Tanja Dr. Prinzessin zu Waldeck turned her sitting room into an office just after she had her first baby – she used the space for her brand new startup, @NetMoms.

 Since then, she’s been a living role model for a variety of new & innovative working models, between working remotely and choosing flexible working hours, as she had three more children and built a career that took her from NetMoms to Tomorrow Focus News and now to COO at @Burda Forward. 

 This experience means that she embraces that flexibility as a leader too. “I think COVID showed us that you can run a company completely out of 800 home offices,” she tells me in this week’s podcast. “We don’t want to go back to 100% in the office, nobody wants that and I think it’s not useful anyhow. But we do expect people to invest 20% of their time in networking and team time.”

From my perspective at MyCollective I thought this was really interesting to hear from an executive level manager like Tanja – because this is something that we encourage new parents to do too, in the knowledge that networking (much like maintaining friendships outside of work) is one of those things that’s first to fall by the wayside when you have a baby. So whether it’s part of your corporate culture or not, I think aiming to invest 20% of your time into face time with colleagues or networking in general is a pretty good goal. It could be vital to your career at some point – as we say, “build the network when you don’t need it, so that you have it when you need it!” 

Speaker: Tanja Dr. Prinzessin zu Waldeck, COO @Burda Forward

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective 

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Tanja zu Waldeck / Burda Forward

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #getinspiredpodcast #ImpulseSessions #changemakers #leadership #sustainability #talentsustainability #parenthood #parents #workculture #newwork #network #stayintouch #workingparents #startup #womenleaders #parentalleave #elternzeit #changingthenarrative

Those of you who know me well will know that I’ve been on what feels like an eternal search for a role-model. It may even have been one of my motivations for founding MyCollective…

And yep – you’ve guessed it – that perfect role model doesn’t exist. It’s in the hundreds of stories lived by so many of you who constantly give me cause to stop and think and re-evaluate my choices.

But speaking to Ali Mahlodji for this week’s podcast I have to say – if you’re looking for a role model, especially a male role-model – I think we’ve found him 😊

Ali works with school-age children, corporate managers and NGOs to improve diversity everywhere from schools to businesses. So being a role-model is kind of what he does for a living. But his whole life story is a role-model for overcoming adversity and achieving success: after his parents fled Iran when he was a baby, he grew up as a refugee, had a stutter and didn’t graduate high school. Today he’s a member of the Forbes Business Council, an EU youth ambassador and a UNCEF ambassador; he runs his own business, has authored five books, given thousands of keynote speeches around the world and won dozens of awards, including the UN World Summit Award and Innovator of the Year.

We agreed that everyone can be a role-model, a hero for diversity. If you don’t have a community of like-minded people in your place of work, start one yourself. “You will see that maybe in the beginning you are only two people or three,” Ali says. “But then it grows. Don’t try to be the lone wolf. Find other men you can learn from and connect with each other, and then you will see you are not alone. Then there is a community of men who want to do it better than the people before them.”

We talked about how our workplaces have been transformed in the past couple of decades, driven not just by those change-makers, but also by the internet, financial crises and huge global shifts. We, as individuals, have an important part to play too – especially after big life events like parenthood. 

„When people take time off – and it can be traveling around the world, having kids, whatever it is – when you’re not your role for some time and you see yourself from outside, you’re like, I’m not going back that way!” he told me. “One day when you die and people are talking about your life,  you don’t want them saying, he was the guy who raised the share price by 4%. You want to be the person who was able to touch other people, change something. Think about how the last months of your life should look like – this is the end of your story. Always start with the end. Then you know what to do now.”

Speaker: Ali Mahlodji, founder @whatchado and @futureOne, author, investor, keynote speaker. 

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: @Stefan Joham/Ali Mahlodji 

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #diversity #changemakers #menfordiversity #leadership #equality #getinspiredpodcast #ImpulseSessions #parenthood #superpower #workingparents #parentalleave #elternzeit 

Sabine Scheunert’s big career breakthrough came when her son had just turned 1 and she got a call from Citroën, asking her if she wanted to move to China as the first female CEO of an OEM there. She said yes. “It gave me a lot of empowerment, a lot of trust,” she told me in this podcast. „I really tried to feel as empowered, as positive in my personal life. And you know that a baby is not as easy to steer and to manage as most probably a lot of big projects!”

She has been juggling parenting her son and managing her incredibly successful career ever since. She’s now VP at Mercedes-Benz, running Digital & IT sales and marketing globally. At the same time, I love how she says that her parental leave was “never-ending, because I will be always the mother of my son. And since he is born I try to combine family and career in the most positive way that I can.”

Now an executive herself, she tries to support women in the technology sector. Role models help, she says. She strongly believes that a bigger focus on digital education in Germany would help too. But there are also things that we can all do: 

⭐️ if you’re a parent – know that parenthood has boosted your skillset, have confidence, and go for those leadership positions! 

⭐️ if you’re a manger – don’t be afraid to recruit new parents into leadership positions. Sabine says that taking that CEO position even though „combining private life and career was clearly a particular challenge at that time, was one of the best decisions.” 

