Grit trumphs smarts
I choose to believe that anybody can do, learn, and achieve, anything! But our journeys will be different. This mindset nurtures proactivity and challenges me to go outside of my comfort zone, to develop new skills, and to grow.
“Dreams don't work unless you do. The future depends on what you do today.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Leadership
My leadership philosophy is deeply influenced by Ricardo Semler, Tony Hsieh, and my coaches.
From Semler, I've learned to use team empowerment and collaborative decision-making to enhance engagement and drive innovation.
Hsieh's taught me to create a success-oriented environment, boosting productivity, and morale.
Sports have taught me to grow from failure, to communicate effectively, and how to motivate different people, essential skills to drive team performance in any role and organization.
I talk about leadership on TigerHall.
Data analysis
I admit. I’m a massive fan of Excel as a data analysis tool.
In April 2024 I completed Codecademy’s Tableau course and discovered its exceptional strength to transform data into compelling visual stories.
Tableau lets me present complex data clearly, facilitate strategic insights, identify trends, and drive strategic planning leading to better decisions and business outcomes.
See some of the Vizzes I created on my Tableau Public profile showcasing how they translate data into insights.
Learning languages
In school I struggled with languages. My mother and I tried to persuade the principal to let me skip since I loved natural sciences. We failed. Later I realized it was due to a lack of immersion. So I studied them where they were spoken. I now speak 7 languages.
Learning Chinese tones is hard. I used ANKI to build a set of 20k cards categorized by tones. A few weeks practice and I could distinguish them. Impressed with my progress my teacher asked me to share my method with her other students.
My language skills have helped me to develop empathy for different cultures and perspectives, to enter new markets, and lead diverse teams.
Entrepreneurship
A successful venture solves a challenging problem.
My first venture, Vizero, let hobby photographers earn money from their craft. We placed #2 in Imperial College’s 2005 New Business Challenge. Post MBA, I launched Groupon Belgium, and spent three years tackling major issues in my investor’s portfolio companies globally.
I’ve built startups in education, energy, lasers, and more, and supported founders as an accelerator mentor, a venture partner at a VC firm, and a co-founder at a hardware accelerator. These experiences have trained me to identify market opportunities, scale businesses, and to roll up my sleeves and deliver results through action.
Programming
My father bought me an Atari 1040ST when I was 10 and a PC 486DX50 when I was 12. I loved playing management games. One game, WCBM, made me want to learn to code to improve it.
First I learned BASIC and later did courses on HTML, Python, SQL, CLI, ML, Git,Tableau, Data Analysis, and Prompt Engineering.
This has helped me to increase productivity and cut costs by automating repetitive tasks, to collect and analyze data effectively, to design scalable systems that manage and share information, and to customize others' solutions.
See my courses on my Codecademy profile.
No-code
No-code methodology enables simpler deployment, rapid prototyping, and fast adjustments on feedback, with a focus on functionality and UI/UX. Its agility helps organizations to stay competitive while responding to changing markets.
Few things beats stand-up comedy for generating immediate feedback but no-code enables you to quickly react to feedback, in the technical domain, and I love how its fast turnaround helps to promote learning.
I’ve used Wix to build websites, like the one you are on, and Beanepic. I set up Salesforce CRM. I use Web Scraper and recently started to use Stacker.