The Recursive Podcast

In episode 9 of The Recursive Podcast, we welcome Diana Stefanova, Vice President Regional Communities Strategy at VMware. Currently, VMware is the biggest IT company, operating in Bulgaria. In love with math from an early age, Diana Stefanova has a solid background in finance. Her expertise is in the strategic and business development of both startups and global companies. She started her career in technology startups in the US and quickly rose to leadership roles. Currently, she is also a partner in the venture capital fund BrightCapVentures and has supported and mentored a lot of startup companies in the SEE region. As a female leader, Diana Stefanova is a vocal supporter of gender equality in the tech world. In her conversation with Irina, she shares lessons and learnings from her leadership path. You’ll hear how she outgrew micromanaging as a new manager and learned to let go. You’ll also learn how she learned to anticipate the future and make sense of the megatrends both as a corporate leader and as a venture capitalist. Being capable to detach from details and easily switch contexts are her key learnings in nurturing a big-picture mindset. Diana Stefanova discusses what qualities she looks for in the next generation of leaders, with people being open to try new things and adapt quickly being on the top of her list. Stefanova talks about her experience at VMware leading remote teams, retaining talent, and adapting processes for the future of work. Technology is key in managing distributed teams according to Stefanova, but managers must compensate for the lack of tete-a-tete meetings with more conversations and openness. She shares about her transformative experience in the US, what made her come back to Europe, and what she learned from succeeding in another culture, both personally and professionally. She goes back in time to share how she overcame her natural shyness to be able to demonstrate confidence and get her point across. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episodes before anyone else.

In Episode 8 of The Recursive podcast, Irina meets the Head of Engineering of the American company Product Hunt Rado Stankov. A Bulgarian software engineer, Rado was one of the first employees of Product Hunt who developed into one of the best technical leads in the Silicon Valley. Rado is а frequent guest at tech conferences and podcasts, sharing his knowledge about productivity, product and time management, and working in a remote setup. Rado believes that Southeast Europe as a region needs to develop strong product thinking in order to grow and mature as a market. In his conversation with Irina, he shares what makes a good product manager. Hint: don’t think too much about the implementation details but what is the use-case and does it make sense for the customer. Rado landed his first programming job when he was only 15 years old, but he thinks that the ability to learn and be curious is way more important to become a good software engineer instead of starting early. You’ll also learn why at Product Hunt people are not glued to their professional roles but are rather encouraged to contribute with ideas on how to improve the processes in all areas. In the episode, Rado also gives some practical tips on how to be productive in a non-office environment and why giving clear success metrics to people as a manager is key. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episode before anyone else: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Or watch it every Tuesday on your favorite video or audio platform. Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit The Recursive website for more options | https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/

Episode 7 of The Recursive podcast welcomes a very special guest - motivational speaker, executive coach, and serial entrepreneur Peter Sage. Entrepreneurship is his game, but understanding human behavior, and the psychology of why we do what we do has been his passion for the last 30 years. Peter Sage has been traveling the world, writing books, giving lectures, coaching others, running marathons, trying to answer the question - how can we become better versions of ourselves. In his conversation with Irina, Sage talks about how chasing success for the sake of it is often an attempt to find external validation to fill in an internal gap. They explore what is the archetype of leadership, why do most people tie their self-worth to their net worth, and why courage is more important than skills when it comes to overcoming the fear of failure and embracing the fear of success. Sage opens up about his six-month stay in one of Britain’s toughest jails as the only non-criminal, because of contempt of court. He shares how he managed to turn that experience into an exciting adventure for learning and helping others. You’ll hear how he managed to get prisoners to trust him and help them get to a place of acceptance and contemplate where would their lives go next. You’ll also learn why does Peter count his failures as his biggest capital. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episode before anyone else: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Or watch it every Tuesday on your favorite video or audio platform. Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit The Recursive website for more options | https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/

