#59 Let’s talk about diversification – Julia Kümper

Insights:

• Julia’s journey to becoming the director of venture accelerator
• How watching soccer can help you build a better team
• Diversification: Julia’s thoughts on diversification
• Achieving alignment in a company
• About life balance
• Making a minority group feel listened to
• Gender equality
• How companies thrive with diversity 

Key Discussion Points:

[00:10] Getting to know our guest

[00:40] How Julia became the director of venture accelerator

[02:11] How watching soccer can help build a better team

[03:42] What qualifies Julia to become a CEO?

[05:34] How Julia built the accelerator

[11:09] What does homogenous mean when it comes to founder teams?

[14:05] Julia’s views on diversification

[20:42] How to motivate employees to speak their truth without fear

[26:43] Julia’s view on people having different opinions

[30:16] How to make the minority groups in a company feel listened to

[33:00] Getting alignment in a company

[35:47] Examples of how companies thrive with diversity

[44:19] Definition of better in the sense of capitalism

[49:47] Steps into becoming a managing director of an accelerator

[52:23] Is Julia’s path different for her as a woman?

[01:01:55] Work-life balance for Julia

[1:06:59] Is it possible for us to achieve 50/50 equality in the future?

[01:08:45] Julia’s favorite books

[01:10:59] Julia’s message to her 18 years old self

Interesting Quotes:

“Talking about the soccer game, and the soccer team helps a lot not to get in direct conflict with your teammates. It’s much easier to objectify possible conflicts by not talking about your own group but talking about another group.”

“Failure is something connected to privilege and money in the background.”

“You should not judge, which are the most important ones, because they are all important. But what you have to decide is where to start, and how to think it as much as possible inclusive from the beginning on.”

“If you are not feeling safe enough to communicate, you’re a real perspective or your real ideas. Because you think someone could judge it in a bad way or whatever. Then that’s not the best way.”

“It’s important to try to understand why people behave like they behave, even if you do not agree to that behavior.”

“Where the dignity of the other person starts, that ends my dignity.”

“The person with the lowest power is the only one who can define if space safe or not, because that’s the perfect state of safety.”

“Opinions are important to understand what’s going on.”

“Change always happen slowly in incremental. It is never like one and zero.”

“Trust yourself, you’re worth it.”

“I started as a side-preneur too, because I don’t want it to have such insecurity to because we were in a family planning phase.”

“When we’re talking about hierarchy, the best way to make sure that you are creating a safe space is empower the ones with the with the less power to be the powerful, so to top down and change totally the hierarchy system.”

“I would say a founder could choose the battles and the battles I’m fighting are because of my identity.”