Sophie Bieber is the Head of Global Employer Branding at SAP. She started her career as a Tech Recruiter and then changed roles within HR as a Project Manager and afterwards a Global Experience Designer in Palo Alto, California. After enjoying a glimpse into the life and workstyle in the US, she returned to the SAP HQ in Walldorf, Germany, where she first took over the role of an Experience Manager and then became the Head of Global Employer Branding. Besides leading the Global Employer Branding team, Sophie is an advocate of Diversity and Inclusion and incorporates this passion into her personal, as well as her team's mission at SAP.

In this episode, Sophie shares her refreshing modern perspectives on the future of Employer Branding, Diversity and Inclusion, and what it means to be a leader in Tech. For her, it is not only about gender but also about diversity of thoughts: transcending country borders, religions, experiences, and age groups; all these and many more aspects give a person a unique voice worth being heard. With this perspective at hand, it becomes apparent that companies' current measurements of success and output need a rework. With Diversity and Inclusion taking more ground, we see an evolution of what companies focus on, rising mindful interactions, utilizing the full potential of our uniqueness, and more. To sum it up, Sophie shares her advice on how to tap into and make diversity and inclusion work for you.

Anastasios Vanis is a People Manager and Finance Solution Engineering Lead for Pfizer Hellas. He is creating, modelling and fine-tuning data analytics solutions, collaborating with different international teams, deriving valuable insights from the data.

In this episode Anastasios highlights his path from consultant to first time people manager. He talks about his why and the reason he pursued to become people manager. He talks about his perspective on team size and agility, his experience on scenario based people management interviews and that failing is part of the learning process. Be mindful of your words, because on the basis of what you choose you shape your team, your culture and even your thought process: #GrowthMindset vs #Fixedmindset. As a continuous battle: Train your switch! We finish our this weeks podcast with how to reflect and take time to think of improvements.

DISCLAIMER: At the time of recording, Anastasios was working as a Manager and Finance Solution Engineering Lead for Pfizer Hellas S.A, Center for Digital Innovation and the content of this podcast does not reflect Pfizer’s positions, value and or perspectives.

Igor Guss is part of Ingram Micro Cloud, a dedicated global business unit to support channel partners’ Cloud adoption globally. After holding various individual contributor roles, such as BDM Cloud or Partner Manager Cloud, he was promoted to take over and expand the newly founded Infrastructure-as-a-Service business unit with responsibility for Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Within the last 2 years, the unit grew to now 15 full time employees showcasing not only the accelerating adoption of the German Cloud market for IaaS services, but also the strong focus Ingram Micro Cloud’s on delivering outstanding value-add to their partners. Next to his love for sports, you can always have a conversation with Igor on US Late Night shows or book recommendations for personal development.

In this episode Igor highlights his milestones to become a people manager. In the podcast he explained the steps to create a team out of blueprints and what sources to leverage to get started with a newly formed team. He unravels his challenges as people manager: retention. Further more he reveals his most important aspect of leadership: trust and transparency. With the two pillars of stability: he shares how to get the buy in and contribution of your team with the right LEVEL of transparency and engagement.

Carson Heady has been with Microsoft for 8 years, across SMC and Enterprise Health & Life Sciences as an AE, Azure SSP and ATU Director. He was recognized as the #1 social seller at Microsoft after generating and influencing in excess of $100M in deals thanks to digital tools, and a winner of Platinum and Gold Club, Champion Award and Impact Award. Carson is best-selling author of Salesman on Fire and the Birth of a Salesman series, a podcast host and professional speaker. He consistently ranks in the top sales gurus and sales authors in the world. He lives in St. Louis, MO, USA with his wife Amy and daughters Madison, Sidonia and Charlotte.

In this episode Carson highlights his path from a sales individual climbing the ranks to now be a director at Microsoft after various individual contributor roles at Microsoft. In the podcast he explained his observations of the two major camps in tech: Sales being one of them. He unravels the misconceptions around sales, why sales skills are important to people managers and how to use the skills for you and your team's advantage. He taps into the realm of: How to manage your career in a fast moving environments, displays his view on career ladders and and what Carson’s next endeavor to conquer is to reach his next level to display how to present your value at work in a meaningful way and articulate the value that you bring.

Sarah Engel is a Senior Managing Consultant at IBM and Community Lead of Trustworthy AI for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She is creating, modeling and thriving highly productive teams and by doing so help customers especially in the Healthcare and Life Sciences sector to drive innovation and change with trust and the power of Data & AI.

In this episode Sarah highlights her path from consultant to a community lead. She talks about the leadership opportunities everyone has and how to get started on your leadership journey without the need for becoming a disciplinary manager. Starting from finding the right mentor and advancing on interest based fellowship. She elaborates further on building a community nurturing company visions step by step and which pitfalls she experienced along the way.

Alexandru Paval is a Senior Automotive Tech Lead and the Company Owner of Nokto Studios, consulting other companies in creating highly productive teams and much more ranging from consulting on embedded Automotive specific to prototyping IOT solutions.

In this episode Alex highlights his path from an Engineer to a functional leader to a full blown people manager.

Ferjan Ormeling is FastTrack Area Manager for Germany at Microsoft. His team of Modern Work Architects are part of Microsoft 365 Engineering team and they help German enterprise customers in their transition to the Microsoft productivity cloud, aka M365. He has been working at the company for more than a decade and recently celebrated his 15 year anniversary with us. In this episode Ferjan shares with us that mindfulness comes in many facets. He leads his team located in Germany from the Netherlands. Doing so he shares the differences in geography, culture and how to build a meaningful and personal relationship with every team member regardless of physical distance. Due to Corona he was unable to meet everyone in his team in person, but with restrictions easing now is the time to travel and reflect.

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