Why did you decide to become a mentor?
After 22 years in business, you accumulate quite a collection of experiences. Some are fantastic. Building a SaaS business from zero to a €20M+ valuation in under a year, for example, or watching a company you've worked incredibly hard on successfully exit. Others are the kind you look back on and think, "Well, that was an expensive way to learn something." I've had both. Plenty of both. And somewhere along the way, I realized that some of the most valuable conversations I've had in my career happened when someone experienced took the time to challenge my thinking, ask a question I hadn't considered, or tell me something I really didn't want to hear. That's what I want to offer. I genuinely enjoy getting into the messy details of a business, understanding what makes it tick, and helping someone work through a problem that's been driving them mad for weeks. Mentoring also gives me the opportunity to work with people at very different stages. A founder trying to get their first customers, a CEO whose company has grown faster than their ability to manage it, or someone preparing for their first executive position. Different problems. Different perspectives. Usually some fascinating conversations. After spending most of my career as the person ultimately responsible for everything, I find it rather enjoyable to help someone solve a problem without having to attend their Monday management meeting.
How did you get your career start?
I started my career in 2004, in a company with just three people, which, as you can imagine, meant that job descriptions were more of a suggestion than an actual thing. When there are only three of you, you get exposed to pretty much every part of running a business. One day you're dealing with customers; the next you're figuring out operations, finances, marketing, or whatever else needs doing. It was an incredible way to learn how all the moving parts of a company fit together and how quickly things fall apart when one of them doesn't work. Later, I moved into a large blue-chip company, and that was an entirely different education. For the first time, I experienced what a genuinely well-structured, well-run organization looks like at scale. Clear responsibilities, established processes, systems that worked, and people who actually knew what they were supposed to be doing. It was beautiful experience, and it taught me something I've carried throughout my career: good structure is incredibly liberating. When people aren't constantly fighting broken processes, chasing information, or figuring out who's responsible for what, they have the freedom to think, create, experiment, and do their best work. A well-run company can be an extraordinary place to work. From there, my career took some interesting turns. I moved across industries, business models, and roles, from technology and digital products to businesses operating in highly competitive and heavily regulated environments. I've built companies from scratch, launched products, led international teams of 200+ people, turned around underperforming operations, managed rapid growth, and navigated a $40.8M company exit. Some of those experiences were fairly conventional. Others were anything but. I've had to figure out how to make things work in situations where there wasn't exactly a management textbook covering the problem. Looking back, I'm particularly grateful for that unusual mix. I've seen how a three-person company operates, how a large corporation functions when everything is properly organized, and what happens in the messy middle when a startup grows faster than its systems, people, and processes can keep up. That range of perspectives is probably one of my biggest advantages today. When I work with founders, I understand why they need to move fast, improvise, and occasionally hold things together with duct tape. But I also know what a well-functioning organization can look like and how to build toward it without burying a 15-person startup under the bureaucracy of a multinational. Knowing when to introduce structure, how much is enough, and what should remain flexible makes an enormous difference, and having spent time at both ends of that spectrum, I genuinely enjoy helping founders find the balance.
What do mentees usually come to you for?
Usually, there's something they can't quite figure out: a founder has built a product but doesn't know how to get customers; a CEO is working 14-hour days because every decision somehow ends up on their desk; a business is growing, but profitability is going in the opposite direction, or a senior manager has just landed a C-level role and is quietly wondering what on earth they've signed up for. These are exactly the kinds of situations I enjoy working through. My experience covers business strategy, go-to-market, operations, financial modeling, fundraising readiness, organizational design, scaling, leadership, and executive career development. I don't arrive with a magical framework that supposedly solves every business problem in seven steps. I've been around long enough to be suspicious of those. I start by understanding the situation. What are you trying to achieve? What's actually happening? What have you tried? What do the numbers say? And, perhaps most importantly, what are we assuming to be true without having checked? Sometimes the solution is surprisingly simple. Sometimes we discover that the problem someone booked a session to discuss is a symptom of something entirely different. I ask questions, challenge assumptions, share relevant experiences, and help people figure out what to prioritize. For specialized sessions, I also encourage mentees to share relevant materials in advance so I can familiarize myself with their situation and we can spend our time discussing the important issues. I don't believe in giving people a 45-point action plan they'll never implement. If we can identify the three things that will make the biggest difference and figure out how to tackle them, that's usually a pretty productive conversation.
What's been your favourite mentorship success story so far?
There's one person whose career I've followed with particular pride over the years. When I was promoted to CEO, I hired someone to take over my previous role leading monetization. She came highly recommended, interviewed brilliantly, and seemed like exactly the person we needed. And then she started. Those first few months were... rough. She made mistakes, second-guessed herself constantly, and seemed almost frightened of making decisions. She was this tiny, timid woman who somehow managed to make herself even smaller in meetings. I was disappointed. She was clearly struggling, and I was beginning to question whether I'd made the wrong hiring decision. To make matters worse, I had just taken over as CEO, with all the responsibilities and chaos that came with it. My attention was elsewhere, and I wasn't giving her nearly enough support. Eventually, I did something I'd never done before or since: I extended her probation, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something there worth fighting for. Partly because I'd seen flashes of what she was capable of, and partly because I recognized something of my younger self in her. So I changed my approach. I started spending significantly more time with her. We worked through problems together, talked through decisions, examined mistakes, and gradually built her confidence. I gave her room to take ownership but made sure she knew she wasn't facing everything alone. And she absolutely blossomed. The hesitant person who struggled to make decisions became someone I could trust with increasingly complex responsibilities. She started exceeding expectations, taking initiative, and contributing far beyond the role I'd originally hired her for. Watching that transformation was extraordinary. The best part came later. After I left the company, my successor didn't stay particularly long, and when the business needed someone to step up, she was the person who took the reins and led it. The same woman whose probation I'd once extended. Over the years, we've continued crossing paths at conferences and industry events. Every time I see her, I get to hear about what she's doing, how she's growing, and what she's achieved, and I feel ridiculously proud, because I remember that frightened young woman who barely trusted herself to make a decision, and I see the capable, confident leader she became. She did the hard work. She made the decisions, learned from her mistakes, and grew into the person she is today. I was fortunate enough to be there for part of that journey. That experience also taught me something important about mentoring. Sometimes people need guidance. Sometimes they need someone to challenge them. And sometimes they simply need someone to see what they're capable of before they can see it themselves. I'm very glad I didn't give up on her and even more glad she didn't give up on herself.
What are you getting out of being a mentor?
I'm ridiculously curious about how businesses work. Tell me what you're building, and I'll probably start asking questions before you've finished your second sentence. I love getting into the details, figuring out what works, what doesn't, and why, and mentoring gives me a chance to do that with people building all sorts of things in markets and industries I might otherwise never come across. After 22 years, I still get excited about a good business problem. Apparently, that doesn't wear off. But there's also something I've come to appreciate more as my career has progressed. I've built businesses, grown profits, managed large teams, and been through exits. And while I'm proud of those achievements, some of my favorite memories are of people I've worked with who went on to do incredible things. Watching someone grow into a role they once found terrifying, or become a leader they never imagined they could be, is a pretty special feeling. If I can help more people get there, fantastic. And if one of them builds the next billion-dollar company, I fully intend to remind them that we once spent an hour arguing about their pricing strategy.
