Karola Sakotnik

Business mentor, Entrepreneur, Global soul, Performer, World traveler

Hi I am Karola, a quite unusual leadership expert in the international market. My life has been giving me quite some bites to chew and I keep accepting the challenge. My expertise combines organisational and artistic leadership, culture and creativity. I am a pioneer at heart. My career can be told from various points of view: • Author, Speaker and mentor around leadership • International artistic director in the entertainment industry • Experience designer for living environments of people away from home such as cruise ships, hospitals or refugee camps (!!), schools and businesses My experience designs were awarded "Best cultural program on cruise ships worldwide" by Berlitz Cruise Guide, my works in refugee camps were financed by Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies International. I hold a bachelor in transcultural communication and in theatre creation and physical theatre and two masters in the field of culture management and speaks four languages. My art is to create spaces with an impact for a future worth living. With my background as international manager as well as performer, theatre director, author, singer and clown I approach my topics with lightness and ease, my focus adds the purpose. My experience of creating artistic experiences in multiple spaces like luxury cruise ships, hospitals or refugee camps as well as theatres and schools plus my proficiency of languages nurture a human centred and diverse approach as well as an international horizon. People tell e that it is fascinating to experience me with my keynotes and to work interactively with her ( and yes, I learned to share this proudly). My actual leadership endorsements are coaching female leaders in a major Austrian public body organisation. My last role in my artistic career was my contribution to musicville, the green European opera, cofunded by the EU - creative Europe. I was the artistic director and the project lead for the Austria partner Pavelhaus-Pavlova hiša. Participating institutions/countries: Glasbarium/SLO ( Lead Partner), Lab 852 CRO, Pavelhaus-Pavlova hiša (AUT) You can also find an article by me in the current “Fokus Klima” issued by BMKOES Austria, collected by Wolfgang Schlag

I believe in the power of leaving a legacy for our grandchildren. How? Well, in such a way that I would love to invite everyone to giving their share in making the world a better place while we are here on earth. My filed of engagement is both the working world of leaders and the world of arts and creative creation. How did I get there? My life has been quite a roller-coaster, in the good and the bad. A lot of my time I have been focusing on work and its implication on the lives of me and others. The good sides I expressed in creative writing, singing, song writing and speaking. Also designing experiences for many around me to make their life easier to understand or simply to improve their leisure time and their pleasure. In my dark days, when I had to leave my career as performing artist due to a serious illness I started to reflect, then dive deep and later emerge from dark times, which led me to personal growth thanks to my strong resilience talents. This is now being expressed in my professional field as leadership expert as well as in many creative projects around young people, writing and directing musicals with them, practising co-creation, enabling them to speak publicly, express their opinion and learn what to verbalise and what to simply embody to be heard. Additionally, I focused on medical clowning and in refugee work, procuring psychosocial support for war and torture survivors through humour and clowning. With this program that became a full-time job at a certain point I travelled refugee camps in Jordan, Ukraine, Greec and Cameroun with partner like Doctors without Borders or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Society. Professionally now, I am a leadership expert focusing on enabling leaders to evolve their future skills. With my professional background in international culture management including creativity and performing arts - I enable leaders to express themes, learn to understand the operating system of us humas and practise how to deal with the unexpected through theatre improvisation. I also engage in local communities by organising in the future of work community with a leadership meetup and a future of work festival. The background f artistic director for cruise lines and my work there in organising learning events for many has always been staying a passion of mine.

Navigating Disruption. How to travel from irritation to curiosity to confidence, with future skills. Future skills can be summoned as what I call human intelligence, crucial traits of us humans. We need to evolve and hone them so we can apply them wisely. Why? They have a crucial impact on a future worth living. What is the benefit of this? When facing disruption our human operating system easily panics. But for creative problem solving we need psychological safety. So, the question is how one can create this safety for oneself or as a leader for the team and the co-workers. At this point curiosity, humour and empathy, along with passion, reflection and meaningful conversations come in. Creativity can then generate solutions, especially when sent out to a playground that is explored with joy and wisdom, accuracy and care, kindness and focus. Exactly as a clown does or theatre impro can teach us. How to apply this into business? Listen to examples of m professional experience as international leader, how I intuitively went about problem solving when I became a leader overnight. Not all went good not all went bad, but I stayed curious, and I learned to explain and thus guide others subsequently and still discover in every leadership position new challenge and insight. One thing I know for sure: curiosity is key to future leadership breakthroughs, so: stay curious, be boldly human and master the art of meaningful conversations.

Future Skills, International Management, Leadership, Learning from Disruption, Psychosocial Support

Going into my second term of TEDx Graz being a passionate Futurist, working on making the world a great place to live, for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.

Strategy, structure, singing and improvising