👉 At MyCollective we keep hearing this: that a big career opportunity during or right after parental leave can really be life-changing – and it’s something that parents will still tell us about years later, as an example of how supportive their management was. 

Either way, go for it! 🙌

Speaker: Sabine Scheunert, VP Digital & IT Sales/Marketing @Mercedes-Benz Cars 

Sabine is not speaking on behalf of Mercedes-Benz in this podcast and all opinions are her own.  

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Sabine Scheunert / Mercedes-Benz

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #womenchangemakers #womenleaders #womenintech #IT #digital #leadership #diversity #equality #careers #femalecareers #diverseworkplace #getinspiredpodcast #ImpulseSessions #parenthood #workingparents #parentalleave #elternzeit #mercedesbenz

“After women, people with disability are the biggest minority.”

D&I – diversity & inclusion – suddenly seems to be on everyone’s agenda. At MyCollective, our focus is often on the diversity part – but in disability activist, founder and public figure Raúl Krauthausen argues that what we should all be focusing on is inclusion, in the broadest possible sense.

“D&I actually used to just be called ‘inclusion’”, he tells me in this podcast. “And inclusion is essentially the acceptance and management of human diversity. It’s not something you can tick off a checklist – but something that develops over time. So we have to keep fighting for everyone to be thought of and remembered.” 

For him, the cause of feminism – so central to our conversations about diversity – illustrates this perfectly: over 100 years after women fought for and won the right to vote, there still isn’t adequate female representation in our businesses or political leadership. “It’s never over,” he says. “The further we come in the debate, the more injustices we uncover. 100 years lie between the female right to vote and today’s discussion about female quotas. Inclusion isn’t something passive. It means that someone with a disability can be the CEO.” 

As founder of Sozialhelden, he lobbies for legislation to make this happen. It’s about removing barriers – both in the physical and in the metaphorical sense. With Sozialhelden, he developed “a kind of google maps for people in wheelchairs” – WheelMap – one of many examples that show how disability (or just a diversity of needs in general) can drive innovation: “Alexa, Siri, Kindle, the electric toothbrush – these are all inventions made with disability in mind. There’s huge innovation potential around creating access for people. We need to stop seeing disability as a deficit – it’s also a chance for a different perspective on the world.” ❤️

For companies who want to remove barriers and create more opportunities for different-abled people, he has some excellent advice (which incidentally works for anyone wanting to include more people from any kind of minority!): 

👉 create job ads in a way that are more inclusive. Stop using language that might exclude certain groups and discourage them from applying. 

👉 consider hiring for diversity and then providing training to get everyone up to standard. Those trainings are useful for everyone, he says: “We ask everyone, regardless of whether or not they have a disability, the same question: how can we remove barriers in your place of work? People always come back with a lot of ideas!” 

I learned so much from and was so inspired by this conversation with Raúl that I can only encourage you to listen to it too (it’s in German) – and we’d love to hear from you too – what are your ideas to break down barriers? 

Speaker: Raúl Krauthausen, Activist for Inclusion & Founder @SozialHelden 

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Anna Spindelndreier / Raul Krauthausen 

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

What if you could take an established business and transform it into exactly the kind of company that you would like to work in?

As CEO of the Swiss company Trisport AG, Melanie Lauer was able to do just that when her company acquired the sporting goods brand Kettler.

Many of us will remember Kettler as the name on most of the sports gear of our childhoods – but although it’s an old and well-known company, the business behind it was rebuilt from scratch when Trisport acquired it: “it was like a start-up,” Melanie told me in this podcast. 

A mother and CEO herself, she knew what she had to do to build a solid workforce and retain those talents in times of labour scarcity: “Flexibility, in every way!“

A lot of businesses offer some flexibility, but then their approach to that flexibility is somewhat… inflexible. So if you’re on an 80% model and take Fridays off (as an example), there’s often zero room to manoeuvre within that model. At every conference and business event I go to, I also keep hearing CEOs and heads of HR departments talk about wanting to get people back into the office – so the old ideal of having people sit at their desks at work remains alive and well.

And yet having flexibility in where and how you work is incredibly attractive for anyone – not just parents. So I was all the more inspired by Melanie’s approach. At Kettler, flexible work isn’t just a daily or weekly adjustment of working hours – it’s geographic, it’s seasonal – it’s personal. 

“I’ve got one colleague who moved to Spain because he thought Spain might be a nice country to live in,” she says. „We offer sabbaticals. And we have a seasonal business, so a lot of colleagues work overtime in the winter and then work less in the summertime. It helps everybody. And it helps us to keep the loyalty of the people. They really want to stay with the company because there are benefits that they do not have somewhere else.” 

Speaker: Melanie Lauer, CEO @Trisport AG

Interviewer: Dr. Ricarda Engelmeier – Founder @MyCollective

Music: sponsored by @Michaelkadelbach

Picture: Melanie Lauer 

Graphic & Production: MyCollective

#getinspired #podcast #inspiration #MyCollective #womenchangemakers #womenleaders #leadership #diversity #equality #careers #femalecareers #diverseworkplace #getinspiredpodcast #ImpulseSessions #parenthood #workingparents #parentalleave #elternzeit #flexiblework #newwork #businesstransformation #kettler