Business Unbound

Completing a PhD while working full-time in top-tier consulting sounds impossible. Transitioning from advisory to a CFO role at a private equity-backed company seems equally daunting. Dr. Raphael Ruess did both, and his journey reveals what happens when ambition meets discipline, curiosity meets execution, and consulting expertise meets operational leadership.

In this conversation, Raphael, CFO at a private equity-backed portfolio company and former AlixPartners consultant, shares the real story behind his unconventional career path.

From navigating high-pressure M&A consulting while completing a PhD to making the leap some consultants dream of (moving from recommending strategies to owning the outcome as a CFO) this episode of Business Unbound decodes what it truly takes to transition from consulting to industry and create sustainable value in a PE-backed environment.

• How to complete a PhD while working full-time through consistency, strategic time management, and reaching a "point of no return"
• Why transitioning from consultant to operator requires unlearning consulting instincts and prioritizing trust-building over quick wins
• The real consulting skills that transfer to operational roles: adaptability, stakeholder management, and willingness to roll up your sleeves
• How private equity creates value through buy-and-build strategies, digitization, and unlocking synergies across portfolio companies
• Why people skills matter more than technical expertise when becoming a CFO in an SME environment

• Lifelong learning and why Raphael chose a PhD over certifications to maintain intellectual freedom
• AlixPartners' diamond structure and how senior environments accelerate professional development
• The consulting toolkit: what transfers to operational roles and what needs to be unlearned
• How to position yourself for PE CFO roles: gain PMI experience, seek leadership opportunities, embrace tough situations
• Value creation in practice: digitizing processes, implementing CRM systems, prioritizing based on impact and time-to-value
• Leadership lessons: motivating operational teams by showing the bigger picture and aligning interests
• The Sunday evening test: how you feel about Monday reveals everything about your career path

Dr. Raphael Ruess is CFO at a private equity-backed portfolio company with a track record of driving value creation and operational transformation. Raphael began at EY in transaction advisory before moving to AlixPartners, working on high-stakes M&A engagements. While working full-time in consulting, he completed a PhD. He then transitioned to operational leadership as CFO.

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Every week, host Florian Haufe dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

Connect with Florian Haufe on LinkedIn

#BusinessUnbound #leadership #consulting #privateequity #CFO #careeradvice #PhD #AlixPartners #MBA

In this episode of Business Unbound, serial entrepreneur and ultra-marathon runner Ludmila Milla shares the unfiltered reality of starting and scaling a company when there truly is no Plan B. From leaving a stable career in Brazil, selling everything, and restarting from zero in the UK, to building an AI-powered learning platform without a technical background, she explains what founders are really signing up for.

You will hear the hard truth behind fundraising, bias in venture capital, and how to turn long, messy journeys into resilient, sustainable success.

If you are thinking about founding a company or are stuck in the “valley of death,” this conversation shows how to keep moving when quitting feels like the easier choice.

• How to assess your real risk tolerance before becoming a founder.
• Why fundraising in the early days is more about the founder than the pitch deck.
• How a non-technical founder can successfully build and ship an AI SaaS product.
• How an ultra-marathon mindset and micro goals can help survive startup chaos.
• Why culture and knowledge sharing often break when scale-ups grow fast.

• Ludmila’s journey to serial entrepreneur and AI founder.
• Selling everything, moving abroad, and rebuilding life and career from scratch.
• The brutal realities of pre-seed fundraising and why big rounds do not equal success.
• Female founder challenges and why even female-focused funds can be hard to access.
• Building product-market fit, killing features early, and avoiding overbuilding.
• Using AI to capture tribal knowledge and turn it into scalable training.
• How to think about resilience, money, and lifestyle when there is no Plan B.

Ludmila Milla is a serial entrepreneur, ultra-marathon runner, and mother. She began her career as an architect in Brazil and went on to found a 3D technology company, followed by a coaching business. After selling her stake, she moved to Europe, started over in the UK, completed an Executive MBA at the University of Oxford, and co-founded UJJI AI—an AI-powered learning platform.

Learn more about Ludmila

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• More about this conversation
• UJJI AI
• The History of Money: A Story of Humanity

Every week, your host Florian Haufe dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

#Entrepreneurship #Founder #FemaleFounders #Startup #Leadership #BusinessUnbound

When your business is bleeding cash and trust is eroding, what does a CEO with three decades of experience actually do?

