From Sports to Success: Unveiling Leadership Strategies

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David, I'm really happy to have you here.

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It's always a pleasure to, talk with people who are so experienced in the tech.

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And you are super experienced, I would say, because you have the background, so the business background.

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And currently you're connecting the role of the CTO, CPO.

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For many years, you worked on the eBay, the so, like, one of the, I think, the biggest marketplaces

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in, in in in Germany.

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Now we are involved in Mobila.

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And while I was living in Germany, it was, like, huge thing.

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So if you look for a car, you you know the website.

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And you made so many different things.

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So I'm just wondering, after so many experiences, what is the next role for you?

01:12 - 01:17
Yeah. I I actually, stopped thinking about the next role.

01:18 - 01:22
It's more, trying to do it in the here and now, a little bit.

01:23 - 01:27
I think it's more additions to the wall.

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I think as you stated, I gained a lot of experience through consulting through my, current role

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in in Mobilia and and, being happy about delivering valuable products, to millions of users every month.

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So it's more looking into what of this experience and knowledge can I give back to the community?

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Maybe this is also one reason, why we're talking here.

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So, I'm thinking about, advisory roles, for example, to really help, also early stage startups,

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in a way in in going faster or, trying to prevent from making the same mistakes over and over

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again that we did in the past.

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So I'm looking into advisory roles, but at the same time, there are just so many things that

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are still, worthwhile to do in Mobina.

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I mean, there's a lot of change in the automotive industry.

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Only looking at electric vehicles, the whole change to greener mobility, all the uncertainties

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that are out there in that space, but also other changes like, people actually trying to buy

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cars fully online, where the car industry was kind of the last resort where actually people

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went to the dealership and, did a test drive and so on.

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But you see this kind of deemotionalization of cars a little bit, also in Germany, where this

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is a real big thing, where people tend to, subscribe to cars, or, basically buy online.

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And this is introducing another level of complexity that we try to make simple, as a platform.

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So let's talk about the mobile that, I'm just wondering what is your current, team structure?

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In house, outsource, how do you structure it?

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Yeah. We have a mix of in house and external.

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So, Product Technomobile is roughly 350, 400 people.

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The majority is still internal, and I think there needs to be a healthy mix in that.

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If you lean into something too much, you will see the downsides quite heavily.

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So when we work with externals, it's, mainly to speed things up, when we scale up new businesses

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or, if we decide that a certain product is maybe, nothing we wanna have as the core of our business

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anymore and kind of phase it out a little bit, that we handed over, to excellent parties to

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to run it, in a way for us.

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But what we want, to avoid is, kind of being too dependent on external parties when it comes

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to core aspects of our business because this is not healthy, and risk in itself.

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So we believe in in in managing that quite consciously.

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At the same time, external parties, and this is, I think, the the second aspect of it, do bring

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in new ideas, new energies to teams.

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So we see it as a valuable addition to our teams, also bringing subject matter experts, in certain

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fields to actually, immerse ourselves with this knowledge, where it's maybe harder to hire someone,

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if you then have this lone fighter in your in your organization, where then the question will

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become, how do you develop these these people functionally?

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How can they grow also in terms of career if they're maybe the only person doing, doing a certain thing.

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So that's where excellence come in.

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A strong belief we have is externals shouldn't be just, treated as yeah.

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They are this is a separate team, and they don't really belong to us.

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For us, externals are actually part, a real part of our teams of the rituals, and so on, so

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that they really understand, like, what is our business direction, how we are working, how we

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are dealing with with stuff, also our culture to, to really have this belonging, kind of thinking in there.

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Okay. And regarding the team structure and what you said, I'm just wondering who is your partner

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in crime with whom you work the most?

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Yeah. So maybe there are 2 or 3 answers to that.

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I'm as I'm leading product and technology in Mobila, so my teams are basically product in the

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sense of product managers, head of products, then technology, all the engineers, data engineers,

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data scientists, and so on.

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And then it's also UX, and in my case, also organizational development, which is kind of a special case, in a way.

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So the people I'm working most with is my direct team, that consists of head of technologies,

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head of product, head of UX, head of data.

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And, we work kind of in in an org structure that is based on the customer journey, then structured in groups and teams.

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So maybe different naming for a couple of things, but, you may see some similarities, to other

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companies out there, who published a little bit, about that.

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So we believe in autonomous teams, end to end accountability, and ownership for certain parts

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of the customer journey, a certain domain, and in true cross function work, and this doesn't

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end with product and tech.

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It's really like if you look at the consumer upper funnel, you will have marketing in there.