In the sixth episode of The Recursive podcast, we welcome one of the pioneers of technology entrepreneurship in Bulgaria Georgi Kadrev. He’s the co-founder and CEO of image recognition company Imagga and Kelvin Health, а startup building a digital solution for early detection of breast cancer through AI. A software engineer by qualification and a go-getter by nature, Georgi is driven by the aim to create things that are useful to others. He is also an associate professor at Sofia University where he teaches Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In this episode, Georgi and Irina dive deep into the philosophy of running your own business and the evolution of one’s consciousness. A mission-driven leader, Georgi shares his journey to find the right co-founders, his lessons on how to retain the best talent, and how being aware of your deficiencies can help you empathize with others and lead by example. He also talks about the rabbit hole of constantly competing with others in your mind and why more opportunities occur in collaboration. Georgi opens up about his struggle with health during the push years of bootstrapping a company and how he developed a healthier lifestyle after that. You’ll also learn what are his hacks of keeping good mental hygiene. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episodes before anyone else: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit The Recursive website for more options | https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/

In episode 5 of The Recursive podcast, we welcome the Bulgarian human rights researcher turned social entrepreneur Iva Gumnishka. Only 27 years old, Iva is the founder of Humans in the Loop, a social enterprise aimed at providing refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants with marketable computer skills. Humans in the Loop is specialized in data annotation for the computer vision industry. Their employees perform manual labeling and verification to train machine learning models. The social enterprise collaborates with projects in the field of autonomous driving and flights, medical AI, Agri-tech, robotic vision, and others. Iva discovered her passion for helping people and pursuit for social change while studying Human Rights at Columbia University in New York. After graduating, she was determined to go back home and attempt to change the way migrants and refugees were perceived in Bulgaria. Since 2017, Humans in the Loop has impacted more than 500 people in Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. In her conversation with Georgi Nenov, Iva Gumnishka talks about her desire for independence that has led her on an entrepreneurship path. She opens up about her struggle to fund a social impact endeavor and what did it take to turn it into a sustainable business. Iva shares her vision of the role of humans in accelerating Machine Learning and AI processes and whether in ten years’ time society will still need human labor to help algorithms perform better. Leading with empathy, the social entrepreneur explains what are the qualities she values most in her professional relationships, and why she has a hard time saying “no”. You’ll also learn about how her partnership with her husband has guided her through all the milestone decisions for the business. Find out why Iva quitted belly dancing and what’s her secret to leading a more balanced life as a founder.

In episode 4 of The Recursive podcast, we get inside the mind of the serial entrepreneur and professional coach, and startup advisor Hristo Neychev. Currently, he is a partner at ST6, a company that delivers consulting services in the fields of software development, DevOps, cloud technologies, lean methodologies, and design thinking. In the last decade, he has been an advisor, trainer, and consultant to many entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 companies, and other business organizations. Driven by his passion for creating new products, Hristo has had multiple startup endeavors and a successful exit to Amazon. Before his entrepreneurial experience, he had an impressive corporate career as a sales and biz dev professional with global names like Shell, Essilor, Henkel, and the Bulgarian IT success Telerik. In his conversation with Georgi Hristo talks about how culture shapes our perception of failure, how he learned to fail gracefully, and what qualities he values most in leadership. He ponders about how do you know when is the right time to exit your company as a founder and why you should keep your mind flexible and “listen to the music of the Universe” when you reach a milestone decision. You’ll also learn how Hristo turned to Eastern philosophy in his pursuit of happiness and how daily meditation helps him understand and empathize with others better. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episodes before anyone else: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit The Recursive website for more options | https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/

