About me · decision-making
I've been there too.
A scientist raised inside the healthcare industry: a PhD with Merck, a specialism in sensors for the life sciences, the scientific publications, and today logistics at Essity. Still a manager, still on the job, and a dad. I have stood at plenty of crossroads, and made even more decisions. This is my story, year by year.
The full track record, open for anyone to check: my LinkedIn profile
A few words, the way I'd say them to your face
Hi. I'm Donato.
I'm a guy from Bari, a beautiful city in the south of Italy, and I've been living in Germany since 2014.
I have two kids. One of them is a proper menace, think Kevin in Home Alone.
I came to Germany for a PhD in chemistry, after a degree in physics and a master's in engineering. And after the PhD? I walked away from science to push boxes in a warehouse and start over from zero, after a burnout.
Pushing boxes, a little at a time, I built a career that today pays me more than 100,000 euros a year, running European logistics for a multinational.
And now I'm about to throw it all away to go out on my own and start from zero all over again, just like I did with the boxes. Am I crazy? Maybe.
But trust me: when it comes to deciding at a crossroads, I'm an expert. After getting it wrong more times than I can count, and after working with hundreds of people and companies in hard situations, I've also built a method out of it.
I write about it in a book called «Stay or Leave?». Go find it on Amazon, in Kindle or paperback, and while you're there, once you've bought it, leave me a nice five-star review ;)
What do I do? You know that feeling when you're really good at something, when you have real talent, but in front of other people it just won't come out? Everything freezes the moment you have to talk about yourself, and you feel like a show-off.
I help scientists, technical professionals, engineers and anyone with technical expertise turn it into something that is worth enough, in other people's eyes, to make them pick you.
Whether it's a big audience or a room of five. Whether it's investors ready to put money on the table or colleagues who underestimated you, I help you leave them speechless and stick in their memory. Maybe what comes out of it is the funding you need, or the promotion you've been waiting on for far too long. Or you realise you're simply in the wrong place.
Over the years I've also helped a number of people build a business starting from a concrete method, not from the usual little rules you find on Instagram.
If you have a project of your own, as a freelancer, a startup or a spin-off, it might be worth having a coffee together.
I'll be here. Get out of that damn comfort zone, now, and write to me. Talk soon.
My story
From Bari to today, one step at a time.
Born in Bari
In beautiful Bari, in the south of Italy. That's where I start from.
Master's degree
Master's degree in Materials Engineering, 110 cum laude. I'm proud of it: in high school I kept failing maths.
Leaving home
I drive to Germany for a PhD with Merck. Six months in, I already wanted to run off to China.
I become a warehouse worker
I start part-time in a warehouse, at Decathlon. And I decide to keep going down this road instead of turning back.
The PhD, and the hard choice
I earn my PhD, done inside Merck: sensors for the life sciences. And I pick a new road, a career built on concrete results and leadership. Meanwhile, I stay on at Decathlon.
My son is born
Late 2022. Becoming a father changes, overnight, how you look at time, at priorities and at what really counts.
Six figures, at IKEA
That choice pays off: my salary passes six figures, working at IKEA. The career built on results and leadership that I had decided to build takes shape.
I join Essity, back to healthcare
I take a step back in my career, this time by choice: I want to watch my kids grow up. I join Essity, the Swedish hygiene and health multinational (TENA, Tork), to lead logistics for eight sites across DACH and Benelux. After pharma with Merck, I'm back in the healthcare industry.
I become a consultant and business coach
Late 2025. I become a consultant and coach, and I keep training to do it better and better. I work with people who built technical expertise and found out that on its own it isn't enough: startups, spin-offs, people leading technical teams. After a lifetime spent making decisions and helping people and projects grow. And the next crossroads is already in front of me: founding my own company.
My daughter is born
In those same months the family grows: two kids, and a life that asks you to juggle more things at once.
«Stay or Leave?» comes out
August 2026. My first book comes out: the method for deciding when you're stuck at a crossroads, with exercises to fill in page by page. I put my own crossroads in it, the wrong turns included. The English edition, «Stay or Leave?», is on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.
Today
I have a scientist's head and my hands in operations. A PhD done at Merck on sensors for the life sciences, more than ten years keeping big European companies running, and today logistics at Essity, two kids and my own project: helping people who are technically good get it across to others, instead of keeping it locked in their heads. Over the years I've learned to hold a lot of things together, between kids, family, a team and dozens of negotiations. That's where this job comes from.
Why I do it
A life is made of the decisions you take. You might as well learn to take them well.
Today I help people who take care of others build a business that takes care of them too. Whatever I say, I've tried on myself first.
And there's one piece of my work that looks like me more than any other: coaching for expats. I've lived abroad since 2014, and every week I work with Italians in Germany and other non-native speakers: communication and visible value, so that a career doesn't stop at the language. Details here.
At eighteen I wanted to be a psychologist, to help people. I couldn't, and I helped anyway: as a scientist, as a manager, and now as a coach for the people who help others. The dream hasn't changed. It has multiplied.
Let's talk
It starts with a coffee.
Thirty minutes online, no strings attached, to work out where you are and what the first move is.