“You are a fool if you just do as I say. You should think for yourself and come up with a better idea than mine!”
(Holger Reinhard, CTO)
My professional past is a gift! I had the chance to work in different sectors with different responsibilities. In these positions, I had to work with various leadership and management styles as my line manager, customer, or partner. I saw what was working and what was not; I adapted some techniques for myself that I liked and left those behind that appalled me. As time passed, I started to see specific behavioral patterns with CxOs and other managers, so sharing my insights could at least create awareness, if not prevent a few of the destructive behaviors, which is why I started this blog.
I come from
Knowing your roots and reflecting on your past should be a must for every leader. We must understand that our current attitudes and actions derive from past experiences. Realizing your past successes and failures helps you recognize behavioral patterns and encourage or prevent them in the future.
- born in Mecklenburg during the Cold War / Waren (Mueritz)
- served in the Mechanized infantry, last military rank: First Lieutenant / Bundeswehr
- studied computer science in Berlin / University of Applied Sciences
- Java developer for various companies in Berlin /
- Head of Professional Services for a small software company in Berlin / ORTEC Service GmbH 🪦
- Head of Project Management Office for healthcare research project / Berliner Forschungsplattform Gesundheit 🪦
- CTO for a platform for dynamic video creation / Immoviewer
- Head of Product for a content management and publishing platform / ConWare 🪦
- Head of IT & Engineering (CTO) for a training marketplace platform / Haufe Semigator
- Head of IT, took over as CTO from Founder-CTO for patient recruitment company Clariness / Clariness
- CTO for cannabis startup Algea Care / Algea Care
- Head of Engineering, switched to Product Group Director for the German Digital Health Agency gematik / gematik
I was influenced by
Every now and then we happen to meet or learn of people in our lives that influence the way we think, communicate, or simply act - in a positive or negative way.
- My parents, they were both doctors and they showed what dedication for a job means. They used to work day and night in order to help their patients and to make their lives a little bit better each day. I always wanted to feel the same way about my work.
- Matthias Ort, Matthias was my first CEO and he put trust in me to build a new department. From him I learned to trust people who have a great idea and are passionate. I also learned to just start things and fix them along the way.
- Holger Reinhardt, Holger was the first CTO that I worked with who showed true technical leadership. Do you know these people that whatever they say seems to make sense? He could read a shopping list and you would still nod and think, ‘Yea, true!’. Holger taught me the importance of having a vision if you want to enable teams to deliver products E2E, and besides he’s great at tech!
I am inspired by
- Netflix’ culture of freedom & responsibility - “Everything is a service”
- Etsy embracing the code-is-craft philosophy and sharing the development successes and failures Code as Craft
- Amazon strictly focussing on customers and sense for developer experience - “It’s always Day One” & AllThingsDistributed
- Christina Wodtke’s “Radical Focus”, a real eye-opener for why focus in a startup is important and how to create it
- Sam Newman’s “Building Microservices” which just describes how software should be built using common sense
This infogrpahic by Nigel Holmes is a perfect display of how I am trying to structure my thinking as a people’s leader
