Productivity Mastery

In episode #112 of Productivity Mastery, we meet with Naveed Syed who is a global, experienced strategist, connector, and facilitator with business success in driving growth through innovative service excellence. He is a strategic systems thinker who excels at identifying high-impact opportunities, devising actionable solutions, and driving results through cross-functional excellence. Naveed is also a creative strategist with strong negotiation, interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to see the “big” picture to facilitate key decision-making processes and revenue generation. Naveed is recognized as an innovator consistently capable of creating new ideas and solutions to meet the most complex and ambiguous client needs and challenges. He quickly crests the learning curve of unfamiliar subject matter, disaggregating problems and developing /executing strategies for solutions that add value to clients. During our conversation with Naveed, he shared some curious stories with a focus on topics such as: 💡 Managing and nurturing relationships, 💡 Building sincere connections with your future clients, 💡 Mastering the art of networking with people we don’t know, 💡 Cultural awareness in the world of business. Tune in!

In episode #111 of Productivity Mastery, we welcome on the podcast John Paul Rollert who teaches classes in leadership, ethics, and politics at Harvard University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In this episode, the main topic centered around whether Leaders Are Born or Are They Created, and John Paul shared plenty of fantastic leadership techniques, valuable practices, and fascinating insights, including the following: 💡 Why empathy is important in leadership, 💡 How is leadership similar to learning how to ride a bike, 💡 3 lessons on leadership from working with Barack Obama, 💡 Why leadership is not for everyone, what is your personal leadership capacity, and much more! John Paul Rollert teaches classes in leadership, ethics, and politics at Harvard University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and his research focuses on the intellectual history of capitalism, the ethics of leadership, and the application of empathy to law, business, and politics. 2 Rollert has been published in The Business and Society Review, The Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Raritan, Common Knowledge, Critical Inquiry, and the Yale Law Journal Online. Rollert has also worked with the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, during his election campaigns in 2004, 2008, and 2012. In addition to his academic work, he frequently writes on business, law, and politics for a variety of popular publications. He writes the In-House Ethicist, a featured column for the Chicago Booth Review, and his work has been featured in The New Republic, Harper's, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, Slate, Fortune, and The New York Times. For writing featured in The Atlantic, he was recognized by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in its 2017 Best in Business Competition. A graduate of Harvard College, Rollert earned his JD from Yale Law School and a PhD from the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He serves on the Board of Directors of two start-ups, Envel and Global Alumni. Tune in!

Raya Drenski is a brand strategist, mentor and co-founder of a startup consultancy and several consumer brands. She believes that a better elaborate brand helps a company or a person thrive! So she devised the Brand Like a Girl workshop to help more people fight biases and better describe their inner richness. Tune in!

In episode #109 of Productivity Mastery, we go to the Space & Beyond of entrepreneurship, so buckle up! Space holds much more job and economic opportunities (including for you!) than you can imagine, so we invited a real Space Economy Advisor to broaden our perspective. Anilkumar Dave shared a lot with us, including: 💡 The state Space Economy is in right now, 💡 Space technologies are all around us - let’s explore, 💡 How can we save our planet through the Space work, 💡 Space might need your competencies, and much more! Anilkumar (everybody calls him Anil) started his career as ICT Projects Manager between Italy and India before moving to EU-funded R&D and Tech. Transf. (TT) initiatives representing public and private entities and focusing on the interaction between Res. and Ind. He has worked in sectors spamming from textile/clothing to footwear, from logistics to households, and from FMCGs to Agrofood. After his assignment as the “SMEs Innovation and TT policies” officer at the Institute for Industrial Promotion (aka Italian Min. of Econ. Dev.) he designed and led the “Research, TT and special projects” department for the largest innovation agency in Italy, thus helping SMEs accessing European and public funds (25+ M€) through collaborative innovation projects. During his tenure at the Italian Space Agency, Mr. Dave launched and directed the “Innovation and TT” Unit working on New Space Economy themes: start-ups, risk finance, IPR, tech transf., and later appointed Open Innovation advisor to the president. During his role as senior partner for the innovation hub INFINITE AREA he launched the first Italian advisory firm on Space Economy targeting non-Space companies. At present Anil is a member of the advisory board for the GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP NETWORK SPACE and senior advisor to policymakers, start-ups, and research centres on Space Economy themes and fundraising. Tune in!

