SPEAK LIKE A CEO

Today we talk about an issue that concerns over 100 million young people in Europe. During the pandemic our podcast guest, a couples therapist, was approached by many millennials who were struggling with their relationship skills. Even though the needs and situations were all quite different, Katharina Wäschenbach realised they could be resolved using the functional tools of couples therapy. But t...

Today's guest was browsing the internet 3 years ago to find a sustainable black dress. That search for the perfect piece with a purpose turned out to be way harder than she could have imagined. "This shouldn’t be so difficult“, she thought, and an impressive entrepreneur was born. Last year, Iris Skrami co-founded Renoon, a search platform for conscious consumers that offers a curated selection of...

Todays guest is building the future of urban living. Florian Färber is the Founder and CEO of TheBase. Previously he was the co-founder of Zipjet that he successfully led to an exit in 2019. Now he has turned his attention to a completely new space: real estate with a purpose. With TheBase he aims to provide unique co-living spaces that enable individuals to 1) live beyond the square meters they w...

The VC scene is male-dominated, and more diverse investment opportunities are being overlooked. Our podcast guest concluded that there is significant potential for financial returns and making an impact at the same time. In February 2021 Gesa Miczaika set off with her joint angel investor Bettine Schmitz from Auxxo Beteiligungen to initiate Germany’s first VC fund for female founders. In spite of...

Some stories just make you sit up and listen. Today’s episode features Tamaz Georgadze, co-founder and CEO of Raisin, the leading marketplace that links private investors to savings products from all over Europe. Tamaz became a chess master at 4, started university at 15 and held two PhDs before most one of us knew what we wanted to do with our lives. In 2012, the former McKinsey partner launched...

What started as a passion project by two economics graduates in 2013 now reaches 30 million users each month on multiple channels. This week’s guest is Mengting Gao, the impressive CEO of Kitchen Stories. She built a global brand in the very crowded online cooking market with her co-founder Verena Hubertz. What a story! First they were rejected by investors; a few years later they exited successfu...

Why do nine out of ten startups fail? What differentiates a future unicorn from your run-off-the-mill startup? More often than not, the answer is communications. As Ben Horowitz points out, “As a company grows, its biggest challenge always becomes communications.” Clearly, no raging success has been built on bad communications. Given the magnitude of this challenge, there is little systematic advi...

Psychedelics are back. And thanks to scientific discovery there are high hopes that these substances will treat depression, addiction and help in other categories of mental illness. Science is one thing. Building a business in a this arena is still highly controversial and even illegal in many countries. This is definitely a challenge that requires very sophisticated communication. Anne Philippi i...

Michael Wax is the co-founder & CEO of Forto, a Berlin based unicorn that is driving digitalisation and decarbonisation in a sector that is the backbone of the global economy - freight forwarding. Not only is the fast-growing company, formerly known as FreightHub, a top-ranked employer. Michael is also an outspoken CEO who is on a mission to shipping sustainable while further democratising the acc...

Are you as relaxed as the Dalai-Lama in front of a camera? Pulitzer Prize Finalist Piotr Pilat knows how you can achieve that state. Having interviewed personalities such as the Tibetan spiritual leader and Richard Branson as well as reporting from conflict areas worldwide for Reuters, he is now on a mission with HeyViz to empower you to create quick and painless videos to grow your brand and sale...

Change is hard. Getting someone else to change is even harder. So how can you convince someone to become your customer when it really matters? Jan Rabe, co-founder and CEO of of three companies - Wechselpilot, RABOT Energy & RABOT Charge - knows how to persuade us to do the right thing. Most notably, Wechselpilot is a thriving German start-up that makes switching electricity and gas contracts easy...

How can I create an irresistible brand? Every founder is looking for an answer to this question. With a strong brand, it becomes easier to attract top talent and the right kind of customer. You can charge more for your product or service, generate higher margins and grow your company faster. As a founder, you want to take your brand seriously from the start and create a minimum viable brand (MVB)...

