P is for Pana Wakke

www.panawakke.com

Founding a start-up and then making it work, and later grow is a constant learning experience. What you want to do professionally and who you are as an individual blend completely. For good and for bad.

Eventually, you realise that the company has become a living organism, and as such, it morphs and adapts. Hopefully, it will never lose its essence. And ideally, I will manage to pour into Pana Wakke my best traits, and in avoiding to pass on my worst, both the company and myself will become better.

Our name, Pana Wakke, is inspired in the words Sister Brother in Quechua, an aboriginal language from South America.

In its most literal interpretation, Pana Wakke describes our corporate structure, as my brother Marko and his wife Belén are co-founders and business partners. Pana Wakke would not exist without them.

When we join forces with storytellers, project leaders, sales reps and such, we aim to build life-long relationships, and for that, we source people who want to know about the soul of what we do before the practical aspects. And they become part of the family as well.

In a more subtle way, though, our name describes our mission. We believe in the "brotherhood of man". Brazenly.

We hope that we are making a contribution to make the world a bit kinder, a bit more inclusive and a bit more humane. As I wrote in an abstract not long ago: "It is to be hoped that as they recognize its  invaluable benefits, schools and parents will engage more in storytelling and reclaim the essence of human relationships."

I never meant to start my own company. As so many of the crucial things that happen in life, it was a series of seemingly random events that led to it. And thus, the amount of people and forces of nature I am grateful to today is colossal.

There is no doubt I am a lucky girl. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.