doesn't want you to pick. With RYDES, he is offering city dwellers a loyalty scheme that combines all of the available solutions, so that millennials can move in any way that takes their fancy. In this episode he talks to Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson about using data to improve customer experience,...

With seven companies under her belt, Kathryn Schifferle is an expert problem-solver. Now at the helm of Work Truck Solutions, she has built her leadership style around kindness and a commitment to help above all else. The result is innovation that places customer experience at the fore. In this episode she speaks to Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson on female leadership and breaking into established in...

unu is trying to reinvent urban mobility and improve the quality of life for city-dwellers. With a communications strategy based on emotional appeal, unu is already setting itself apart from the rest of the mobility industry. At the helm, CEO Pascal Blum has developed a company culture in line with this ethos. Talking to Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson about the need to grow as a leader and motivatin...

From living on a boat to serving in the army, this week's guest is no stranger to stepping outside of his comfort zone. Jay Rogers, the CEO of Local Motors, is now looking to change the very nature of car manufacturing, introducing innovative technology to an established global industry. Jay believes in constantly pushing boundaries, and in this episode talks to Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson about...

Alice Bentinck is the co-founder of Entrepreneur First, the world's leading talent investor, and Code First: Girls. With these organisations, she is training the next generation of founders around the world. Challenging ideas about acceptable communication and behaviour in professional relationships, this week’s episode of SLACEO, with Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson, is a great insight into building...

Bringing an anthropological perspective to the art of communication, this week's guest is Joana Breidenbach. She is an academic, writer, investor and co-founder, currently heading up betterplace.org and Betterplace Lab. Joana's most recent book, 'New Work needs Inner Work', explores the lessons she learned while transitioning the company to self-management, and she shares those insights and many,...

Feeling peckish? This episode will certainly whet your appetite. Today, we’re talking to Kitchentown co-founder, Eike Kieras. Kitchentown is a global innovation platform that helps startups to develop, launch and commercialise new food products. In this episode he talks to Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson about managing the many stakeholders involved in the food business, how to create a sense of comm...

What does it take to step up as a leader in times of crisis and uncertainty? How should you communicate effectively with your employees and customers right now in the middle of the pandemic? Michael Riegel, the founder & CEO of Comtravo, shares some timely wisdom with Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson with us on the podcast this week. From over-communicating, to additional touch-points with the team an...

Are CEOs born, or are they made? Gunnar Froh believes the latter. Gunnar is the Founder and CEO of Wunder Mobility, the leading global tech and service platform for new mobility solutions. Prior to Wunder Mobility, he was instrumental in scaling Airbnb from a team of 40 to 1,500 . In this week's episode, he talks to Oliver Aust and Lena Carlson about the importance of integrating staff into a stro...

Get Oliver Aust’s FREE practical guide to personal branding now - https://bit.ly/2UAOgpR Do you want to start building your personal brand? Oliver Aust has just launched his brand-new online course which covers the practicalities of building your personal branding from scratch – from cracking the LinkedIn code to using Instagram as a professional and even building your own website. In this short c...

Our guest on the podcast this week is Miriam Wohlfarth. Miriam is the Founder and MD of RatePay, a fintech company that provides secure and simple payment systems for online trade in the DACH region. If you’re stuck at home this week and have been online shopping, you might have even used RatePay (without even knowing!). Aside from her work at RatePay, Miriam also finds time to write a column and...

Anja Hendel is one of the most important figures in the European mobility industry. As the new Managing Director of diconium, she is working to draw together digitalisation and car manufacturing to create the car of the future. Not just a strong leader, Anja is also an excellent speaker and a thought leader in the digitalisation sector. On this week's episode, she talks to Oliver Aust and Lena Car...

How do you make a conference feel like a festival? Niko Woischnik has spent ten years building one of the most exciting events in any tech founder's calendar. In this week's episode, he talks to us about the philosophy behind Tech Open Air, and shares some of his big plans for TOA 2020. Enjoy the episode!

As the founder of 3 businesses, Chanyu Xu has proven herself to be a master communicator. Now at the helm of Her1, a supplement brand, she speaks to us about women's health, raising funding and the importance of being visual! Enjoy the episode!

This week’s guest is a CEO with a very unusual career trajectory. Nico Gramenz started in the military, moved into the corporate management world and is now working to support startups. He is the CEO of Factory Berlin, a community and collaborative co-working space that aims to bring Tech, Art and Science together in a single ecosystem. Nico's success is in part a result of the philosophy that you...

Lisa Gradow is only 24, and has already achieved more than many will achieve in their lifetime. Her company, Usercentrics, is a market leader in the world of data protection and online consent, and she has cemented herself as a thought leader in the field. From throwing cookies at an audience to reading out a stranger's search history, she has a direct and exciting communications style, designed t...

When Silicon Allee was founded, Travis Todd wanted to bring a sense of community and sharing to the Berlin start-up ecosystem. Ten years later, Silicon Allee has become a nexus for startups throughout Berlin, and Travis has partnered with the Factory to build tech campuses around the world that support new founders from the very first steps on their journey. In this week's episode, he talks to us...

Jag Singh spent ten years working on high-profile political campaigns before entering into the world of angel investing. Now working as the Managing Director of Techstars Berlin, he has helped to launch thousands of start-ups from around the world. In this episode, Jag talks about shaping your communications strategy to fit your style, and shares his method for cutting through the noise to reach t...

Franziska Teubert is working to promote innovative entrepreneurship across Germany. As the Managing Director for Communication and Partner Management at the Bundesverband Deutsche Startups, she acts as a point of communication between startups and politicians. On this week's episode, Lena and Franziska had a great conversation about internal and external communications styles and the upcoming Germ...

Co-working spaces are everywhere, usually aiming to provide both a workspace and a community for founders, freelancers, techies and creatives. Madeleine Gummer von Mohl and her space, Betahaus, have been at the centre of the movement in Berlin since 2009, constantly growing and adapting to meet the needs of their members. This week, Madeleine spoke to us about honest communication strategies, the...

Mathias Klenk is working to give people ownership over their own data. After facing their own identity verification problems, Mathias and his co-founders developed their engine, Passbase, from a few friends in a tiny San Francisco apartment to a company that straddles two continents. In this episode, he talks to us about communicating across time zones, creating an environment that encourages feed...

Dr. Nakeema Stefflbauer has spent the better part of the last two decades helping make tech more accessible for women across the world. She is the founder and CEO of FrauenLoop, a Berlin-based non-profit organisation that offers classes in web development, data science, machine learning and network security to marginalised immigrant and refugee women. In today’s episode she tells us all of her sec...

Stephan Bayer, the Founder & CEO of Sofatutor, is on a mission to make learning fun. Sofatutor is the leading EdTech company in Germany, counting over 1 million users across 3 countries, offering video lessons and interactive practice problems. What distinguishes Sofatutor, is their use of creative visuals and narrative elements to facilitate the learning process of a variety of subjects, from mat...

Tomer Dean, the CEO and co-founder of Bllush, is changing the way that companies advertise fashion. Bllush is a tech company that enables fashion e-commerce stores to embed photos from micro-influencers onto their website. In partnership with Instagram, his company has found a way to harness the potential of micro-influencers for online retail. It can now be seen on the sites of retailers such as...

Pia Poppenreiter is an entrepreneur and a fierce businesswoman, turning the world of online dating on its head and challenging the status quo. She is the founder and former CEO of Ohlala, a website that enables men to go on paid dates with women, aiming at reinventing the way people meet. Known for the hashtag #EscortScandal, Ohlala has caused waves in Germany on its mission to legitimize sex work...