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You will have, analyst in there, and so on to really understand, like, user acquisition, user

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retention, and these kind of things.

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So that's the first part of the answer.

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The second part of the answer, I'm part of the Mobilia management team, which, then is basically overlooking the company holistically.

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And, when it comes to that, my biggest partner in crime is potentially the COO, so the chief

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operating officer, where it's really talking about what are the priorities, what is the strategy

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of our business, and subsequently of our product? So, he's called Johan.

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I'm called David, and we get this cool mixed up name, Jovid, when we are together on stage.

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So I think that says a lot.

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That's a great answer. And regarding the challenges that you are having, combining the CTO and

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CPO, I I've seen this is kind of, like, getting really popular.

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So you have this concept of CTPO.

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And I'm wondering, in your case, what are the biggest challenges that you face, being in this role?

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Yeah. Next to being asked the question about a CPTO or CTO and CPO, which is always nice, and, answering that shortly.

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I think there's a good time for a CPTO and a good context for CPTO, and and there's also good

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time maturity of a company and context for having both worlds, separately.

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So there's no white or wrong there, I guess.

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In looking at challenges in my role, I think, one of the biggest evergreens is how do we actually

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balance creating user value and, putting in time and functional excellence or reducing technical

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depth, however you wanna, you wanna call it.

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And that's not easy. And in a way, it really comes together where product and tech meet.

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So it comes together in this kind of wall, in a way.

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And you could can put worlds around that, but then still it's not that, it's like, a thing that just solves itself. Right?

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And I guess the second aspect is, and maybe also an evergreen, it's creating the organization

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and the processes and the environment, to actually enable productive work.

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And, if I'm thinking about, like, what's actually my role in this organization, it's basically

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that together with my team.

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And maybe last comment on that, and I think that it's nothing that is reserved for the CPT overall,

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but for every c level wall in a way or every leadership wall actually.

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And one mentor of me put it quite nicely.

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He said, as a leader, you need to decide the undecidable, and this will always be a challenge to do that.

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That's a that's a good good answer.

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And I have one common problem.

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As I mentioned to you before, I talked with my colleague who is c p CPO, and he he asked me,

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like, could you ask David this question?

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And I just wanted to ask you because I think it's a huge challenge, especially in in your role too.

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So how do you decide, and what is it, like, maybe the process behind it?

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Do you, if you want to build the feature, or do you need to terminate the feature?

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Because sometimes you have the features that needs to be terminated.

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Like, what is the decision making process behind this?

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Yep. And as history shows, it's always easier to start building stuff than to say goodbye to stuff.

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So maybe that as a first comment, building stuff is quite straightforward.

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I mean, a lot of companies evolved around the ideas of business cases, to actually start something big and new.

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Like looking at starting from, hey. There's a user problem.

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We kind of are in a position to actually tackle that problem.

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And we have ideas how you can solve it with a product, in a way.

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And then of course, you ask yourself the questions like, how big is the audience?

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How confident are you that you can solve the problem and is there actually, also a good business reason to do it. Right?

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Because what we do is actually we wanna, solve user problems or customer problems, and By that,

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also having a sustainable business.

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So that's kind of straightforward because, everybody knows there are different metrics you can use for that.

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We know how to measure a successful business.

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At least, there is, measures that are used worldwide, for that.

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But when it comes to terminating products,

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it's for me a lot more emotional also from an organizational perspective.

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I mean, people invested potentially years of their professional life building a certain product or product suite.

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And, and it really needs a lot of diligence, to actually ask the question.

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Should we actually stop a product?

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And, I think there are a couple of signals or indicators, that you can use.

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I talked about a little bit of function excellence, technical depth, and so on.

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And if your team doesn't go every year, you will, kind of experience that when you build and

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build and build new products and features, the complexity of platform grows.

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The artifact ownership per person or per team is increasing, which kind of sends a couple of

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small signals, you should listen to.

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So if your product development life cycle is not also looking at terminating products, you will

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see effects of that in terms of platform health and so on.

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So we do not have, like, a review cycle where we look through all of our products on a quarterly or yearly basis. That's not worth reviewing.

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But everyone is free to kind of come up with, hey.

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This piece of product, there's not so much business value anymore.

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Can we please look at how much effort it is to actually keeping it afloat in a way?

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And, these kinds of kind of conversations we have for a couple of products each year, where

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we then decide, like, what's the right way to go forward with that.

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Because, at the end of the product development life cycle, it doesn't necessarily need to be

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you just shut it down.

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And sometimes you have legal obligations to have a product for a certain period of time because

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you handed out contracts for it.

