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For this episode of Bite-sized Berliners, we caught up with Clarissa Biolchini. Clarissa is an alum from Class 20 of our Executive MBA and is a true creative leader. From a young age, Clarissa had a real passion for the arts. Influenced by her grandmother’s painting career and her grandfather’s passion for toy-making, she decided to pursue a creative field upon leaving Brazil at 21. Clarissa accredits her diverse creative career to the inspiration she has received in the many countries she has lived in – from various cultures she has experienced and all of the artistic people she has met. Bite-sized Berliners is our short-and-sweet podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Maria Reig Florensa of Class 19 is a recent graduate of our EMBA. She is a humanist, communicator and heart-based creative leadership executive coach. As a humanist, Marie studies at the crossroads of leadership, creativity and human values. As a communicator and executive coach, she designs, coaches and facilitates tailor-made, playful and artistry-based learning and development tools and experiences that support individuals, teams and organizations in unfolding their best selves in alignment with their values and ‘soul’ purpose. For her EMBA thesis, she thoroughly researched heart-based leadership. This is just a sliver into her research findings. Take a listen, wholeheartedly.

Marguerite Coetzee is an artist, anthropologist and futurist based in Cape Town South Africa. After getting her postgraduate diploma in Future Studies at the University of Stellenbosch Business School, she became an emerging fellow at the Association of Professional Futurists and started her own company Omniology in 2019, dedicated to “Breaking the barriers of research and strategy by merging anthropology, futures, marketing and design.” As she puts it [quote], “Anthropology provides me with multiple perspectives to understand where we come from, Futures Studies enables me to anticipate and shape where we are going.” Marguerite has worked as a consultant to a wide range of South African businesses and international brands, among them Royal Canin, Vodacom/Vodafone and Santander Bank. We spoke to her back in March.

Paul Glader of Class 12 recently founded a new business, Vett News, designed to help news outlets become more transparent with their audience and readers become more media savvy – at a time when public trust in news media is at a historic low. They’ve developed a CX tool, which is now up and running on more than a dozen partner platforms. Be sure to also check out the Forbes article Paul wrote explaining how to identify reliable news outlets: http://bit.ly/3p1AbPG

Arie Fabian is an alum of Class 21 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership. His journey in fashion began back in 1996 at Hugo Boss. A year later, he joined his father, Jeffery Fabian, in running his company Fabiani, developing it from a successful fashion retailer into a leading luxury menswear label, while in tandem opening multiple new shops across South Africa. This year, Arie co-founded a bold, new symbiotic business model that redefines the traditional retail ecosystem from both the customer and brand side. This podcast tells the story of We are EGG – an “authentic”, retail platform focused on collaboration, co-creation and co-evolution. Bite-sized Berliners is our short-and-sweet podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Meike Ziegler is an artist, multimedia designer and creator of extraordinary experiences. As the mastermind and creative alchemist behind The Creatual Lab, founded in 2009, her aim is to invite people out of their patterns of expectations, create unique spaces and offer impactful moments that invite reflection. Working out of her studios in Amsterdam and Berlin, Meike has devised over 120 creatual events and products for commercial enterprises, non-profit and cultural organizations and private clients. The purposes of these creatuals have ranged from honoring births and deaths, to celebrating openings and saluting closings and from stimulating engagement to easing transformation processes.Using everyday ingredients such as soap, chalk, vegetables, clay and even butterflies and participants’ heartbeats, Meike’s work invites people to find new meaning in the world around them.

Here’s a fascinating story about a German living in Switzerland leading a company in Tbilisi, Georgia. Folker Wrage is an alum from Class 10 of our Executive MBA. Today, he’s president of Leavingstone International, a branch of the digital creative agency he was originally hired to run as CEO during their challenging times of rapid growth. When the pandemic hit, priorities – and challenges – changed. Listen in to learn about the pivots Folker made and the insights he gained while leading from a distance. Folker’s story is part two of our Leading from a Distance series Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Nikki Davis Crump, Berliner from Class 6 of the Berlin School’s Executive MBA in Creative Leadership is the VP Account Director at Burrell Communications, a full-service marketing communications company known for its transcultural, multidimensional work. Listen in as Nikki explains how Burrell Communication’s ‘Black is Human’ campaign evolved from calling attention to the violence affecting young black boys to how the black community is disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. You can view the 'Black is Human' evolved campaign on YouTube. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Jihane Fadel, Berliner from Class 22 of the Berlin School’s Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is an independent creative director and a constant fighter for human rights who practices resilience on a daily basis. Listen in on her story and that of her city, Beirut: an eye-opening anecdote about how unprepared we are to face the rapid changes in our own cities. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

“In 2015, in the major design hub of New York City, 67% of the population was non-White, yet non-Whites made up only 29% of those employed in creative occupations.” This is just one of the disturbing and eye-opening statistics that Shani Sandy, a Berliner of Class 14, cited in her 2016 thesis entitled, “Is Designing with the Same Colors, Yielding the Same Old Design? – Investigating The Perspectives Of Black Graphic Designers In A Search for New Canons”. In recent months, discussions about structural racism have been spreading through organizations, communities and the media like wildfire. On the surface, the conversation appears to have quieted – but so many burning questions remain, so many statistics continue to stun, so much still needs to fundamentally change. It was the perfect time to hear from Shani about what the experience of Black design practitioners, such as herself, has been in the past, is currently and might become, given the optimal working conditions for their creativity and a less Euro-centric design curriculum that expands the definition of where design’s history starts, who its icons are and even how it should look.

