I have always worked where complexity needed structure, where stakeholders were diverse, and where strategy had to land where it was meant to matter: in real organizations, with real people, under real conditions.
From the outside, my path does not look linear.It moves through archaeological research and heritage management, the cultural and educational sector, non-profit and for-profit environments, resource-intensive industry and pharma. Seen through industries, it is broad. Seen through the work itself, it is remarkably consistent.
Strategic communication, change management, leadership and organizational development were never separate worlds for me. They were different expressions of the same kind of work. I admit: that still sounds broad. But broad is not the same as random. The connecting line was never just one industry or one field. It was a recurring kind of work: making complex situations understandable, workable and strategically useful.
The start of my professional life was demanding. In hindsight, I am still surprised how natural it felt at the time, and how much of what I learned there later became the foundation of everything else.
Archaeological fieldwork was not just research. It came with public attention, broad stakeholder systems and sometimes conflict. In one case, I saw how a conflict that had begun around the protection of cultural heritage developed into a communication crisis and ended up endangering the very heritage it was meant to protect. That stays with you.
The teams I led taught me leadership in the most practical way: under pressure, with real consequences and very little room for illusion. They included students, researchers and citizen scientists. In most contexts, they also included people in reintegration programs, young people in challenging life situations and former prisoners.
Mistakes are not easily forgiven in such contexts. You learn to listen closely to your team’s needs, tensions and limits. You also learn that, while formal qualifications may matter, they never tell the whole story. Some people can do far more than their certificates suggest. Others need more structure than expected. As a leader, you can set people up for success or failure, depending on how carefully you read the situation.
You also learn boundaries. It is right to support people when they need it for a while. But leadership also means keeping the whole system in view. Support becomes unhealthy when the rest of the team is expected to absorb the consequences indefinitely.
The stakeholder landscape outside the team was just as diverse. There were public authorities, local communities and social institutions. There were companies, local politics and the scientific community. Different needs. Different expectations. Different levels of trust.
This is where I started to use communication strategically. I did not want things to sound better. I used communication to ease the path: by creating understanding, building trust and reducing friction. Communication has never been “just communication” in my professional life. It has always been a tool to reach a goal. A strategic one.
It took me a step further when I joined a World Heritage management organization. World Heritage is not just a label for important sites. At its core, it belongs to UNESCO’s peace logic: creating understanding through education, science and culture.
But that only works if heritage is not treated as a trophy. It has to be brought into function. And that is where the next layer appeared almost immediately: organizational development.
Many start by asking how to promote a World Heritage site. The more useful question is what such a site is supposed to do. Tourism can play a role, of course. But “let’s do tourism” is a tempting and often impractical answer. If it is not managed carefully, tourism can threaten exactly what it claims to celebrate.
So the work was not simply about visibility — already a challenge with underwater heritage like ours. It was about participation and responsibility. People needed real ways to connect with these sites.
Outreach and community management were not decoration around heritage protection. They were part of making this World Heritage socially alive and practically meaningful.
In practice, that meant tailored engagement formats, joint initiatives with tourism partners and public-affairs work with institutional actors. It also meant citizen-science activities, community work and programs that helped people understand why the heritage and its protection mattered. Expert logic alone does not bring a World Heritage site into function.
And when this starts working, the next challenge appears quickly. People respond. Ideas multiply. Institutions see opportunities. Local stakeholders want to contribute. Suddenly, the issue is not whether anyone cares. The issue is whether the organization can handle the energy it has created.
Then portfolio management becomes essential. Without structure, every good idea competes with every other good idea. Without priorities, participation turns into disappointment. And without a visible overview of projects, timelines and responsibilities, even strong engagement becomes exhausting. Outreach brought participation to life. Portfolio management kept that life manageable.
Science communication then brought me from one international setting into another, this time into the refractory industry. The subject changed. The core work did not.
Ein Technologieprojekt der Kreislaufwirtschaft in einer ressourcenintensiven Industrie brachte eine andere Art von Komplexität mit sich: neue technische Inhalte, Nachhaltigkeitsdruck und die frühe Positionierung für einen künftigen Markt. Die Aufgabe war, Reputation und Glaubwürdigkeit für eine zukünftige Technologie aufzubauen, bevor sie zum Produkt wurde. Es war frühe Go-to-Market-Vorbereitung – wieder ein neuer Begriff.
In global corporate environments, I finally learned to use the vocabulary that is so familiar to the business world: strategy, leadership alignment and transformation. It all sounded very important, but most of the work itself was something I had already been doing for years.
Later, within the same company, I took over internal communication on an interim basis for an organization with around 14,000 employees. I understood something else: the same kind of support I had built around archaeological projects and industrial research was needed at a much larger scale as well.
CEOs do not simply “order” change. They move an organization in a certain direction. And the people in that organization are not merely expected to move with it. They are the ones who move it. Same question: How do we make what we do clear enough to be supported, structured enough to be implemented and real enough to land?
When I moved into pharma, it showed up again. Because this question is simply everywhere: in global change initiatives, in digital transformation, in leadership formats, in M&A-related change and in carve-out contexts — no matter the industry or sector.
Looking back, the line is clear. My work has always been about making strategies, projects and complex ideas land. And I like it that way. Because they deserve better than being abstract ambition or polished messaging.
Die Branchen haben sich verändert und werden sich vielleicht weiter verändern. Die Arbeit selbst – Organisationsentwicklung durch strategische Kommunikation, Change Management und Portfoliomanagement zum Leben zu bringen – hat sich nicht verändert.
It has been remarkably linear, in fact.