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So this plays a role.

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And then also, maybe it's a conscious decision to evolve the product or we factor the product

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in a way to make it relevant again. Right?

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So that's kind of the basic thinking.

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And let's discuss a bit more the market trends and how do you approach following the market trends.

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Because what you said about the EVs, this is not the hot topic.

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And I have a feeling based on my experience as a leader, you always look how you could lead

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people better, how you can help them to communicate and deliver the value.

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But on the on the other hand, you're trying to help those guys and find the right trends and,

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like, set up the long term strategy based on your market research and based, I don't know, on

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the market trends that are there.

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And I'm just wondering how do you approach it. Maybe you read something.

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Maybe you go to some conferences that are really important for for yourself.

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What is your what what is your process here?

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Yep. That's maybe the one challenge I forgot, on your question earlier.

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The constant learning aspect, in a world where your day job, takes a little bit of time, and

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then your family, friends, hobbies, hopefully, hobbies.

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So, it's also it's not only the question of are you still willing to learn, but it's also a

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question of being efficient, around that.

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So for me, it's really trying to combine a couple of things.

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I'm active part of a couple of CTO groups.

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So getting insights and knowledge from from these other leaders in the industry.

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Throughout my whole career, I had mentors and coaches, to actually have someone to talk to, about certain things.

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And then it's also learning through podcasts and books.

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In my case, more audio audiobooks.

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And I touched on being efficient around that.

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Usually, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while commuting on my bike, or while training, basically, running, biking.

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It's a little bit harder in swimming, but, you can also do that.

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And then, I have a couple of newsletters.

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I read, like, TLDR and these kind of things, to at least, understand, like, what are the key

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themes out there and then dig deeper, if I feel, that's valuable, in the end.

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But, this is still one of the biggest challenge, especially if you if you kind of as a profile,

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I consider myself a generalist. It's technology. It's product.

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It's general management, in a lot of, ways.

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So there are just a lot of topics that you could lose yourself into, basically.

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So it's really also a question of, how deep do you go into certain things?

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Like, and then lastly, it's, also by visiting conferences.

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And it spans from, automotive conferences to kind of, tech, gatherings and so on.

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So really meeting a lot of people.

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And I think, like, especially in area, like, of the the the new market, especially in attack,

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I I see there's a lot of, like, new tools each day, new libraries, new approaches to build the

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products, and it's really tempting and it's really hard to decide.

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Like, should we go this way, or should we, like, rewrite our product?

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And I'm just wondering how do you identify and decide on your tools because I because those influence the whole teams. Right?

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It's like you have a huge huge team, and I could imagine, like, based on my experience that

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that the developers, for instance, they are going with, like, a bunch of new different things

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each day, and I say, like, hey.

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We should go this way.

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But at the same point, you need to make the decision and probably, it's really tough to find

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yourself within all those tools.

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So how do you decide if you go this way or that way, regarding the new tools that influence the whole teams?

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Yep. That's the beauty of a kind of big organization, in a way.

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So you don't have to do this all on your own.

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So, for collaboration tools, I touched upon, the organizational development team.

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So a lot of, these kind of insights come from them.

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And usually, we do one test, with small user group first, trying to figure out, like, does it really fit our needs?

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Is it, really better than the tools we use so far?

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And also for develop experience, we have a platform team figuring some of the things out.

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We're part of a bigger portfolio of companies.

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So you also have, like, Adevinda or parent company, defining kind of a golden pass and path

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of the develop develop experience, where they really, also gather insights from all the portfolio

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companies, like, what worked, what didn't work so well, to kind of, not find the perfect solution

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because I think there is no perfect, especially if you have, like, a diverse set of, of companies and needs.

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But actually trying to gather, this insight and then test, evaluate, and and and bring it to the people.

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And, for for mobile, we, also won innovation days, once a quarter for 3 to 4 days where basically

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people are free to just test things out.

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And this is, this is kind of interesting because a lot of, the things that are done there, like,

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I would say, like, 60% of the things, are really, like, trying to build new product ideas.

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MVP is trying to test something out.

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The other part is is about developer experience, and tools, and new frameworks.

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Like, figuring out, could this be something we should pick up in a way?

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And, when it comes to additions to our tech stack, then obviously, this go through, like, architecture

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decision records to actually put it on our tech radar and adopt it.

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But the innovation days are really like this safe space in a way, to really test, like, is there

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a reason to adopt certain things?

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Are there any tools, trends, ideas, or concept that you are really passionate about recently

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and you are, you know, getting in into the detail of it? I

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mean, it's it's potentially not only me.

