Arseniy Vershinin is a co-founder and CTO of Personio - Europe's leading one-stop HR platform for small and medium-sized businesses. It helps small businesses across Europe manage common HR tasks like onboarding, payroll, and attendance accounting.

Coming originally from Russia, Arseniy moved to Munich in 2011. Here, at CDTM he met his future co-founders Hanno Renner, Ignaz Forstmeyer, and Roman Schumacher. And this is where the Personio story begins!

Tune in to listen to Arseniy's personal journey and experiences with running Personio, a company that's growing and reaching new heights of success every day.

This time, we had a very exciting talk with Awais Shafique - the co-founder and CPO of a FashionTech startup presize.ai.
After finishing his Bachelor's degree in his homeland Pakistan, Awais came to Germany to study Biomedical Computing at Technical University in Munich. As he was already very passionate about entrepreneurship at the time, Awais joined the Center for Digital Technologies and Management. And after just one year he founded presize.ai with two other Centerlings, Leon Szeli and Tomislav Tomov. Curious to hear about what we discussed with Awais? Then tune into our latest episode!

Dr. Sophie Chung is the CEO and Founder of Qunomedical - a digital health platform with a focus on medical travel that helps patients find the right doctor anywhere in the world. On the mission to empower patients worldwide, Qunomedical gives everyone the chance to access great healthcare - no matter who they are and where they are from.

Sophie, who spent five years as a Consultant at McKinsey & Company told us about her career decisions and instances that proved to be inflection points along her journey. As a qualified Doctor of Medicine and a truly global citizen who has studied in 3 different continents, Sophie was able to give her expert opinions on the state of global healthcare. Sophie told us more about her involvement with the 2hearts Community and the problems that she and her team at Qunomedical are attempting to solve.

Welcome to Season 3 of Mostly Awesome with our new hosts Keke and Maria! We are again talking to inspiring innovators from the world of entrepreneurship and technology to give you unique insights into their personal journeys, motivation, and opinions. Listen to our teaser to meet our new hosts and get a sneak peek at our awesome lineup of guests. As usual, we will be launching new episodes bi-weekly, starting on Tuesday 19th of October. We are looking forward to your feedback to podcast@cdtm.de. Follow our channel to never miss an episode!

Caroline Weimann is the founder and co-director of JoinPolitics. JoinPolitics aims to open unusual routes into politics by supporting and giving seed capital to political talent and applying the disruptive and innovative nature of entrepreneurship to politics. Caroline holds a Master’s degree in International Studies from SOAS - University of London and an Executive MPA from the Hertie School of Governance. Previously, she worked on building social ventures at Siemens Stiftung, at the EU Commission, in NGO consulting at actori and in impact investing at Ananda Impact Ventures.
2:27 Caroline's personal journey towards politics
Caroline explains the differences between social entrepreneurship and politics and why she chose politics. She also tells us what kind of work JoinPolitics is doing and how they are trying to bring the agile and fast-paced startup mentality to the political landscape.

22:56 Careers in politics
Caroline shares the challenges of a career in politics and why it might still be worth it. She also tells us what qualities make you a good fit for a career in politics.

Daniel Metzler is the co-founder and CEO of Isar Aerospace. Daniel studied mechanical engineering at TU Wien and aerospace engineering at TUM. During his studies in Munich, he joined the rocket technology initiative WARR, where he worked on special rocket engines and met his later co-founders - Josef Fleischmann and Markus Brandl. In 2018, they founded Isar Aerospace Technologies GmbH. Isar Aerospace builds satellite launch vehicles that are smaller, cheaper, and more sustainable than existing ones.

2:24 How it all started
Daniel tells us how he got into the aerospace industry and when and how he realized that he wanted to start a company in this field

08:10 Isar Aerospace: Aerospace technology made in Germany
Daniel shares what his founding experience was like and what fears and challenges he faced.
He also talks about what he learned from other companies and what the rocket prototyping process looks like.

24:08 The importance of space technologies
Daniel explains how space technology improves life on Earth and what functions satellites perform. He also tells us what the challenges and opportunities of a hardware start-up are.

Daniel Besendorfer is the CEO of Allianz Technology, the IT service provider of the Allianz Group. He studied economics in Freiburg and Boston and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg. He started his career as an executive assistant in the German life insurance division of Allianz. Daniel quickly took on leadership responsibilities and progressed through many different positions at Allianz for almost 17 years before taking on his role as Chief Executive Officer of Allianz Technology earlier this year.

2:40 Daniel’s role as CEO of Allianz Technology:
Daniel tells us how he got into this position and what it means to set the right guardrails as CEO of a large corporate.

24:33 Working at Allianz:
Daniel speaks about Allianz’s corporate values and how Allianz understands its social and environmental responsibilities. He also shares what Allianz is doing to bring women into leadership.

35:39 Innovation in the corporate world:
Daniel talks about how innovation is driven at Allianz and why an entrepreneurial mindset is necessary also in the corporate context. He also shares how decisions regarding the adaption of new technologies are made at Allianz Technology.

Alev Canoglu is the founder of the Munich-based non-profit organisation Female Tech Leaders, which aims to empower women in STEM and leadership positions and mentor tech-savvy girls. After graduating and working in the documentary film industry, Alev decided to change fields and studied computer science at LMU and TUM. Alev has previously led product initiatives at Siemens, Microsoft and Autoscout.

2:25 Alev's career path:
In the beginning, Alev tells us why she moved from the arts to the tech industry. She shares the challenges she faced and talks about the differences between these two fields. Alev also tells us why and how she founded Female Tech Leaders and what projects she is pursuing with it.

22:44 Women in the tech industry:
Alev shares her opinion on the status quo and speaks about what she thinks needs to be done next to achieve equal opportunities. Alev also tells us what she would advise every girl who wants to start a career in the tech industry.

Folkert Behrends is a triathlete and professional coach. After an accident in 2008, doctors told him he might never be able to walk again. But 15 months later, Folkert successfully competed in the Iron Man triathlon and became world champion in his age group. Building on this experience, he is now active as a speaker and as a coach for individuals, teams, and companies. In this role, he shares his insights on taking risks, believing in yourself, and striving for more, but also on patience and taking breaks.

2:17 Folkert’s thoughts on ambition:
In the beginning, Folkert tells us how he keeps the discipline to do triathlons and why he thinks time off and relaxation are important. He also talks about what ambition can look like for different people and the differences between ambitious or striving and status quo.

32:38 Turning adversity into opportunity:
Folkert shares how he turned adversity into opportunity in his personal story and what he learned from this experience.

Saskia Bruysten is co-founder and CEO of Yunus Social Business. After studying economics at EBS and LSE, Saskia started her career at Boston Consulting Group. After a crucial meeting with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus, she decided to go into social business, and they eventually co-founded Yunus Social Business. Saskia is also an active member of the UN Commission's Expert Group on Social Business, as well as a lecturer at events including the World Economic Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2020, she co-initiated the COVID Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs with the World Economic Forum.

3:02 Saskia's career path from consulting to social business:
In the beginning, Saskia describes how a typical day looks like for her. She also tells us how she decided what career to pursue after her time in consulting.

13:29 Saskia's experiences in social businesses
Saskia explains how to target a client group that doesn't have a lot of money. She also shares how YSB decides which companies to invest in and how they measure the social and environmental impact.