About me
About me
Startup Junkie. Culture Enthusiast. Dual Citizen. Continuous Learner. People First Leader. Connecting with people, creating relationships - professional and personal, lights me up. That, and seeing startups soar!
Dream job title: “Chief Connection Officer”. That’s me.
My Story
I haven't had what some would call a traditional corporate career. I never even considered a corporate career, trying to escape the “conventional”. I landed in the corporate world anyway and over the last 20 years I’ve moved around in many different industries in Germany and the US in vastly differing roles. I lead teams of all backgrounds, shapes and sizes in very small to large global organizations. Eventually I found my purpose in being a people first leader and strategist, and helping others reach their full potential.
And because “conventional” never became my thing, and often feeling out of place in the traditional corporate world, I found myself drawn to startups.
I now have accumulated about 20 years in startup environments. I have been an early member with a number of startups in publishing, technology, SaaS, quick commerce. Some failed, some went on to become successful, one of them reached Unicorn status in record time and remains the fastest Unicorn in Germany to date.
While all these opportunities were exciting and demanding in their own ways, I observed that they all had very similar challenges when it comes to leadership and management.
All these challenges have the potential create major stress and take the focus away from prioritizing growth and scaling, from focusing on strategy and building the highly successful, efficient and people first organizations all startup leaders dream to accomplish.
Bad leadership and poor management cause frustration, create distraction, cause high turnovers and loss of essential early institutional knowledge. Worst case scenario - the lack of leadership excellence causes startups to fail!
Seeing and experiencing people suffering under bad leadership, losing my job more than once, having to tell employees that they lost their jobs, observing promising startups go under, were the catalyst to use my experience, passion and 15+year coaching experience to further specialize and become a certified Leadership and Intercultural Coach catering specifically to Startup Leaders looking to accelerate their own growth and leadership skills.
And now my mission is to support Startup Leaders to quickly scale their leadership competency to match the pace of their organization.
Certifications & Experience
Certifications & Experience
Kristin is originally from Munich, Germany, currently living in St. Barbara, CA.
She has held different positions in Operations and HR for all of her career and is currently the Head of HR for a Danish Startup in Southern California. Her Leadership journey began when she was 22 and in charge of over 80 Store employees at a large German retailer. Later she had a vital role in the expansion of this retailer into the US from an HR Leadership perspective. She is also a certified Business Coach.
Desiree is originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, grew up between Argentina and Germany and currently lives in Viera, FL
Desiree is a Certified Professional Executive Leadership Coach and Leadership Strategist with an international client base of highly motivated professionals and organizations who are looking to reach their next level of development and success. In her business Desiree focuses on supporting aspects of leadership and career development, organizational development and change management
Desiree has a strong business background with over 15 years of global, corporate experience and has worked with Fortune 500 corporations as well as small to mid-sized companies. She speaks fluent English, Spanish and German, and is versed in French and Italian.
