The People Factor

Andreas "Andi" Stryz is 39 years old and the co-founder and CTO of FINN, a leading auto subscription company. Passionate about automation and the no-code movement, he oversees the development and implementation of FINN's technology roadmap and brings exceptional leadership skills and a focus on delivering results. Outside of work, he enjoys running and is known for balancing work and play with ease.

Shownotes
00:00 - intro & context
06:28 - Starting from scratch with a team and the first product
18:35 - When to replace a CTO as a founder

Links
Andreas - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreasstryz/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

Leading recruiting teams is just one aspect of her professional life; she also thrives as a hands-on recruiter. Anaïs is deeply involved in sourcing and enjoys sharing her best-kept secrets with others. With over a decade of experience in various forms of recruiting (including executive, high-volume, and specialized tech recruitment), she is always eager to enhance her skills and learn new techniques. Most of these insights are shared on LinkedIn or on her website, www.thecuriousrecruiter.com.

In addition to her recruiting expertise, Anaïs is a freelance coach, specializing in leadership, career, and productivity coaching.

🌎 More information can be found on www.thecuriousrecruiter.com.

🔔 For insights into talent acquisition, recruiting wisdom, career development, leadership, and productivity, follow her on LinkedIn.

Shownotes
00:00 - intro & context
06:21 - Learning executive recruitment
19:51 - Executive vs none executive hiring
26:31 - Bar raising in hiring
31:21 - DEI & executive hiring

Links
Anais Neumann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anaisneumann/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

Nichelle Appleby is a Total Rewards Leader with nearly 15 years of experience helping organizations build fair pay programs. She founded Work Imagined, a compensation consultancy, and created The Dignity Standard, a culture and DEI concept that helps companies create a healthy culture to support the development of collaborative and high-performing teams. Nichelle is from the US, born and raised in a small town in Georgia, and now lives in Berlin, Germany.

Shownotes
00:00 - intro & context
07:50 - DEI & Compensation, equity
10:32 - The dignity standard
18:30 - Wealth building
25:30 - Pay gaps for similar roles

Links
Nichelle Appleby: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nichelleappleby/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

With over 12 years of recruitment expertise, Alexandra's journey includes significant contributions to N26, particularly in building out the Brazilian market. Her role in orchestrating a pivotal turnaround in the US showcased her prowess in assembling talented teams. This commitment extended to leading recruitment efforts in the UK and Netherlands at Moss. Now, as the Head of Talent Acquisition at Enpal, Alexandra leverages her extensive experience to drive recruitment strategies in the sustainable energy sector.

Shownotes

00:00 - intro & context
06:15 - Expansion from a Talent Acquisition perspective into Brasil
15:45 - Expansion from a Talent Acquisition perspective into the US
23:45 - Chaos vs structure in scaling

Links

Alexandra Meyer - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-meyer/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

Sebastian has built the Finance & Internal Operations Team at Taxfix from Series B beyond Series D. He has played a vital role in financial planning, implementing scalable accounting and people systems, fundraising and internal communications at Taxfix. Sebastian holds an honours degree from the University of Oxford and is a graduate of Bucerius Law School, Hamburg.

Shownotes
00:00 - intro & context
05:41 - Finance stages from series A to series D
16:41 - Growing a finance team from series A to series D
24:41 - Headcount planning from series A to series D

Links

Sebastian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/flysebsch/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

Annika is an HR executive who went trough roles in HR and consulting, most notably her current position as the Director of People & Organization at ABOUT YOU, where she leads the People & culture function while going public. Before this, she was a consultant focusing on M&A, Digital Transformation, and Organizational Design.

Shownotes

00:00 - intro & context
05:22 - HR from a Private Equity & Strategy perspective
14:52 - Pre-IPO in a people function 22:00 - IPO process

Links

Annika Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annika-in-der-beek/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/ Thomas e-mail: [email protected] pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

Jochem van der Veer is the co-founder & CEO of TheyDo - a journey management platform. Before starting his latest venture, he has been working as a design leader helping to transform companies in the Fortune 500 to work more customer-centric. With a background in UX and Service Design, he’s currently helping to solve one of the biggest problems at the Enterprise-scale: systemically aligning customer needs to business impact.

Shownotes

00:00 - intro & context
07:47 - Journey mapping
14:17 - Funding and from agency to SaaS
28:17 - Remote work: Superpower vs Risk

Links

Jochem van der Veer - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochemvanderveer/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

Rudi Bauer was Managing Director of StepStone Austria from 2014 to the end of 2019 and also Chief Evangelist of StepStone Group from 2018 to 2020. He now has 29 years of management and leadership experience in the telecom, IT and advertising industries. In addition to his current role as CCO and Managing Director at WeAreDevelopers.com, he is also co-founder of the Vienna-based agency active concepts, focusing on corporate culture, coaching, strategy consulting and team development.

Shownotes

00:00 - intro & context
05:54 - Hiring engineers in 2023 and beyond
08:39 - Job fairness report
13:54 - WeAreDevelopers & Developer communities
19:24 - Social demographics and engineers, female engineers
26:54 - Management & Leadership

Links

Rudi Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rudi-bauer-1b325813/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

00:00 - intro & context
05:29 - CTO Coaching & the role of a CTO
15:29 - Goal setting, OKRs in Tech orgs, Vision vs Opportunity driven
24:09 - Scrum & delivery methodologies
28:14 - AI impacting software development

Links

Stephan Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanjschmidt/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/
Thomas e-mail: [email protected]
pplwise: https://pplwise.com/

Jamie is an HR executive with a track record of building up core pillars of HR with the aim to carry a company onward through maturity and growth journeys. Her last 20 years’ experience leading EU-based, international HR teams in Germany and Austria, coupled with her American upbringing, she applies a unique perspective and balance of HR practices.

Her strengths cover diverse areas such as global applications of HR practices on local levels, implementing effective core processes of People Operations, integrating competency management into the daily business of managers and long-lasting leadership development approaches. Jamie is Berlin-based, with her husband and children. They enjoy exploring new cultures and rarely miss a Dodger baseball game!

Shownotes

00:00 - Intro
07:36 - Change fatigue
17:21 - Partnership, transactional work

Links

Jamie Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-t-2baaa47/

Thomas Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-kohler-pplwise/

Thomas e-mail: [email protected]

pplwise: https://pplwise.com/