In this conversation, James Lindstrom, former CEO of Integrated Electrical Services and Providence Service Corporation and now founder of Verdian Insights, opens his real playbook for rescuing distressed companies and building durable compounding machines. From simplifying overgrown organizations and restoring cash discipline to mastering capital allocation and acquiring overlooked assets in governance, risk, and compliance, James explains how he thinks as both an operator and an investor.

If you are running a struggling business, considering acquisitions as your next chapter, or want to think like a true owner, this episode shows how to turn it around with clarity, focus, and patience.

• How James diagnoses a struggling business, what he cuts first, and where he insists on reinvesting for the long term.
• The four-pillar framework of strategy, operations, capital allocation, and governance that underpins every successful company he has led.
• How to balance urgent turnaround moves with building a business that compounds value over a decade, not just one fund cycle.
• What makes a company worth buying, from high-quality recurring revenue to messy but fixable platforms that others avoid.
• Practical advice for executives who want to leave corporate roles and become true owners and business builders.

• Early lessons from reading annual reports as a teenager, investment banking at First Boston, and becoming a bank CFO at twenty-eight.
• Why culture beats spreadsheets, and how plant safety boards reveal more about customer quality than any model.
• Inside the IES and Providence turnarounds
• Applying the Lindy principle to business, and why patience and holding great companies for a decade can create outsized outcomes.
• How James underwrites acquisitions
• Operational improvement playbooks

James Lindstrom is a seasoned CEO and investor with over thirty years of experience transforming complex businesses through strategic turnarounds and acquisitions. He led full financial and strategic recoveries at Integrated Electrical Services and Providence Service Corporation, a global services holding company with nearly two billion dollars in revenue. Today, he is the founder of Verdian Insights, focused on acquiring and growing governance, risk, and compliance businesses across training, media, events, and membership.

More about James:
https://businessunbound.co/guest/james-lindstrom/

Follow James Lindstrom on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-l-5a20a168/

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Verdian Insights: https://verdianinsights.com/
The Outsiders by Will Thorndike

Every week, your host, Florian Haufe, dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

#BusinessUnbound #leadership #turnaround #GRC #businessstrategy #entrepreneurship #MergersAndAcquisitions #CEOinsights

Fossil fuels still account for 80% of global energy demand, despite decades of investment in renewable energy, yet the narrative surrounding the energy transition paints a starkly different picture.

In this conversation, Domenico Sansalone, corporate treasurer at Expro Group Holdings and a 20-year veteran of industrial finance, cuts through the political theater to reveal what energy companies actually model, where billions truly flow, and why the transition to renewables is far messier than headlines suggest.

From energy density and grid constraints to geopolitical risk and the real economics of fusion, this episode exposes the cold financial calculus behind energy's biggest bets and the overlooked technical barriers that make fossil fuels irreplaceable in the near term.

You'll learn

• Why fossil fuels remain dominant despite massive renewable investment, and what energy density and efficiency really mean
• The overlooked technical barriers facing solar and wind, including storage, intermittency, and grid integration challenges
• Why geothermal is a better long-term bet than fusion, according to an industry insider with access to real capital allocation decisions
• How multi-billion dollar energy investment decisions are actually made beyond NPV spreadsheets
• Why geopolitical risk and energy sovereignty now drive long-term energy strategy as much as climate considerations

Key discussion topics

• The disconnect between energy transition narratives and actual global energy demand (fossil fuels still 80% in 2024) Energy as a universal currency: why efficiency and energy density matter more than most realize
• Thermodynamics, energy loss, and why converting renewable energy is inherently less efficient than fossil fuels
• What major oil and gas operators are actually planning: growth through 2040 in places like Guyana and Namibia
• Capital allocation in cyclical industries: lessons from the 2008 financial crisis, the 2015 oil price collapse, and the steel industry crisis
• Geopolitical shocks reshaping energy strategy: Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, and the rise of energy sovereignty
• AI-driven electricity demand: how data centers are consuming unprecedented amounts of power and reshaping long-term forecasts

Guest Background

Domenico Sansalone is a finance executive and corporate treasurer at Expro Group Holdings, one of the world's leading energy services companies operating across 60 countries with over 8,500 employees. A Canadian finance professional with nearly 20 years of experience, Domenico has navigated treasury and risk management at some of the world's largest industrial companies, including Rio Tinto's metals operations and ArcelorMittal's steel empire, before joining the global oil and gas sector at Expro. He holds an Executive MBA from the University of Oxford. Follow

Domenico Sansalone on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/domenico-sansalone-6775027/

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About Business Unbound

Every week, your host, Florian Haufe, dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

#Businessunbound #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #energytransition #oilandgas #CorporateTreasury #renewableenergy #geothermalenergy

In 2024, Sean Smith walked away from investment banking and entrepreneurship to head straight into a world most professionals overlook: buying "boring" businesses instead of starting flashy ones.