Karolien Koolhof, Berliner from Class 22 of the Berlin School’s Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is the founder of Quiet Quality, a coaching and training company that empowers introverted professionals in their work and careers. She's also the author of a book on introvert leadership where she stresses the importance of neurodiversity in the workplace. Listen in on her expert insights on the lockdown’s positive and negative aspects for introverts, as well as how we can best shape our organizations in order that introverts feel more comfortable in the new normal and beyond. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Pepe Aguilar, Berliner from Class 21 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is a Mexican cultural artist and activist as well as the multi-award-winning Chief Creative Officer at Grey Wing New York. He launched his art and activism platform, Art Pepe, after having discovered more meaningful purpose for his visual work upon moving to New York four and half years ago. He recognized that capitalistic tools can be used for activism – in this case helping emerging majorities. With campaigns that empower culture and social action, his platform aims to bring Hispanic culture to a global stage to promote discussion around cultural innovation that strengthens the social fabric connecting us all. This is Pepe’s story on how the platform came to be and the force for good that can come out of a new era of tolerance and inclusion. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Chris Arning is a specialist in semiotics and cultural insight, with over 20 years of international experience as a planner, qualitative researcher and semiotician. Currently based in London, Chris founded his boutique semiotics consultancy, Creative Semiotics Ltd, in 2010, with the mission to make visible the meanings embedded within visual identity and communication in order to help business owners better manage the meaning of their brands. Over the years, he has designed and led semiotics projects for companies as diverse as Unilever, GSK, Paramount Pictures, Manchester City FC, Mini and the BBC. Originator and Co-Founder of the global Semiofest conference, ‘A Celebration of Semiotic Thinking’, as well as a writer, poet, speaker and thinker, Chris has taught at the University of Warwick and the University of Creative Arts and published essays in the Huffington Post, Admap, The Drum, New European and WARC. Chris views semiotics not only as a tool for brand strategy, but as an essential tool for helping us manage information, in his own words: “In a post-human world moving faster and faster, and filled with more data, meaning is the most precious commodity.”

The Vertical Social Club is a Berlin-based – and globally active – creative content and production studio all about ‘behind the sports’ storytelling. One of their most recent stories was that of Liverpool F.C.’s Sadio Mané, who’s life and career are featured in ‘Made in Senegal’ – the world’s first feature-length documentary about a black professional soccer player. In this Meet the Experts interview, Vertical Social Club members Lorenz Fendes, Founder and Managing Director; Jermain Raffington, Co-Founder and Head of Production; and Peta Jenkin, Senior Producer, take us behind the scenes to teach us about the two-year in the making-of story and what this new narrative in sports storytelling looks like.

Ethel Sanchez, Berliner from Class 22 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership, is a Brand Strategist, currently heading Strategy and Analytics for the Philippines' biggest independent agency, NuWorks Interactive Labs. She’s also a lecturer for the MBA program of the University of the Philippines and co-founder of Wheelhouse Collective PH, a consultancy group that specializes in micro-small to micro-medium scale enterprise strategy. Listen in to her mini-playbook on how she believes local micro-enterprises, born out of the pandemic, can survive the shift back to the new normal. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Andre Pulcino and Rodrigo Gonzalez, Berliners from Class 13 met earlier in their creative careers but rekindled their friendship and entrepreneurial spirits in our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership program. Andre is the founder and Rodrigo an investor of Tubites, which are healthy snacks made with nuts, fruits and other all natural ingredients, backed up by scientific and nutritional research. This is their meeting story. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Daniel Prianti, Berliner from Class 8, and Roberto Sirotsky, Berliner from Class 19 and our Cannes Creative Leaders Programme 2012, met at our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership’s Asia Module in 2017. Shortly after, together they founded BPool, a curated, pre-negotiated and transparent marketing services platform that connects companies with independent talent through one legal entity. This is their meeting story. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Craig Fagan is Programme Director at the Global Disinformation Index, a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization based in the UK that aims to provide advertisers, ad tech companies and platforms with trusted and independent ratings of the disinformation risks of news sites with the aim to disrupt, defund and down-rank such sites. Although fake news has been a topic in the media since at least the 2016 US elections, the troubling pandemic of disinformation regarding possible treatments of COVID 19 and the rampant spread of conspiracy theories around the virus’ origins have been making big headlines of late. Disinformation has also played a key role in disseminating hate speech online, not only helping fund white supremacist websites, but spreading misleading information about organizations such as Black Lives Matter on social media and beyond.

Becky McOwen-Banks is a Berliner from Class 23 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership. She's the Executive Creative Director at VaynerMedia and this is what she has to say on leading from a distance. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut

Aidis Dalikas is a Berliner from Class 25 of our Executive MBA in Creative Leadership. He's the Chief Growth Manager at SOMA agency and this is what he has to say on agency life after lockdown. Bite-sized Berliners is our “short and sweet” podcast series serving up fresh, under-10-minute food for thought that’s perfect to chew on while enjoying your favorite beverage. Tune in as Berliners* – both participants and alums – offer up their juicy observations on life and work. *In Germany, a Berliner is also a jelly donut