Videos have become a cornerstone of CEO communications: for media interviews, brand building, pitches, social media content and internal communications. Videos create awareness, build trust and boost sales. Yet, many CEOs still shy away from stepping in front of the camera. With the experience of over 1000 media interviews and having coached professionals in over 100 countries between them, top in...

Our guest today turned his Veganuary into a thriving business with a purpose. For Jan Bredack, Founder and CEO of Veganz - the brand leader for plant-based food - eating vegan is more than a nutritional choice. It is a path to better health, animal welfare and climate protection. When Jan swapped his career at a luxury car maker for the chopping waters of building a vegan company from scratch, the...

Only 7% of what you say matters, but your voice accounts for 38% of the first impression you make. So, how come that dating apps are voice-less? Not anymore. Our guest today is the co-founder and CEO of Wayvs, an audio dating app that combines the magic of voice and the efficiency of audio communication. With her Co-founder Julian Krahnen, Franziska Focken just raised €1.5m from investors to take...

Can a brand make all the difference? Yes, it can! Robert Ermich is a passionate and successful serial founder and investor. He masterminded DeinHandy, a portal for mobile phones, which he scaled to market leadership and a successful exit. To a large extent, the success of DeinHandy was built on the brand he built there which received two „German Brand Awards “. Next has been OnTruck, an agency wit...

Traditional recruitment is over while companies experience The Great Resignation. In this special episode Oliver talks with Konstanty Sliwowski, founder and CEO of Caissa Recruitment about the rising role of employer branding to attract and retain top talent. Tune into this episode to find out 📺 How talent perceives potential employers 🔝 How to update your company’s brand to attract the right pe...

In today’s episode we speak to Jonathan Romley, co-founder and CEO at Lundi. Lundi helps companies scale their global hiring. After running companies on three continents Jonathan realised that we need to rethink labour mobility and enable employers to have access to the world's top talent through one platform. Whether you’re in need of an engineer in New York or looking to hire a fluent Mandarin s...

Double Dynamite: Today’s episode features two entrepreneurs solving the biggest pain points for #freelancers: finding customers and managing finances. And to do this successfully, sustainably and on scale, both have built highly engaged communities. We talk to Vincent Huguet, Co-CEO and founder of Malt, an Airbnb-style marketplace that connects employers and freelancers across Europe, and Christop...

How can I inspire as a CEO? How do I communicate in an age-diverse company environment? And do female CEOs face other communication challenges than their male colleagues? Irina Crisan, founder and president of the WHU Women in Business Club invited Oliver to answer these and more questions in depth in today’s special episode: the recording of a #StartTheConversation event from the Women in Busines...

Amy Wilkinson is a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, a bestselling author, keynote speaker and former White House advisor. She is also the founder and CEO of global innovation company Ingenuity and Chair of the Board of Grover. We reached out to Amy because we are truly enjoyed her excellent and extremely well-researched book “The Creators Code“ for which she interviewed 200 high-g...

Robert Klanten, founder and CEO of gestalten, has been a key figure in the global creative industry for more than a quarter of a century. gestalten collaborates with the biggest names in the creative world and is known and loved by millions around the globe for its iconic illustrated books. In this wide-ranging episode Robert talks about books, the changing nature of creativity and his secrets to...

For top management working with a coach is the norm. The platform Sharpist makes this possible for others in an organisation, so that the entire corporate culture can change for the better. The Berlin-based startup uses artificial intelligence to match managers with coaches. Founder Hendrik Schriefer came up with the idea while working on his master's thesis at Oxford University. The psychology gr...

Her company is set to become Germany's first female-led unicorn. Eva-Maria Meijnen is the co-CEO of PlusDental. The Berlin-based start-up has digitalised the entire dental correction process: from making the appointment to planning the treatment, from follow-up checks to billing, each step is carried out on their self-developed digital dentistry platform. The goal is to make tooth straightening av...

How to Become a Thought Leader: The 9 Steps to Level Up Your Communication Game and Become Unignorable. Traditional paths of corporate communications and public relations do not have the same impact as they did yesterday. Oliver prepared an episode for you packed with the information you need to turn yourself into a leading voice in your industry. Why is becoming a thought leader essential for bus...