TALENT TALK with Carolin Gabor – Co-Founder & Managing Partner at caesar. Ventures

Carolin Gabor is one of the most influential voices in Germany’s venture capital and fintech ecosystem. After ten years at top consultancy BCG, she successfully led several companies to exit. Today, she serves as a member of the FinTech Advisory Board of the German Federal Ministry of Finance, acts as a business angel, and is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at the Venture Capital Fund caesar.

In her TALENT TALK with ALUMNI TALENTS, she shares her perspective on choosing the right employer and the parallels to selecting portfolio companies, the qualities she values in young professionals, the importance of mentoring, and her most valuable career lessons.

1.      QUESTION: Choosing the Right Employer

Niki: “Carolin, what tips do you have for young talents when choosing an employer, and are there parallels to how you select portfolio companies?”

For Carolin, the choice of the right environment begins with a simple but crucial question: Can you grow and truly challenge yourself there? She deliberately seeks out environments that allow for autonomy, self-determination, and flexibility – both in how she structures her day and in the topics she chooses to work on.

She also emphasizes the quality of the people she works with:

“It’s important to me to work with people who are excellent in their craft and from whom I can learn tremendously.”

Equally vital for her are culture and collaboration within the team.

“I want my business partners to share the same values, to have their hearts in the right place, and to approach people with empathy. People who don’t just strive for harmony but who can engage in constructive debate and make decisions together as equals – that’s a great combination.”

Carolin now relies heavily on her intuition, honed over years of experience. Still, as an investor, she supplements gut feeling with tools such as the Predictive Index to assess whether a team is truly complementary and brings together different, reinforcing personalities.

She also recommends applying this approach to career choices:

“Very few people think about who they will actually work with day in and day out. But that’s critical! We spend hours searching for the perfect pair of shoes, yet we sign an employment contract without doing proper research. It’s so easy to do a reference check, ask employees: What is the culture really like? Are the values actually lived?”

💡 Carolin’s tips for choosing the right employer:

• Environment: Be clear about what environment drives you, enables growth and development, and pushes you to excel.

• Learning: Surround yourself with people who are excellent at what they do and who you can learn from.

• Team & Culture: Pay attention to values and team dynamics. Empathy and humanity matter more than numbers. Diverse personalities that complement each other and engage constructively produce the best results.

• Gut feeling: Trust your intuition, but validate it with research and facts. Use LinkedIn and references to get a realistic picture.

2.      QUESTION: Top 3 Qualities in Young Professionals

Niki: “What qualities do young professionals need to succeed with you?”

Carolin: “If someone is incredibly curious and loves to dive into new things, if they can get genuinely excited about topics and teams, and if they are also analytically and conceptually smart, then that’s a devilishly good combination. People like that win both my heart and my head.”

💡 Key Takeaway: Top Qualities in Young Professionals

• Curiosity and eagerness to learn

• Genuine enthusiasm for topics and teams

• Analytical and conceptual thinking

3.      QUESTION: The Importance of Mentoring

Niki: “What role have mentors played in your career?”

Carolin places great importance on mentoring:

“I’ve always had mentors. I chose them myself and reached out to them. My long-term mentor now works in the German Chancellery as an economic policy advisor. And when I set up my VC fund, I had one of Europe’s most successful VC investors at my side. My advice: Aim as high as possible! Ask the people you think you’re not ‘ready’ for. Most will say yes, because they value ambition.”

Reverse mentoring is equally important to her:

“I have many mentees, most of them female founders, and I learn a lot from them as well. Many of them exude a level of confidence I never had at their age. That inspires me. Reverse mentoring really creates a win-win for everyone involved.”

💡 Carolin’s mentoring tips:

• Be proactive in approaching potential mentors, and aim as high as possible. The more experienced, the better.

• Use reverse mentoring as a true win-win – learning flows in both directions.

4.      QUESTION: Carolin’s Career Tips

Niki: “What are your top three learnings from your career that you would pass on to young talents?”

Carolin would start with education:

“I would choose a field of study that challenges and develops both cognitively and emotionally, and that also embraces innovative topics, like AI. Second, I would start again at a company like BCG, but not stay for ten years – just long enough to build the skills and the network, and then go out and found something. Fall flat on your face a few times, get back up, and keep going.

And third, as soon as I realized I was working with or for assholes, I would leave the company immediately.”

💡 Carolin’s Top 3 Career Tips for Young Talents

• Choose a field of study that challenges you both cognitively and emotionally – future topics like AI are key.

• Gain early experience at top companies, but don’t stay too long. Learn, found, fail, and grow.

• Work only with people who share your values. Make firm decisions when that’s not the case.

  
  

✨ Conclusion

Carolin’s career proves that success comes from following clear values, deliberately choosing the right environment, embracing responsibility with courage, and being willing to learn from others. Curiosity, enthusiasm, and a strong inner compass are just as crucial as the readiness to leave the wrong environment behind.

Thank you, Carolin, for your clarity and inspiring insights!