Karolien Koolhof, Berliner from Class 22 of the Berlin School’s Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is the founder of Quiet Quality, a coaching and training company that empowers introverted professionals in their work and careers. She's also the author of a book on introvert leadership where she stresses the importance of neurodiversity in the workplace. Listen in on her expert insights on the lockdown’s positive and negative aspects for introverts, as well as how we can best shape our organizations in order that introverts feel more comfortable in the new normal and beyond.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Pepe Aguilar, Berliner from Class 21 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is a Mexican cultural artist and activist as well as the multi-award-winning Chief Creative Officer at Grey Wing New York. He launched his art and activism platform, Art Pepe, after having discovered more meaningful purpose for his visual work upon moving to New York four and half years ago. He recognized that capitalistic tools can be used for activism – in this case helping emerging majorities. With campaigns that empower culture and social action, his platform aims to bring Hispanic culture to a global stage to promote discussion around cultural innovation that strengthens the social fabric connecting us all. This is Pepe’s story on how the platform came to be and the force for good that can come out of a new era of tolerance and inclusion.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Chris Arning is a specialist in semiotics and cultural insight, with over 20 years of international experience as a planner, qualitative researcher and semiotician. Currently based in London, Chris founded his boutique semiotics consultancy, Creative Semiotics Ltd, in 2010, with the mission to make visible the meanings embedded within visual identity and communication in order to help business owners better manage the meaning of their brands. Over the years, he has designed and led semiotics projects for companies as diverse as Unilever, GSK, Paramount Pictures, Manchester City FC, Mini and the BBC.

Originator and Co-Founder of the global Semiofest conference, ‘A Celebration of Semiotic Thinking’, as well as a writer, poet, speaker and thinker, Chris has taught at the University of Warwick and the University of Creative Arts and published essays in the Huffington Post, Admap, The Drum, New European and WARC.

Chris views semiotics not only as a tool for brand strategy, but as an essential tool for helping us manage information, in his own words: “In a post-human world moving faster and faster, and filled with more data, meaning is the most precious commodity.”

The Vertical Social Club is a Berlin-based – and globally active – creative content and production studio all about ‘behind the sports’ storytelling. One of their most recent stories was that of Liverpool F.C.’s Sadio Mané, who’s life and career are featured in ‘Made in Senegal’ – the world’s first feature-length documentary about a black professional soccer player.

In this Meet the Experts interview, Vertical Social Club members Lorenz Fendes, Founder and Managing Director; Jermain Raffington, Co-Founder and Head of Production; and Peta Jenkin, Senior Producer, take us behind the scenes to teach us about the two-year in the making-of story and what this new narrative in sports storytelling looks like.

Ethel Sanchez, Berliner from Class 22 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is a Brand Strategist, currently heading Strategy and Analytics for the Philippines' biggest independent agency, NuWorks Interactive Labs. She’s also a lecturer for the MBA program of the University of the Philippines and co-founder of Wheelhouse Collective PH, a consultancy group that specializes in micro-small to micro-medium scale enterprise strategy. Listen in to her mini-playbook on how she believes local micro-enterprises, born out of the pandemic, can survive the shift back to the new normal.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Andre Pulcino and Rodrigo Gonzalez, Berliners from Class 13 met earlier in their creative careers but rekindled their friendship and entrepreneurial spirits in our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership program. Andre is the founder and Rodrigo an investor of Tubites, which are healthy snacks made with nuts, fruits and other all natural ingredients, backed up by scientific and nutritional research. This is their meeting story.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Daniel Prianti, Berliner from Class 8, and Roberto Sirotsky, Berliner from Class 19 and our Cannes Creative Leaders Programme 2012, met at our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership’s Asia Module in 2017. Shortly after, together they founded BPool, a curated, pre-negotiated and transparent marketing services platform that connects companies with independent talent through one legal entity. This is their meeting story.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Craig Fagan is Programme Director at the Global Disinformation Index, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization based in the UK that aims to provide advertisers, ad tech companies and platforms with trusted and independent ratings of the disinformation risks of news sites with the aim to disrupt, defund and down-rank such sites.

Although fake news has been a topic in the media since at least the 2016 US elections, the troubling pandemic of disinformation regarding possible treatments of COVID 19 and the rampant spread of conspiracy theories around the virus’ origins have been making big headlines of late. Disinformation has also played a key role in disseminating hate speech online, not only helping fund white supremacist websites, but spreading misleading information about organizations such as Black Lives Matter on social media and beyond.

Becky McOwen-Banks is a Berliner from Class 23 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership. She's the Executive Creative Director at VaynerMedia and this is what she has to say on leading from a distance.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Aidis Dalikas is a Berliner from Class 25 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership. He's the Chief Growth Manager at SOMA agency and this is what he has to say on agency life after lockdown.

Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work.

*In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut