In this episode, Epiko co founder Romina da Costa interviews Max Gelmann, founder and chief Stroodler at the Pasta Straws Company. A former strategy consultant, Max started Stroodles about a year before the COVID-19 crisis hit -- and he shares strategies for pivoting his brand, exploring new revenue streams, and creating sales funnels while weathering the storm.

Christo Schutte, founder of The Game Within believes in helping high achievers go to the next level and find balance and meaning in their lives. Christo, an executive coach for 15 years, counts among his clients Fortune 10 executives, FBI leaders, and professional athletes, and he has been active in helping his clients adjust and respond to COVID 19, particularly as they shift their businesses into the virtual space.

Dr. Kristina Soukupova straddles many worlds in her career, leading a consulting business that works with corporate and government clients on defense and security matters, working with NATO's Innovation Hub, spearheading a nonprofit organization, and lecturing at universities. In this podcast episode, she shares tips for working across sectors, and her experiences working remotely for several years with NATO.

Julia Westfall, owner of HeraHub D.C., joins Epiko co-founder Anne Spear, in discussing the importance of community to small business -- particularly in the COVID-19 era. At HeraHub, Julia brings women entrepreneurs and business owners together by providing not just physical space, but also programming, networking, and support structures for building something new. Julia explains how she has moved the community online in response to COVID-19, and the surprising new possibilities the virtual space has opened up.

Natalia Gelbovich has several years of remote management experience working with global colleagues across Europe -- many of whom she has never met in person! In this week's podcast episode, she shares unexpected tips for communication, conflict management, and hiring for remote work.

Missteps in communication can thwart engagement, creativity, and collaboration on teams -- especially when working remotely. In this episode, we interview Katrina Pugh -- lecturer in Columbia University's MSc in Information and Knowledge Strategy program, and founder of AlignConsulting. Katrina shares with us what she calls the Four Discussion Disciplines (4DDs): Integrity, Courtesy, Inclusion, and Translation, and how to use them to promote collaboration, innovation, and productivity through dialogue.

Working remotely, do you find yourself struggling to maintain those all-important relationships with members of your teams, and have you lost the joy that the human connection can bring to your work? Mirko Serkovic, a Natural Resource Management Specialist at the World Bank, has successfully navigated the challenges of remote management despite the cultural and linguistic differences he needs to navigate, working with teams across West Africa. In this episode, he shares some of his insights into finding human connection, joy, and meaning in remote work.

Has your company found itself thrust into remote work due to the COVID-19 crisis? Or perhaps you were already dabbling in remote work, and the trend has just been accelerated. This episode features Drew Morrisroe, founder and CEO of CTN Solutions, with some of the tech, human, and security considerations that are crucial to success in the virtual world. Learn more about us at www.epikoteams.com

What do we mean by “difference” in a global business context? Most global forums and cross cultural trainings talk about difference in terms of time, greetings, food, or the structures of businesses.  The differences we are interested in are more subtle: differences in communication, approaches to collaboration, the context in which we understand the world, our past experiences.  How we approach these subtle differences often determines the quality of the relationship.

In this episode, Epiko co founder Romina da Costa returns to the topic of cultural awareness covered a few weeks ago, in the episode about Geert Hofstede. This episode gets into some of the shortcomings and limitations of Hofstede’s model, diving into Epiko's ideas for a deeper, more complete, and more applicable model for cultural awareness in the workplace.