In episode 3 Irina meets with the Romanian serial entrepreneur and angel investor Mircea Vadan. He’s currently a partner at Activize, a startup scouting and acceleration program in the Romanian and Eastern European ecosystems. Mircea is also a board member and investor in Transylvania Angels Network, an initiative bringing together business people interested in angel investing & mentoring tech startups. A computer science engineer, who’s passionate about entrepreneurship & tech startups, education, and training, in the last few years, Mircea has combined all these activities and co-founded several startups. In this candid conversation, Mircea opens up about his failures. He shares how he had lost his way doing multiple projects and how managing yourself and your emotions as a leader is no less important than managing your team or your product as a startup founder. You’ll learn about his quest for spirituality, following the path of the ancient practices of the Amazonian tribes. Irina and Mircea also discuss the growth of the SouthEast European vibrant ecosystem, is UiPath an outlier, and how its success is feeding the hopes and ambitions of the whole region. You’ll also hear what is Mircea’s favourite question to ask founders as an angel investor. Subscribe for The Recursive newsletter to get the episode before anyone else: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit The Recursive website for more options | https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/

In episode 2 of The Recursive podcast, we meet with one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Bulgarian startup community - Svetozar Georgiev - Zarko.  He’s one of the co-founders of Telerik, a dev tools software company that was acquired by Progress for $262.5M back in 2014 - the biggest to this date exit in the local ecosystem. Since then, Zarko has been focusing his efforts on sharing the learned lessons with the next generation of Bulgarian leaders.  He’s been driving the development of initiatives like Telerik Academy, an organization that provides education for the digital economy to people of all ages, and Campus X, a hub in Sofia that brings startups, investors, and corporate innovators under the same roof. Zarko is also a mentor to aspiring entrepreneurs and an angel investor in emerging high-tech startups like Printivo, Econic One, and LAM’ON. In his conversation with Georgi Nenov, Zarko provides his perspective on the development of communities with massive impact, the importance of the give-back mentality for the success of society, and the skills of the future. You will also learn about the culture in Telerik that brought the Sofia-based startup to global prominence and Zarko’s most influential mentor. Subscribe for our newsletter and get new episodes before anyone else: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Otherwise, you can find us on your favorite video or audio platform.  Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit to The Recursive website for more options and information| https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/

The first guest of The Recursive podcast is the co-founder and CEO of Office RnD Miroslav Miroslavov. He created a platform for flexible workspace management and turned into a global company with clients in more than 60 countries and employees on three continents. A software engineer with a drive for entrepreneurship from a very young age, ex-Telerik talent and tennis aficionado, Miroslav shares his views about risk taking, winning at all costs and how to nurture a growth mindset. You’ll also learn about what it takes for a SEE company to be successful on a global scale and how sport helps him be a better leader. . . Subscribe for our newsletter and get new episodes before anyone else: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Otherwise, you can find us on your favorite video or audio platform.  Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit to The Recursive website for more options and information| https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/

The first guest of The Recursive podcast is the co-founder of OfficeRnD Miroslav Miroslavov. He created a management platform for flexible workspaces and managed to turn it into a global company with clients in more than 60 countries and employees on three continents.    A software engineer with a drive for entrepreneurship from a very young age, ex-Telerik talent, and tennis aficionado, Miroslav shares his views about risk-taking, winning at all costs, and how to nurture a growth mindset.    You’ll also learn about what it takes for a SEE company to be successful on a global scale and how sport helps him be a better leader.   The Recursive podcast is your weekly wander inside the minds of innovation leaders across SouthEast Europe. Each week our hosts cozy up with a digital economy champion and dive deep into their life philosophy, values, leadership style, and personal development. Join us for inspirational stories on how to grow, learn and think big. Subscribe for our newsletter to get the episode before anyone else on Friday, July 23rd: https://share.hsforms.com/1ACuLc_V_QG2k_DyDgRBrng5ec6c Otherwise, you can expect episode 1 next Tuesday on your favorite video or audio platform.  Spotify | https://spoti.fi/3kqEyVW Apple | https://podcasts.apple.com/bg/podcast/the-recursive-podcast/id1576538398 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0t-WA2tlHRjOI9Pb6OTTmQ/videos or visit  The Recursive website | https://therecursive.com/channel/podcasts/