About Cristian Citu
Cristian Citu is a digital innovation enthusiast with a deep passion for entrepreneurship and social impact.
His professional experience covers various chapters:
International Collaboration
Based at the World Economic Forum headquarters and focusing on the impact of digital technologies on business and wider society, while managing dedicated deep-dives on digital business models, or exploring the implications of exponential technologies such as quantum computing
Cristian is an amazing professional and I’ve seen him in action in several digital transformation workstreams, including a close collaboration around the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.
Cristian stands out as one of the most efficient professionals I had the pleasure to work with during my career. While he obviously smartly adjusts his working style depending on the context, it was so impressive to observe him combining a highly proactive and positive attitude with a pragmatic work approach, and excellent stakeholder management skills – including dealing with CEOs of major global corporations.
I worked with Cristian on an initiative to increase the digital maturity of senior business leaders in the main economies of Latin America. I was impressed with his “can-do” attitude in very challenging circumstances.
He was able to learn fast and adapt to the context of the different economies and industries participating in each of the meetings and inspire senior VPs and CEOs to drive transformation in their organizations. In this process Cristian was able to establish himself as counterpart to CEOs and have strategic conversations about the impact of digital transformation on the business models of their companies.
Corporate
Various roles based in Germany at the global headquarters of the logistics giant DHL, with his last role as Senior Director of Group Digital Strategy, facilitating the design and implementation of the digitalization agenda; he also spent time in Singapore for DHL’s Asia Pacific regional office, where he became a big fan of Asia’s innovation approach
Cristian displays an unlimited passion for everything related to the digital trends and has a remarkably rich knowledge about digitalization, both in theory as well as in making transformation happen. I will certainly miss his intelligent contributions and the outcomes generated though his hard work and excellent stakeholder management skills.
I don’t like to toss the word ‘guru’ around but, in the case of Cristian, he’s undoubtedly my digital guru. Over the years we worked together, I always found him to be a wealth of knowledge around anything digital; someone who was not only up to date on the trends, but could foresee developments before they even emerged on the popular radar.
Venture Capital
Cristian joined the HumanCapitalNetwork – a collective of entrepreneurs, global C-Suite citizens, academics, investors, family offices, and other innovators; HCN invests from its network affiliates, high net worth individuals, family offices and venture capital partners of permanent capital to fuel entrepreneurship at all stages
Cristian is an outstanding individual, both on a professional and personal level! He has been an excellent partner on so many levels: contributing his digitalization thought leadership, brainstorming together to incubate new initiatives, or supporting the growth of various start-ups.
Once I started my own venture capital company, Cristian has been one of the first people I’ve reached out to as a sparring partner, while also inviting him to join me in the new private equity journey. The uniqueness of his profile comes from the unusual combination of empathy, active listening, pragmatism, solution orientation, perseverance, combined with his deep knowledge of everything related to new digital business models, innovation, technology and customer insights.
Consulting
During the recent years he has been running his own digital transformation and innovation advisory work, but he also spent a few years in a full services consulting boutique while based in his home country Romania
Joining our team of consultants, Cristian brought a unique set of skills which made him extremely valuable in a very short time. He was able to quickly understand the very different business needs of our customers and provide highly relevant solutions within tight dead-lines. He is very efficient, and his intelligent business approach makes him a perfect fit for any role that requires strategy and stakeholder management.
Start-ups
Cristian co-founded his own vertical AI start-up, leading a team of 10+ and attracting funds from both venture capital and angel investors. He was the interim CEO of a machine learning corporate startup, leading a team of 20+. In his previous roles, he also had ongoing engagements with a wide range of startups from his professional ecosystem.
I was part of Cristian’s management team and I was always impressed by his great leadership as well as his vision and knowledge of digitalization. His strong leadership helped create a safe and trustworthy working environment in our start-up, while his excellent communication skills and team spirit kept everyone engaged and motivated. Cristian brought fantastic digital innovation and digital transformation insights into our daily work, and I knew that in every interaction with him I will get inspired and I will learn something new.
I had the pleasure of working closely with Cristian, who was my CEO at Qurator and he is one of the most outstanding managers I’ve had the privilege to work with. His unique communication style, genuine concern for team well-being, and sharp strategic insight make him an exceptional leader. He consistently listened to my product insights, and we engaged in open, productive discussions that fostered healthy decision-making. I wholeheartedly recommend Cristian both as a leader and as a fantastic person to work with.
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