HI, I’M CARMEN!

I’m a communications professional and collage enthusiast living in the Ruhr region in Germany. I’ve been working at data and analytics specialist Dataciders since 2021, helping to communicate our message and vision that nobody should ever make bad decisions again and connect our employees from all over Germany and other parts of Europe.

Before that, I worked as a freelance journalist and PR specialist for over a decade. My passion for telling stories about people doing their own thing led to my blog RuhrGründer. Since 2014, I blogged about founders and startups from the Ruhr region, since 2020 also as a podcast.

As an activist for the regional startup ecosystem, I co-founded events such as the RuhrSummit, Fuckup Nights Ruhr and Female Founders Ruhr and was co-editor and author of the book „RuhrGründer – Der Guide für Gründer und Startups im Ruhrgebiet“, which was published in 2017.

After almost ten years of connecting people in the startup ecosystem, it was clear that I needed something new, a real change of scenery. I said goodbye to the startup world and handed over my beloved blog to Sebastian Deutsch and his great team at 9elements.

No surprise, just doing my job at Dataciders wasn’t enough. I needed something to express myself in a playful, creative and fun way. I always thought that would be writing, because I’ve always written something. But I happened to make collages! I don’t remember exactly how it came about, but I think it was very inspired by Austin Kleon’s collages, which I discovered after reading his amazing book „Steal like an artist“. Now I’m a very happy amateur artist exploring the whole world of collage, finding out what I enjoy most.

I’m turning 50 this year. And with the experience of making big life changes in ten years, I’m excited and curious about my journey over the next decade. That’s what this blog will be about.

If you’re interested in what I’m doing now, check out my NOW page.