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It's the whole world right now. Right?

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It's I mean, the the the opportunities and challenges with AI is, what has been the, dominant

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theme for last couple of innovation days, actually.

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And, I mean, it's it's a lot of playing with the opportunities and trying to understand, like,

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where does actually add user value.

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Because I think there are a lot of things out there that are done for the purpose of doing stuff with AI, right now.

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Not too much that is actually providing sustainable user value.

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And I think finding this sweet spot, where it's actually helpful and how do you, productionize

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it in a way is where a lot of our attention is in those innovation days.

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And the next one is actually early December.

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So really looking forward to that.

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How often do you do do those?

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Quarterly. Quarterly.

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Okay. Okay. Okay. And, I have another question that I wanted to ask you about, like, organizing

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the the the the teams, and maybe you could have some advices or tips for other leaders.

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How do you successfully deliver the product and especially in the teams that are so like, you

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have in house, you have outsource, maybe you have different time zones.

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Some of the peoples are remote. I don't know.

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Do you have any advices or tips what worked, in your case, in such a highly distributed teams

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to make the delivery of the product successful.

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Yeah. I mean, the good thing for mobile is, we're kind of, all, located in roughly the same time zone.

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So a lot of our, people are located in Germany, especially, like, all the people that are working

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internally for us are located in Germany.

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So that's fairly easy in terms of time zone, but we're not an real office first company anymore.

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I mean, there was this major incident worldwide, that led to us being a remote company for quite some time.

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Now we're back with, at least the office option, I would say.

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And, but we are holding that quite flexibly.

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So there's no, no pressure for you to be in the office, for example.

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I think our policy says something like, a minimum of 4 days a quarter, or something you need

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to be in the office, and nobody checks.

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So that's, that's kind of the policy right now.

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But what we're saying as Mobila, is, hey.

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We wanna have these moments.

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The moments where teams come together because we believe that, magic happens when actually people

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come together to create stuff.

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So innovation days is a good example where we try to kind of also provide a couple of things

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that make people come to the office and do magic.

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And it's, the the these moments are, of course, best case celebrations and stuff like that.

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Or when it comes to, creative work, like people in the room white boarding and trying to figure out something.

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And the last aspect that is pretty important, from my point of view is, that you, as a leader,

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for your team reflect, like, are we maybe a team that is in the forming or storming phase?

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Because there, I believe, like, coming together as a team and doesn't necessarily have to be

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in the office, is worthwhile to actually come to this performing stage at at a certain point.

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And, for us, that works quite well.

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If the reflection is there and the teams really understand like where they're at, I think that that works quite well.

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And for working with externals, as I said before, it's really making them part of the rituals.

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Making them part of the teams To actually have them experience exactly the same.

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And that works quite well.

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And then, of course, we're working with a couple of, of partners, more like in the near showing

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space, for example, where it's not so easy to just meet in person, tomorrow, maybe.

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And, I think the one learning also and also that is basically true in every hybrid or remote

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setup is, the additional investment you need to do in proper communication

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can't be overestimated. So it's really a lot you'd need to do additionally.

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And it doesn't really like, communication doesn't end when you just put a post somewhere in

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a Slack channel with 400 people.

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You will see it in the reactions, not 400 people will will read it.

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So kind of, transporting strategy or transporting a key decision is not done by just one post in a Slack channel.

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It really takes more, and it takes more effort than in the office days.

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The over communication is the key, I think, in this case. Right? Yeah.

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So you you think you think it's already clear, but it's not.

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You need to do it in a couple different ways, maybe in different meetings, on a different occasion.

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So, that makes a lot of sense.

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And, David, based on your experience, I'm just wondering, and I'm asking, like, each of our

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guests about the most important lessons learned that you have have had as a technology or a

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product leader that changed maybe something that changed your mindset or some some lessons learned

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here, if you could share something like that.

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Yeah. I think there are couple there, and, I I think we could spend, like, 2 days talking about any discussion.

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I think on on my leadership journey, one of the hardest things was getting used to delegating,

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and I think I'm not alone with that.

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But when you're coming from from worlds and positions where you did a lot yourself, and we're

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also confident about doing things yourself, then it's, feels kind of strange, in a way to kind

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of delegate and kind of lose your grip a little bit.

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And I think, for me, it needed that moment, in a way where I couldn't handle anymore doing all the things myself.

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So, really learning it and also experience, like, people will do things much better than I did. So, that's great.

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And now I'm fortunate enough to have a team where, where I can, where I can delegate freely

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and, and, it's it's also a matter of trust of knowing each other and so on. So, that's that's great.