In episode #108 of Productivity Mastery, we welcomed to the podcast the dynamic co-founder duo, Mario Calderón & Victor Sánchez. We talked about Making Culture a Priority from Day 1, and also about the origins of SkillMapper! Mario and Victor shared a bunch of practical lessons and stories, including: 💡 Teaming up with the right person - and why, 💡 How they deal with F-ups in the company, 💡 Methodologies vs. Reality, 💡 How to build a company culture that even competitors want to join, and much more! Mario Calderón is the Co-Founder & CEO of SkillMapper, an AI-powered ed-tech building the bridge between education and employment for young professionals. Mario has believed that education is the ultimate equalizer, and has always had an entrepreneurial mindset. Thus, his transition from the corporate world to an ed-tech founder became very natural as the world was amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In early 2021, he co-founded SkillMapper with a mission to empower young professionals to achieve their full potential through education. Before SkillMapper, Mario worked in Data Science and Partnerships for nine years at Meta (former Facebook). He was among the first Peruvians to join this juggernaut in 2012 and worked across various teams during his stints, from operations to partnerships. Mario holds a Double Master’s Degree in Marketing Research and Management from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and BI Norwegian Business School, Norway. Mario was born and raised in Lima, Peru, and resides in Paris, France. Víctor Sánchez is the Co-Founder & CTO of SkillMapper, where he covers all the start-up’s technology and product development sides. Previous to SkillMapper, Victor has worked in TATA Consultancy Services and LATAM Airlines, specializing in strategy, analytics, and operations. Through these experiences, he discovered the world of Data, Business Intelligence, and Analytics. Since then, he has been passionate about surfacing data insights and building architectures for big data projects. His last stints before joining SkillMapper were aligned to what later became SkillMapper’s ethos and AI-driven approach. After completing his Master's Degree, he joined a computer vision start-up as a Data Scientist. Victor holds an Informatic Engineer degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Victor used to be an e-gamer in his free moments, and he’s passionate about football and martial arts. Tune in!

In episode #107 of Productivity Mastery, we talk about something that we’re all affected by - the vast advancement in technology from the last couple of years. But luckily, Daniel Sih is here to show us how to become a SPACEMAKER in the Digital Age. He shared a lot of valuable facts and lessons, including: 💡 Keeping base and making space, 💡 What is neuroplasticity and how does technology affect us, 💡 The changes in people’s mentality after 2012, 💡 The importance of daily pauses and good sleep, and much more! Daniel is the co-founder of Spacemakers®, a productivity consulting group for busy leaders. His book, "Spacemaker - how to unplug, unwind and think clearly in the digital age," won the Australian Business Book Award in 2021 for personal development. As a trainer, coach and keynote speaker, Daniel has worked with CEO’s, executives, and other senior professionals throughout Australia and beyond, ranging from global corporations and businesses to universities and non-profits. He is the creator of best-selling productivity courses such as Email Ninja and Making Space (digital wellness training) with more than 20,000 students online and offline. Daniel lives in Tasmania, Australia with his wife, Kylie, and three children, Naomi, Caleb and Jethro. He also keeps fourteen purebred chickens, who eat a lot of grain and lay too few eggs. Tune in!

In episode #106 of Productivity Mastery, we were talking about How Using LEGO Bricks Improves Productivity. Luca Bruschi, Senior Service Owner at The LEGO Group, will trigger your creative side by showing you how Lego can transform your work life. He shared a lot of inspiring information, including: 💡 Problem-solving through Lego, 💡 How to structure your meetings and workshops, 💡 A visual example of how to use Lego to express ideas, 💡 The relation between storytelling, creativity and making connections, and much more! With 20+ years of experience in multinational companies, Luca has matured a strategic vision and pragmatic approach, that allow him to work across the IT and business worlds. He works in a diverse environment, where he is used to dealing with executives and engineers at the same time, with flexibility, prioritization skills, and multitasking ability. He is an experienced leader and business relationship manager who can bring technical information to the business level through an astute combination of creative energy, technical skill, and partner-&-internal-facing credibility. As a Senior Service Owner at The LEGO Group, he is responsible to maximize the IT Support value for all the users at the HQ. He is a strong communicator who brings leadership through public speaking engagements, including Microsoft TechEd, TEDx, and FifteenSeconds. Tune in!