Sean launched an investment fund to back acquisition entrepreneurs across North America, specifically those buying small and medium-sized businesses generating stable cash flow in unglamorous sectors like HVAC, commercial cleaning, and business services.

This conversation unpacks how ambitious professionals can become CEOs without climbing corporate ladders or risking everything on a startup, how to raise millions to acquire a business, and why Baby Boomer retirements are creating a trillion-dollar transfer of ownership that most people aren't paying attention to yet.

Sean explains:

• Entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) versus traditional career paths
• Funded search vs. self-funded search: Pros, cons, and realities
• Raising and structuring capital for acquisitions
• Key criteria for investors
• What makes a business a strong buy
• Major lessons from Stanford research on what causes deals to fail

You'll learn:

• Why buying a business can be less risky than starting one from scratch
• The two main models in entrepreneurship through acquisition: funded search vs. self-funded search
• How to evaluate whether you're a fit to run a specific business
• What investors look for when backing acquisition entrepreneurs

Guest Background

Sean Smith is the Managing Partner at Search Fund Ventures and founder of the SMB Investor Network. He started his career in leveraged finance at CIBC Capital Markets, supporting over $11 billion in transactions including the Canada Goose IPO. Sean launched Search Fund Ventures in August 2024. The fund backs acquisition entrepreneurs buying small and medium-sized businesses across North America, focusing on mission-critical, cash-flowing companies in sectors like business services, healthcare support, and essential infrastructure.

Connect with Sean Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-smith-47ab2a70/

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Additional Resources

Sean's Fund https://www.searchfundventures.co/

Co-Investment Opportunities https://www.smbinvestornetwork.com/

Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel https://buythenbuild.com/

ETA Community https://searchfunder.com/

Scaling Up by Verne Harnish https://scalingup.com/

EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) https://www.eosworldwide.com/

About Business Unbound

Every week, your host, Florian Haufe, dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

#BusinessUnbound #EntrepreneurshipThroughAcquisition #SearchFunds #SmallBusinessAcquisition

When leading teams through Deutsche Bank's historic transformation, former Managing Director Dr. Jean Voigt faced billions in fines, regulatory scrutiny, and relentless pressure. But instead of just surviving the chaos, he used crisis as a strategic lever for lasting change.

Now founder of the Soteria Initiative, Jean reveals how to lead through organizational fire, build resilient teams under extreme pressure, and recognize when it's time to bet on yourself.

In this episode, discover the mindset shifts, leadership tactics, and crisis management principles that separate leaders who thrive from those who crumble when everything is on fire.

He explains:

• How to turn crisis situations into strategic transformation opportunities rather than just fixing problems
• Why servant leadership creates more resilient and independent teams in high-pressure environments
• The critical mistakes leaders make when navigating organizational transformation
• How to build and maintain trust through transparent communication during periods of intense scrutiny

You'll learn:

• Practical frameworks for prioritizing work when demands exceed capacity
• Why talking about failures openly accelerates organizational learning
• The importance of creating psychological safety downward while managing pressure upward
• When to step away from corporate success to pursue mission-driven entrepreneurship

Guest Background

Dr. Jean Voigt is a former Managing Director at Deutsche Bank, where he led large-scale teams through one of the most intensive transformation periods in modern banking. With a background in computer science and expertise in anti-money laundering, risk management, and organizational resilience, Jean specialized in driving strategic change under regulatory scrutiny and extreme operational pressure. In early 2025, he founded the Soteria Initiative, a nonprofit focused on transforming how the financial industry fights financial crime through collaborative AI, data standards, and innovation. Jean's leadership philosophy centers on servant leadership, systems thinking, and turning crisis into strategic opportunity.

Follow Dr. Jean Voigt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanvoigt/

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Mentioned Resources

Soteria Initiative https://soteria-initiative.org/

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie https://www.amazon.com/How-win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/8189297813

About Business Unbound

Every week, your host, Florian Haufe, dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

#businessunbound #LeadershipDevelopment #CrisisManagement #OrganizationalTransformation #ServantLeadership #FinancialCrime

In this eye-opening conversation, Dana Pavlychko reveals the hard truths about business survival that most entrepreneurs discover too late.