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The other piece, and that's this in a way is it's 2 pieces connected in a way.

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When I, became CPTO, another mentor, said to me, yeah.

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Get used to not seeing the impact of your work, anymore, like, directly.

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It will take months, years for you to actually realize if something worked well or did not.

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And I was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

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And, there's a lot of truth to that.

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This kind of self efficiency that you actually see I'm doing that and this is the impact of that.

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When it's so diluted and so far away,

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it can have the effect that you question if you actually have impact at all.

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And then we're talking about often the imposter syndrome, in a way. So, that's real.

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Especially, like, giving you're in a more or less generalist type of wall.

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The impact of your actions can't be really measured, in the day to day.

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And then, you really ask yourself the question, like, what the heck am I doing here? I like it.

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That is is it really valuable?

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And, I think one big realization over time was you're not alone with asking this question.

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I talked to so many leaders, and basically everyone experienced these kind of, these kind of

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phases where you really doubt, like, really having an impact what I'm doing.

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And, also, like, can I actually do something?

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Do I know something and these kind of things?

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I think that's normal in a way, but normal doesn't mean that it's always easy to deal with.

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Man, I I cannot agree more with that.

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So it's so hard to get any kind of gratification.

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And in most cases, those high leadership role roles, you get you are getting heated by so many

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problems, and nobody is saying, like, great job.

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And and, like, mostly are heated by the problems.

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So plus the long term vision that you have and to have some kind of, like, idea about it. Yeah. Yeah.

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I I fully agree with that.

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It's so it's so difficult. It's so difficult.

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And the last question that I wanted to ask you because you mentioned the audiobooks, you mentioned some conferences, some podcasts.

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Maybe was there something particular helpful for you?

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Or maybe you could share some podcast that or audiobooks that you are racing listened to recently. It would be great.

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Yeah. Sure. I think that there's also one evergreen, I always, I always mention, in this kind

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of question, coming from having been in different worlds in global organizations, I think, the

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culture map, by Aaron Meyer is, is a foundation everyone, should have, read, in a way.

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So it's really trying to make you understand that the way you function, the way, you've been

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going up and, you've been accustomed to in in dealing with people and with conversations and

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so on is not the way everyone else in the world is is is is is going up to.

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And, on the website, there's also a cool test where you can, where you can basically test yourself

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and, see, like, what kind of communication profile you have and and these kind of things.

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So I've I found it really helpful to also understand why, you've been perceived in a in a in

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in a way, and and, how certain interactions work or may not work in global organizations.

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And then, lately, I've been reading the diary of a CEO.

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Not that I wanna become CEO, today or tomorrow, but, I think the subtitle is something like,

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laws of business and life.

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And it's taking you through, I think, 30, 40, 50 kind of rules or, or laws, that are true for

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life and for business and, and making you hopefully a better leader, if you understand them.

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And there were a couple of refreshing things in there, that I liked.

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And the last one maybe, totally different, category of book.

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The limit is just me, from Jonas Eichmann.

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He's a, adventure, extreme, sports person.

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And, I mean, I'm considered considering myself sporty. I did milestones.

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I did an iron man and these kind of things.

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But this guy did an iron man around the world.

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So 120 times the swimming leg, then 120 times the bike leg through Siberia, and so on, and then

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120 times marathon, through Mexico in consecutive days, all of that. Right? In the pandemic.

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And this book is about his journey.

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You can also watch it on Netflix. That's easy easier.

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But it's, really and it still can teach you a lot, about stuff.

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Like, when it comes to having this project, Ironman around the world, it's too big to grasp, actually.

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And he's talking a lot like what are the mental models, you actually need to make it still work

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if you cycle day in minus 35 degrees with Iberia, with frozen foods and stuff like that. Right?

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And, I think it just gives a different, perspective on a lot of things.

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And also, even if, maybe this does not sound,

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like fun all the time, he's really much about, yes, but this is what I want to do, and this

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is why it's best to be here in this moment even if this moment right now is a little bit, interesting.

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And I really like to get exposed to these kind of mental models I'm thinking.

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Look. Nice one. I I will check it out for sure.

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I think the sports is really helpful, in running the business or being a leader.

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It's like to have the sport.

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It's and and then to have the the sport that you like and you do a lot, it's really helpful for your mind.

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So this, I'll I'll check it out.

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So, David, thanks so thank you so much for all those insights and really interesting conversation.

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I really appreciate your time and that you have shared all of that here.

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Thank you for for everything.

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Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

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