In episode #105 of Productivity Mastery, our guest is the founder of Typerform himself! Many of you probably have come across their software or have read about them in the PERFORM book, but in this episode, David Okuniev shared with us the story behind the successful company and many lessons from the journey, including: 💡 What it’s like to lead a 500 people company, 💡 How to create a culture of accountability ownership, 💡 The moving-fast attitude, 💡 Establishing work-life balance, and much more! David Okuniev is the co-founder of Typeform. He currently heads the R&D team as a product designer/builder in charge of bringing new products to market. His mission to make the digital engagement a little more human resulted in the creation of Typeform in 2012, in Barcelona. With a focus on interaction, UX and UI, David and co-founder Robert Muñoz sought to create a platform that would enable brands to interact with customers in a dynamic, conversational way. David served as co-CEO of Typeform until 2018, during which the company raised more than $52 million in funding and earned more than 30,000 paid customers. David continues to lead R&D efforts to help Typeform shape the future of online interactions. Tune in!

For episode #104 of Productivity Mastery, we welcomed Diana Alice Florescu, a serial entrepreneur with an intriguing quantity of experience. We talked about Navigating Career Changes by Following Your Inner Compass, so this episode is perfect for those who have just graduated and currently stand at the crossroads. Diana shared a lot of enlightening lessons, including: 💡 How to understand your passions, 💡 Preparing yourself for the entrepreneur’s journey, 💡 Finding a job after you graduate, 💡 How to overcome social pressure for success, and much more! Diana Florescu is a serial entrepreneur. She is a founding partner at Grai Ventures, a venture building studio, and a board member at Wolves Summit. In the last decade, Diana held various marketing and strategy roles working with some of the world’s largest accelerators, tech conferences, and innovation consultancies. Diana honed her international experience having worked and studied in the UK, the USA, Qatar, Poland, Romania, and Germany. Diana holds a Master's Degree in Technology Entrepreneurship from UCL. Tune in!

In episode #103 of Productivity Mastery, we talked about a topic that more and more companies are aware of - neurodiversity! Did you know that 1 in 7 people has a neurodivergent condition, and this is crucial to be considered in order to help them do their best at work? Our guest was the incredible Theo Smith, who, being neurodivergent himself, is a leading advocate for neurodiversity and its opportunities that come along. In this episode, hear about: 💡 The importance of understanding neurodiversity, 💡 How to let neurodivergent people use their superpowers at work, 💡 Energy and time management for different types of thinking, 💡 How to achieve happiness at the workplace, and much more! Theo Smith is a leading advocate for neurodiversity. Passionate to raise awareness of neurodiversity, Theo has founded Neurodiversity At Work LTD to advocate the importance of neurodiversity in the workplace. Recently, Theo joined forces with Dynamis Group to help take neurodiversity to the top of organisations agendas via the CEOs and their leadership teams. Formerly, Theo has been the Recruitment Manager for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, enjoying a successful career in HR and recruitment, ensuring organisations had a diverse workforce and thrived. He has also been an advisor for TapIn and host of the Talent Hacks for Scaleups podcast. Sharing his expertise on neurodiversity, Theo helps businesses to have a better understanding of neurodiversity, why it is important and what the benefits of having a neurodiverse workforce can have in business. Spreading the message that an organisation’s employees are their biggest competitive advantage, Theo shares the importance of different skills, strengths, approaches and problem-solving techniques that are evident in a diverse workforce. Known for his love of speaking, Theo is now a popular choice as a speaker for diversity and inclusion-themed events. Sharing his experience of being neurodiverse as a passionate neurodiversity evangelist, Theo has formerly spoken for the likes of Wayfair and is commended for his concepts on neurodiversity in the workplace. Covering topics such as DE&I, neurodiversity at work, neurodiversity recruitment and being ADHD, Dyslexic and Dyscalculia, Theo Smith is the perfect speaker when looking for an expert on neurodiversity. Enjoy the episode!