You can always write me an email
or find me on:
You can always write me an email
or find me on:
I’m passionate about effecting positive change and challenging the status quo.
I began programming at 9, started a web consultancy business after high-school, co-authored one of the first books on AJAX, ran local tech meetups for over 4 years in 10 cities, built the top IT recruitment website in Romania, created an open-source job board platform, built a simple personal finance app, was Managing Director of a design & technology agency for 5 years, almost launched a revolutionary HR/people-ops product with friends, consulted for Westminster City Council, then somehow got to make aviation more efficient for about 5 years.
In the meanwhile, I got married, had 3 kids, became founding member of two local churches and board member for the top addiction prevention organisation in Romania.
I am now on a new journey building something new...
I would like to unpack the “follower of Jesus, husband, father of three, builder” statement at the top of my website, because it captures my life’s foundation, priorities and modus operandi.
I used to describe myself as “believer in God”, however believing in God, together with the Christian name, means different things to different people in our times. It also carries a lot of historical people-inflicted burden that does not capture the true essence.
As follower of Jesus, I believe in the Judeo-Christian God as the almighty creator of our universe and world. He reveals Himself to us through His Word, the Holy Bible, and through the entire creation. Despite mankind having chosen evil and fallen, God loves us deeply and has devised a master plan to redeem us so that we may spend eternity together. He therefore sent His only son, Jesus, to be born human, to live among us, to die on the cross bearing all humanity’s sins and eventually to rise from death and return back to God with the promise of returning to Earth one day. That day may come today or in a thousand years – nobody except God knows.
This is my core belief system and, as a follower of Jesus, I decide to live my life within this framework and to be prepared both to die today or to live a meaningful life for a hundred more years.
My purpose in life is to do as much good as I can, to as many people I can, beginning with my family, friends, community, country and world.
My desire in life is to reflect God’s transformative and life-changing grace as accurately as I can, despite being only human. But I am a fallen redeemed human.
Simona and I got married in 2009 and she is the best thing that ever happened to me. After 10+ years of marriage, we love each other more than ever and are closer to each other more than ever. We’ve been through a lot together, from the best times in my life all the way down to the worst.
We decide to stay together no matter what and this is a highly intentional and continuous action. We have seen and experienced how not being intentional about this leads to drifting away from one another, so we prioritise our relationship and avoid taking it for granted. The drift is real and it happens to everyone when not countered.
A couple of things that work well for us are carving out uninterrupted time just for the two of us and reading marriage/relationships/parenting books together, followed-up by discussing what ideas we can apply to our family.
We are blessed to have Sonia (born 2011), David (born 2012) and Nadia (Dec 2019) under our care for a while. We believe our children are in fact God’s and our role as parents is to make Him known to them, which is the best way to prepare them for life on their own.
As a father, my biggest challenge by far is to balance structure, order and compliance with grace. I have to constantly remind myself (luckily I have Simo to help with that, too) that my purpose is to show them God, not to make them listen to me. Character building and a long-term perspective trumps short-term (perhaps forceful) compliance.
It’s all one fine act of balancing after another, as obedience and boundaries are vital for the greater purpose, especially early-on in children’s lives.
This is a fairly accurate description of my entire professional life. I’m passionate about building organisations, structures and systems, as well as technology that makes life better for people.
It started with machines, back when I was 9 and I received my first computer – a Commodore 64 – and a BASIC programming book. I spent the next 15 years working with computers and creating software which, I thought, I would do for the rest of my life.
As I gained experience working with other people, it occured to me that people are driven by different things and not everyone has the same mindset, principles, work ethics and behaviour. This sparked my curiosity and I became interested into what makes people tick, what drives them and how the best teams work together to produce a meaningful outcome. There is an abundance of irrelevant advice in the literature, but I stumbled upon some works that matched my own intuition and observations, which I’m grateful for and would recommend to anyone. I also draw inspiration from the biographies of great people.
For the last 10+ years, my professional role shifted towards working more with people – mentoring, encouraging and supporting them to grow, organising teams and serving to the best of my abilities in order to reach greatness while having an impact in the world.
I tried my best to live through the “work-life balance” perspective and failed miserably. Not only did I fail at both, but I never quite managed to include my mission in it. God used these failures to show me a new way, a mission-driven, integrated life, in which my professional work becomes my mission field and we go through everything together, as a family.
I also feel I’ve barely warmed up and look forward to what’s ahead!
If you’d like to get in touch, you can always write me an email.