My Biography
If I had to pick two leadership skills worth practicing, I’d go with kindness and curiosity.
Hi, I am Robin. I am a leadership strategist and entrepreneur operating at the intersection of strategy and organizational change… and the open ocean. I help executives develop and execute strategies for organizational transformation by combining leadership practices with an entrepreneurial mindset and technological understanding. The result: Systems that actually work in dynamic environments and develop teams that are robust enough to survive the next crisis. My philosophy is simple: Leadership starts where control ends. It's the art of activating people toward a common goal, even when the context shifts. I don’t just teach this but I live it. As a founder of the venture capital firm Njordis and the education company Global Institute of Leadership and Technology, I’m a builder first. For more than a decade, I’ve been advising leaders and executives across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas on how to develop progress-driven teams. I also work with HR teams to design organizational learning programs that not only deliver content but instead focus on behavior change and actual skill adoption. I don’t hand out generic motivation. I partner with you to fix problems, seize opportunities, and move from stagnation to progress. Over the last decade I:→ Worked with 3,000+ executives on their transformation efforts to deliver results in dynamic environments across Europe, the US Asia, and the Middle East.→ Designed leadership development strategies for Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa, Volkswagen, and Banco Santander, among others.→ Advised 650+ founders and startups on strategy, fundraising, scaling, and organizational development.→ Taught leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation at universities including the European Business School, Frankfurt School, the University of Barcelona and NYU.→ Advised global bodies like the European Commission and the World Economic Forum on innovation ecosystem strategies.→ Built ventures in software, education, healthcare, logistics, and retail — and am now launching an investment platform to scale innovations in the blue economy In my work, I’m most interested in what people do when things are unclear. Not what they say in slide decks, but how they sense the next step, adjust to take action, and challenge their decisions. I believe leadership should feel real and that kindness and curiosity are key skills to focus on. And that the most useful question is often: “What’s one thing we can do by the end of today?” If you’re looking for someone who brings structure without rigidity, energy without theatrics, and clarity without fluff, I’d be happy to talk. If there’s good coffee and a marker in the room, even better.
Essays
Allowed to Matter: Designing Work as a Place of Becoming
The debate about the “future of work” is missing the point. The real question is the future of the human in work. Research shows that five conditions (financial stability, safety, growth, voice, and autonomy) determine whether people can meaningfully contribute. When these conditions are absent, disengagement a structural outcome and a leadership issue. Leadership’s role is to activate people, and HR’s role is to shape the conditions and design the environment that makes activation possible. Work becomes worth caring about when we design it as a place of becoming, not just production.
The Discipline of the Knot: Why Learning That Feels Easy Fails Fast
We forget up to 80% of what we learn within 7 days. And yet, we stop practicing the moment it feels easy. Most learning fails not because it’s hard, but because it feels too easy. We mistake initial confidence for competence like a sailor who practices a knot a few times and moves on. Real mastery begins where comfort ends: in repetition without supervision, when skill becomes memory. Learning that lasts isn’t about knowing once; it’s about tying the knot until your hands remember what your head forgets.
Calibrating for Weather You Haven’t Met Yet
Executing harder is often just a way to avoid admitting the conditions have changed. Adaptability isn’t a vibe; it is strictly the speed and quality of your updates. Most teams fail because they are more loyal to their old routine than the current reality. If your behavior doesn’t change after you learn something new, you haven’t adapted. True calibration means matching your effort to the wind you have, not the wind you remember.