Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Hello, nice to meet you. I'm David, a curious generalist. I love complex issues and helping people navigate them. I build products and teams. I craft stories and strategies. I always look for dots to connect. I have worked for startups and large companies. As a journalist, strategist, product lead. I have written stories and strategies. I have built products and teams. I have hired, mentored and promoted people. I have navigated and accelerated transformation. Pushed for and nurtured culture change. I have wrangled data and code. For insights and data visualisations. Even a series of games. And a ton of other things that got me excited. If there’s one thing that connects it all, it’s my love for connecting dots and trying new things.
Building on my previous role as Co-Founder and Head of the Climate Lab at Republik, I am now in charge of product development for all of Republik. My focus will be on developing existing and creating new editorial products that will strengthen Republik's position as a leading digital magazine in the DACH region. In this new role, I keep all product related responsibilites in the Climate Lab while handing over the editorial lead.
Happy to be taking on an additional role at Republik Magazine, leading our efforts with artificial intelligence. To make sure we can seize opportunities, navigate risks, and avoid stupid mistakes. Our goal is to produce the best journalism for our audience. If there are ways in which AI can help us achieve this mission, we want to use them. That said, no matter how and to what extent we ourselves use AI, it will have a profound impact on our work and our business. AI is already changing the information ecosystem as well as the societal and economic context in which journalism takes place. So it is clear that we need to follow these developments with open and critical minds, to find our role in a changing environment. My main focus for now is to make sure we gain a deep understanding of the shifts that are happening, and that we as an organisation develop the capacity to adapt where needed: with the necessary skills, curiosity, resilience, and well-calibrated bullshit detectors.
I co-founded and led the Klimalabor (Climate Lab) in 2022 as an incubator for climate journalism within Republik. After successfully completing its exploratory project phase and securing funding for further operations, the Climate Lab has turned into a permanent entity within Republik. As Head of Climate Lab, I am responsible for the strategic direction – for content, product and business development – as well as managing a small cross-functional team for day-to-day operations (newsletter, events, community engagement). Key achievements in 2 years since launch: * Brought in 500k in outside funding * Developed and launched a new vertical «Challenge Accepted» that drives subscription revenue that is is more than 2x the Climate Lab's total budget. * Won multiple awards, among them: European Publishing Award 2024, Swiss Press Award 2024, K3-Preis für Klimakommunikation in Deutschland, Schweiz, Österreich 2024, German Design Award 2025.
Founder and editor of the Weekly Filet, a newsletter that curates the best stories from across the web. Thousands of subscribers from 100+ countries.
I joined Swiss startup Refind as employee #2 and led product and content strategy. Refind is a platform for knowledge workers that helps them discover high-quality content relevant to their current interests and learning goals. It's positioned in the intersection of content discovery, e-learning, and knowledge management, which makes for a highly competitive space. Key projects I worked on: * Recommendations algorithm: How do you design and teach an algorithm so that it identifies high-quality content from millions of links and generates diverse daily recommendations, personalised to each user's general and current interests? * Business model: Research, concept and rollout of a business model (Freemium) * Research: Data-analysis and user research to inform business strategy and product development. * Content strategy: Introduction of new content verticals, most notably Deep Dives (curated series of time-tested articles) and Weekend Edition. * Feature development: Concept and rollout of new features, most notably a suite of features to help users consume and remember content (smart reading list, highlighting, note-taking, summaries) * Partnerships: Build up and oversee partnerships with content creators and publishers
Built, grew and lead the Visuals department at Neue Zürcher Zeitung (formerly NZZ Storytelling), Switzerland’s most renowned newspaper. The team consisted of 18 designers, developers, data journalists and video journalists and produced data-driven and visual journalism for all platforms of NZZ. Key achievements with the team - Established visual journalism as a pillar at NZZ that is recognized across and way beyond Switzerland. - Influenced and changed workflows and mindsets to turn NZZ from a print-first operation into a mobile-first one. - Built and established a graphics toolbox that allows everyone in the newsroom to create their own simple graphics for online and print – to date, more than 30k graphics were created this way. - Brought people from a variety of backgrounds (tech, design, academia) into journalism and created a diverse team that puts collaboration before ego. - Invested in sustainable solutions for tech infrastructure, design standards and data reporting methodology.
Freelance writing and consulting for various news organisations, e.g. consulted Neue Zürcher Zeitung on digital strategy in general and on the launch of a news briefing format in particular.