Starting a business is one of the most courageous things a person can do. Yet, it’s also one of the riskiest. Whether you’re a tech founder in Zurich or a solopreneur in Zambia, a career coach in Berlin, or an intercultural consultant serving global teams remotely, you’re facing steep odds, and the urge to forge ahead might not come easy. Let’s explore the real reasons behind high failure rates—especially for startups, coaching, and intercultural training businesses in Switzerland, across Europe and beyond—and how this impacts lifestyle expats and GenX professionals transitioning into entrepreneurship. Introduction Entrepreneurship has long been romanticized as the path to independence,  innovation, and financial freedom. For GenX professionals and lifestyle expats, especially those transitioning from traditional employment […]

Dave Seejugut is a recruitment professional and the founder of Furalle HR Solutions, a Swiss HR technology platform focused on making the job search and recruitment process more effective through AI. A Mauritian-born Australian, living in Switzerland, Dave has experienced first-hand the challenges of navigating a new job market. His professional background spans recruitment, HR operations, learning and development, HR technology and people analytics, including experience with international organisations. His own experience as a jobseeker in Switzerland led him to build Job Smart, an AI-powered job search application designed to reduce the time and stress involved in finding and applying for suitable roles. The platform helps jobseekers identify relevant opportunities, assess their fit, tailor their CV and cover letter to […]

Hello friends, I will hold an online workshop for SIETAR Switzerland based on the concept of #HumanTouch that has been a key part of my mission since 2010 (and also explained again in the latest #GlobalMobilityBook). Human Touch is not merely empathy. Empathy is feeling with the client. Human Touch is the deliberate, structured design of human-centric agency and psychological safety within an increasingly automated, algorithmic ecosystem. It is about treating internationally mobile employees not as “data points on an assignment workflow,” but as whole individuals navigating high-stakes career and identity transitions. Core Pillars of the Human Touch 1. Countering the current “robotic” fragmentation of the Expat Experience, 2. Choosing inclusion in policies, procedures, and processes 3. High-touch anchors, white-glove […]

Veronique Kilian is an intercultural trainer, facilitator, author, organizational consultant, and speaker with more than 30 years of experience helping individuals, teams, and leaders thrive across cultures and complexity. She is the author of four management books and the host of the Chief Happiness Officer Podcast, where she explores happiness at work, transformational leadership, and inspiring examples of the purpose economy. Her work combines intercultural competence with positive psychology, leadership development, and team coaching. She is an expert in a wide range of internationally recognized assessment methods, including the Quinn Competing Values Framework, Spiral Dynamics, Human Dynamics, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Big Five, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, the LAB Profile®, and the AEM-Cube 360°. She believes that […]

A literary exploration based on Tell and Faust prompted by Angela Weinberger, written by Tom Robot, edited by Angela Weinberger While Germany and Switzerland share an overall Germanic foundation of precision, order, and structured vocational training, the Swiss mindset centers on local autonomy and consensus-building, whereas the German approach relies heavily on central directives and strict adherence to standardized rules. Furthermore, Switzerland’s education track maintains significantly higher academic selectiveness, with only about 20% of students funneling into traditional universities, compared to Germany’s broader academic enrollment. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] The Mindset: Consensus vs. Correction The underlying social drivers of each culture reveal a clear contrast in communication style, authority, and nationhood: Feature [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] Swiss Mindset […]