Destination Leadership

Today I am back with a wonderful guest, Julia Minici, Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase. Leadership for Julia is not a job title, it’s who you are! I invite you to walk with us chronologically starting with the impact that Julia’s parents had on her leadership journey, her rise from Analyst to Executive Director in the bank, the importance of feedback in successfully leading a team, why she cares so much about the people in her team and many other interesting lessons learned along her leadership career. Stay tuned till the end to find out why the episode is called “Being ambitious & humble”!

Wishing you a good time listening to the episode and I am sure you are going to have lots of specific takeaways for yourself. I’m curious what you’ll implement! Let me know via [email protected] or my social media channels. Enjoy listening to our conversation!

After a long break of one year, hello again! In today’s episode we have two special guests all the way from Costa Rica, Carolina Garcia and Karla Staton. We talk about their inspiring leadership journey and how they formed Bellelli, an out of the box educational institution for early childhood education. We speak about how their diverse personalities have translated into the success of Bellelli - that’s where the title Ying & Yang comes from - and what’s important to them when working with their team. If I was 4 years old again, I would have loved to be at their kindergarten and school!

Just a quick note, please bear with us regarding the internet connection sometimes during the recording.

Wishing you a good time listening to the episode and I am sure you are going to have lots of specific take-aways for yourself - especially also if the idea of a leadership tandem is something that interests you!

If you like this episode, let us know via e-mail to [email protected] or by subscribing to the podcast and rating it! Enjoy listening to our conversation!

Today’s guest is Isabella Phoenix who describes herself as mother, wife, friend, activist, board member and Global Head of Channel Enablement & Sustainability at Hewlett-Packard. In our conversation we speak about her leadership experience in all of those aspects of her life. You’ll hear recommendations for young leaders called “Chessboard”, “Honest John” and “Snakes&Ladders”.

I like how this are such exciting cliffhangers! Just like the title I gave this episode as Isabella mentioned that one of her strengths is to spot exactly the right people for a job, which she refers to as “catching butterflies”. Even though you’ll hear that the sound of our recording was sometimes not the best, bear with us as it was so exciting to speak with Isabella about leadership from her holistic perspective in the corporate but also NGO and arts world.

If you like this episode, let us know via e-mail to [email protected] or by subscribing to the podcast! Enjoy listening to our conversation!

For this first episode of 2021 I have invited a very special guest – my dad! My dad has been leading teams for around 20 years at DEG, a German development bank. As a child I perceived my dad to be working long hours, spending time with his team members rather than us kids and once a year inviting his team to our home for a BBQ in the summer. But never have my dad and I really sat down to discuss about his leadership experience. During the Christmas vacation, I wanted to change that and invited him on the podcast.

In our conversation, you can hear about my dad’s rocky start as a first-time leader, how he saw his role as leader also in being a sparring partner and how it was important for him to have the people in his team feel that he has their back in difficult situations.

Enjoy the conversation!

Welcome to the 14th episode of Destination Leadership. Today’s guest is Anna Roizman, who is an agile coach at Porsche. She was recommended to me as someone not in a hierarchical leadership position like the other guests in this podcast, but rather as someone leading informally within a community at a large organisation. As I believe that it will be in future more and more common that young leaders gain first leadership experiences in project teams or communities across organisations, I wanted to invite Anna to the podcast.

In our conversation we talk about how she and others set up the agile community at Porsche, her concrete recommendations and lessons learned when setting up such a community and her wish for more courage in organisations to just try out new ways of working & exchanging in communities without clear KPIs and a traditional set up.

As Anna feels more comfortable in German, we did the interview in German, which I know many of you listeners also understand. That’s why without further due, viel Spaß bei unserem Podcast Interview!

Today’s guest is Nicole Wilke. Nicole is the Head of International Climate Policy within the Federal Ministry for the Environment in Germany and the German lead negotiator as well as one of three EU lead negotiators at international climate conferences, such as the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015, which you have surely heard about. I’m really honored to have a leader in my podcast, whose personal and team actions have such a wide reach!

In our interview we talk about Nicole’s first leadership position outside of work in an association and how this prepared her for taking over her first team at the Ministry for the Environment. This team is 16 years later actually still her team, just always with new team members. I am impressed by how Nicole found her leadership style of trusting in her team and giving them a lot of freedom, whilst being very open and vulnerable also sharing in our conversations challenges she had as first-time leader at the beginning. For those listeners who might have some difficulties to let go and trust their team members, there are quite some recommendations for you in this episode!

Today’s guest is Sohaila Ouffata from BMW iVentures. In our conversation we talk about her different leadership roles from starting off in a management consultancy leading a project team in India, to leading more than 120 developers in Tel Aviv as someone born & raised in Germany with Moroccan-born parents. We also talk about her current leadership role as an investor supporting start-ups to succeed. What I especially enjoyed was talking to Sohaila about how she puts her strengths & network into practice for her passion project, the African Tech Vision. It’s a private initiative empowering African female entrepreneurs at scale. Its aim is to nurture the next ecosystem of purpose-driven female founders on the continent.

As I know Sohaila has been very selective so far with podcasts, I am very proud that she accepted my invitation to join Destination Leadership to share her learnings and inspire a diverse community of listeners!

Today’s guest is from a completely different world from the ones we have had on the podcast so far – the world of politics. It’s Julian Voje, Head of Programs at the Munich Security Conference, who previously worked in the office of a German parliamentarian at the Bundestag and a political foundation.

I find that our conversation shows the great positive energy & humour Julian has and at the same time his deep rooted trust and the importance for him of being approachable for the people in his team. We talk about his lessons learned on giving feedback, role models he had and why he would describe his leadership style as “Papa Bear”.

One word on today’s audio quality - it is not as clear as it usually is, bear with us and the German internet connections on the country side!

In today’s episode, 5 tips for remote leadership are shared based on Katrin Grunwald’s experience as team-and organisational development consultant and coach for first-time leaders. The tips include

1. You as a leader are the key to a good remote team

2. Create individual relationships and inspire trust

3. Take care of your team’s remote logistics

4. Take time for team time

5. Use technical tools to activate and raise engagement

In this episode Sebastian Wächter shares how at the age of 18, he had a severe accident leading to 95% of his body being paralyzed. That’s why the first team he was actually leading was a team of 24/7 caretakers at quite a young age. We further talk about the role of leadership during his active time playing and coaching wheelchair rugby and lastly about his main topic where he is a real expert and keynote speaker: change processes. I am impressed by the way Sebastian connects his personal experiences with change to change processes in organisations!