MilliOnAir Magazine July/August | Page 271

Questioning your own leadership strategy is a worthwhile endeavor. After all, one thing has not changed in our digital age: the necessity of attracting the best talents and keeping them around.

You sit on the board of a few institutions. Tell us your experience and what you hope to accomplish.

It depends on whether it is a high-tech company with a disruptive business model or an industrial company with a 100-year family history. You can certainly imagine that the conditions and the environment in both cases are very different.

While one side welcomes you with open doors, the other side slams them in your face. The opportunities and risks arising from innovation are thus interpreted in very different ways. This is exactly where I see one of my main tasks: Helping all stakeholders of a company better understand the challenges and opportunities for digital growth, value creation and investment.

You also share personal insights with people across the world through keynotes, panels, sessions, and events. What do you enjoy the most?

Of course, I get excited if I can add value to audiences and organizers through one of my keynote speeches or participating in a panel.

In addition, events such as The Mobile World Congress or Digital Asia are also a tremendous asset to me. The exchange with experts from a wide variety of topics offers new impulses and enables everyone to learn from each other.

For me, an event is particularly successful if I can give and take added value at the same time.

That word keeps popping up, “value”. A topic we have discussed often in our conversations. A simple word that has a lot more power than people think. Audiences are thirsty for knowledge and we can only do that when we actually share valuable insights.

What would you say have been some of your most memorable moments in life so far?

Yes, there are some experiences. By far the most dramatic was in 2004. I was on vacation in Thailand with a group of friends when the tsunami surprised us like so many other people.

I will never forget this December 26th. A wonderful sunny morning full of peace and quiet that suddenly turned into an inferno. People with whom we shared a dive the day before were lost or dead. Even today, 15 years later, it is still hard for me to talk about what I experienced that day.

In moments like that you realize that money or success have no meaning. Because both are easily buried in a fraction of a second under a huge wave of water and mud.

Thank you for sharing that Mike, I cannot begin to imagine what that experience was like. You were meant to survive it to create the greatness you have over the last 15 years and what is yet to come.

Your views about business and life changed after your experience with the Indian Ocean Tsunami, can you tell us more about that?

Above all, I learned one thing from this experience: nothing lasts forever! Everything has its time. And we should appreciate and use this time.

Since that day, I've been convinced that life is about making your dreams come true - and the joy of sharing with others, be it personal or business.

''Enabling digital growth to create sustainable added value for people, businesses and the environment.''