About me
My Philosophy: Why I Do It
For over fifteen years, I have advised over 300 startups, non-profits, and educational institutions across diverse markets, including India, Germany, Argentina, and the Philippines.My career began in human resources from recruitment to organizational development and leadership training, evolving into strategic consulting and venture building, before embracing design education as a core pillar.True leadership requires the deliberate design of systems for simplicity, accessibility, and scale. My philosophy drives me to seek simplicity on the far side of complexity. Let's build that clarity together and create ventures that matter.Clarity is design, and design is leadership
Ventures
What I Build
I co-create ventures that align fundamentally with education, sustainability, and social impact. Every venture is an experiment in optimism—a belief in the possibility of building a better future, one system at a time.
Strategy & Innovation Ventures
At the center of my professional orbit lies my strategy and innovation practice, where I work with universities, startups, SMEs and creative organizations across Europe, India and Southeast Asia.My focus is on helping founders and institutions translate complexity into clarity - aligning vision, systems and story. Over the years, I’ve collaborated on projects that embody design-led problem solving including:
• MAZUbelt, a patented sports innovation developed with Humboldt University Berlin.
• coach.haus, a peer-to-peer coaching platform for professionals.
• Room for Change GmbH, a creative room-listing initiative for impact ventures.
• BETTER.ONE, an open experiment empowering social entrepreneurs to build a better world.
• Agable, an IoT tool improving micro-farming performance.
• Tuneder (formerly Jam For A Day), a collaboration platform for musicians.Alongside these ventures, I serve as a Coach and Mentor at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management (since 2022) and the Berlin University Alliance’s Science & Startups association (since 2020), having guided over 300 early-stage founders and research-led ventures toward scalable impact.
Bayanihan Ventures - Philippines
In September 2023, my co-founder John Naranjo and I launched Bayanihan Ventures - a community venture studio born from the desire to give back and nurture the Philippine startup ecosystem from within.In 2024, Bayanihan Ventures joined the Global Startup Studio Network after completing Morrow’s Venture Studio Boot Camp - becoming one of the first studios from Mindanao to support startups in EdTech, HealthTech and AgriTech.Our mission is simple yet powerful: to provide authentic, impactful support that truly benefits entrepreneurs.
What sets us apart is how we work:
• Impact Over Volume - we prioritize depth and transformation over numbers.
• By Entrepreneurs, For Entrepreneurs - driven by lived experience, not theory.
• Incremental Interventions - small, consistent actions that compound into lasting progress.
• Open-Source and Free - every program, resource and event is accessible without fees, keeping true to the spirit of Bayanihan.Based in Davao City, we serve founders across Mindanao - from CDO and Tagum to Siargao and Mati - and have drawn interest from international investors looking to engage with the region.Through initiatives like the Founders Circle (founderscircle.ph), Bayanihan Build workshops and the Ideate Davao 2024 startup competition, we’ve cultivated a growing network of 100+ members, delivered over 300 hours of one-on-one mentorship and supported the birth of over 40 startups and 3 regional events that promote technopreneurship and innovation.
Designers Without Borders (DeWiBo)
Designers Without Borders (DeWiBo.org) was cofounded by my wife Madita Morgenstern-Antao and myself along with a group of highly motivated and passionate designers from 7 countries to bring together humanitarian projects with socially committed companies and supporters. The heart of our work lies in the integration and transfer of human-centered design into the humanitarian process.We collaborate with local designers, artists and communities, empowering them to design solutions for their own contexts - building both capability and confidence. By raising local ownership, our projects achieve long-term, sustainable impact for all stakeholders involved.As designers, we are trained to imagine better futures. DeWiBo is our way of ensuring those futures are inclusive, innovative and human at every level - where creativity becomes a form of care and design becomes a bridge to dignity.
Education Ventures
Education sits at the heart of everything I build.Two of my most enduring initiatives Means of Ideation and the German Design Studio explore how design thinking and systems awareness can transform the way we learn.Means of Ideation is a structured learning series that teaches teams to think systematically and creatively, combining decades of consulting practice into a replicable bootcamp for founders, educators, and changemakers.German Design Studio, co-founded with my wife Madita Morgenstern-Antao, is a design-learning studio for children and families. It introduces material practice, experimentation, and creative problem-solving nurturing curiosity as the foundation for future readiness.Together, these education ventures embody my belief that design is not just a skill - it’s a way of seeing and shaping the world
Work with me
How I Create Impact
I help founders and organizations achieve radical clarity through advanced strategy and systems thinking. Together, we translate ambiguity into actionable blueprints - practical pathways that connect purpose with execution.My work sits at the intersection of design, leadership, and learning. I guide teams to see patterns, prioritize what matters, and move from inspiration to implementation.Every collaboration distills complexity into clear next steps and structures that sustain momentum.I also teach teams to think systematically through the Means of Ideation Bootcamp, sharing structured creativity techniques honed over decades of practice.