After inheriting her mother's Ukrainian publishing company at just 22, facing bankruptcy, employee theft, revolution, and war, Dana transformed crisis into opportunity. But the real surprise? Sometimes the best strategy is knowing when to walk away.

In this conversation, we're exploring why protecting your family legacy might mean letting it go, how venture philanthropy is helping rebuild Ukraine's future, and why the creator economy could be your most strategic business move right now.

Dana explains:

• Taking over a failing family business at 22 with zero experience and discovering employee financial theft
• Navigating business operations through revolution and full-scale war while managing three children
• The strategic decision to sell a 14-year legacy business and why family pressure nearly prevented it
• How venture philanthropy differs from traditional giving and why it's critical for Ukraine's reconstruction
• Building 75,000+ social media followers in 10 months while launching Dana Pavlychko Academy
• Why authenticity in the creator economy requires 100 hours of practice before it becomes natural

You'll learn:

• The hidden dangers of tying your identity to your business and how this trap keeps founders stuck
• Why most businesses fail to prepare for life without their founder and the critical systems needed for a successful exit
• How to recognize when burnout signals it's time for strategic change rather than pushing through
• The surprising financial opportunities in Ukraine's tech ecosystem despite ongoing war
• Why investing in your personal brand and creator presence is no longer optional for business leaders

Guest Background

Dana Pavlychko spent 14 years leading Osnovy Publishing, Ukraine's most prestigious independent publishing house, founded by her mother in 1992. After navigating the company through revolution, war, and near bankruptcy from age 22, she completed an Executive MBA at Oxford's Said Business School and made the bold decision to sell the business in 2024. Today, Dana serves as an advisor at Tolkary Foundation. She is also the founder of Dana Pavlychko Academy, where she has helped nearly 4,000 people transform.

Connect with Dana Pavlychko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dana-pavlychko-b44a0673/

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Additional Resources

Dana Pavlychko Academy https://danapavlychko.academy/ Osnovy Publishing https://www.osnovypublishing.com/ Tokarev Foundation https://www.tokarevfoundation.org/

About Business Unbound

Every week, your host, Florian Haufe, dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

#BusinessUnbound #BusinessStrategy #Entrepreneurship #CreatorEconomy #ImpactInvesting

Welcome to Business Unbound, the podcast where visionary global leaders share the real stories behind success.

This premiere episode introduces your host, Florian Haufe, a career consultant with 15 years in finance, strategy, and transformation, an executive MBA from Oxford University, and a track record as an entrepreneur.

Florian explains the core mission of Business Unbound: breaking down business bubbles through diverse, candid conversations with executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders from every corner of the globe.

𝐇𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬:

◼️ Why he launched Business Unbound and the inspiration behind the show

◼️ The power of escaping industry bubbles and connecting diverse perspectives

◼️ How the Oxford Executive MBA network shaped this podcast concept

◼️ The commitment to weekly episodes with high-caliber guests

◼️ Building a thriving community for ambitious professionals worldwide

𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧:

◼️ How cross-pollination of ideas drives real innovation

◼️ What to expect from upcoming episodes featuring global leaders

◼️ The vision to create an accessible platform for unbound business thinking

◼️ Exclusive pre-launch access details and official launch date

𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝

Florian Haufe is the host of Business Unbound and a Director at AlixPartners, a global strategy and management consulting firm. With 15 years of experience at the intersection of finance, strategy, and complex business transformation, he specializes in helping major organizations navigate regulatory complexity, redesign operations, and manage risk in constantly shifting environments. His career spans consulting, banking, and entrepreneurship, including founding and successfully exiting a digital venture in the training and certification space in 2024. Florian holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and banking, a master's degree in management and corporate law, and an executive MBA from the University of Oxford. His diverse background across consulting, banking, entrepreneurship, and global business education fuels his passion for connecting perspectives from around the world.

Follow Florian Haufe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/florian-haufe-751363135

𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝

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𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 Sign up for exclusive pre-launch access to the first three episodes before the official January 12, 2026, launch: https://subscribepage.io/obL1Z8

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐔𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 Every week, your host, Florian Haufe, dives deep into conversations with visionary global leaders to bring you insights, inspiration, and the real stories behind success.

#BusinessUnbound #Leadership #ExecutiveInsights #GlobalBusiness #Entrepreneurship