I write about radically inclusive leadership.
My biggest professional achievement is building a purposely inclusive and courageous culture in fast-growing start-ups, from inception to scale-up. To differentiate yourself and your technology startup, you have to be radically inclusive to tap into the total addressable market of engineers and live up to the expectations of people who care.
I led remote-first product teams in the past decade by creating high trust environments through async communication and conscious inclusion (vs. unconscious bias).
This newsletter aims to share my experiences and insights (fails and wins) as a technology leader.
Why so radical?
Diversity and Equity are outcomes of Inclusion. This publication aims at sharing failures and insights on how to become more inclusive and create psychologically safe spaces to think, learn and compete.
My goal is to affect the fundamental nature of leadership prevalent in the tech-startup community and probably in most of our business world.
I advocate for social change, practicing the most progressive leadership style possible through conscious inclusion, calling out unconscious bias.
That’s why I chose the word radical (in addition to having the domain available, haha).
About Me
🌍 I have lived in London 🇬🇧 since 2016 and grew up in Berlin-Kreuzberg 🇩🇪🇹🇷. My mom is from Serbia 🇷🇸, and my dad is a Swabian🇩🇪. I speak more Turkish than Serbian. It doesn‘t mean much 😂.
💃 Strong females influenced my life. 💍 I am husband to a 🔬scientist and 🏋️♀️feminist (a.k.a. The Boss). My mother couldn’t write or read until she was 40 and moved from Serbia to Berlin for a better life working as a cleaner.
💾 I love Emacs and some good old Yak shaving for my fellow nerds. If I had a tattoo, it would be a Ruby tattoo (my first intimate and loving relationship with programming).
📚 I love reading with a 90:5:5 ratio of non-fiction to fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, history) to learn and serve people around me.
🏀 I play street ball, 🛹 love to skate, have deep roots in Hip-Hop — as a competitive breakdancer🕺🏿and freestyle rapper 🎙 and crew head. I fought for the Horde 😈 (World of Warcraft) and Midgard in 👑 Dark Age of Camelot, which gave me invaluable remote leadership skills.
Mini-CV
Co-founder and CTO @ Zencargo, London-based supply chain optimization startup (7-figure monthly revenue). Sunday Times Tech Track Winner: Ones To Watch. Tech Nation Upscale Alumni. $25m raised. Backed by LocalGlobe (LG) and Holzbrinck Ventures (HV).
Co-founder and CTO @ bonusbox, Berlin-based e-commerce loyalty platform (marketplace). 4m users, 70% in Brazil, 30% in Germany). $9m raised from Wellington Partners and Otto Capital.
Co-founder and CTO @ urbanvention, Berlin-based development agency. Built 12 prototypes in 12 months. We built the technology behind Carhartt-wip.com (designed by Edenspiekermann).
Senior Engineer @ SponsorPay (Fyber)
Software Engineer @ Distributed Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Freie Universität Berlin
Software Engineer @ Mediapeers
