After speaking about the influence of online media in Stein am Rhein, one of my points about how social media has changed our lives was proven on the way back to Shanghai. Yanik Cantieni, a former Daimler colleague and friend of mine (we were both on the international management trainee program 15 years ago and we later both moved to China/Hong Kong for the automotive multinational), saw on Facebook that I had been flying through Frankfurt over the weekend and asked when I would fly back. I told him I would transfer at FRA on Monday night and by coincidence he also had a late night flight that evening from there!

I only see Yanik about once a year or so, we live in different places and both work a bit too hard. The last time was in November last year when I was speaking at an Internet conference in Jakarta. At that time Yanik was still working as CFO of Mercedes-Benz Indonesia, but since then he has moved back to Europe and he is now a vice-president for Magna. Usually when we meet for dinner and drinks the evening only ends when the bars close (work hard, play hard!), but because I only had less than two hours to change planes we had to pack our stories of the past year in a shorter time frame.

Yanik picked me up at my arrival gate and we then went for drinks in the Senator lounge at FRA. This one has a good bar with a bar tender that mixes some excellent cocktails. We decided to stay with Weizenbier though; I was thirsty and I am not a big fan of mixes right before going on an overnight flight.

We both had quite a roller coaster year, not only in terms of our business but also of private lives. But I guess that’s normal when you’re in your late 30s and try to get the most out of life? I won’t go into detail – my life may be semi-public but Yanik is in corporate life where privacy is still valued a bit more :>. While walking to our respective gates (coincidentally his gate was almost next to mine with only a 5 minute difference in departure time) we concluded that we both had enough material to write a book! It was cool to catch up again Yanik, let’s talk a bit longer over the next couple of months somewhere on this planet.