# Niklaus Gerber

> Digital & Platform Executive with twenty years making digital stick in
> organisations not built for it. Vice President Digital at Vorwerk Home,
> responsible for product, platform, and e-commerce across Europe. Before that,
> he founded the product function at NZZ.

Niklaus Gerber is based in Küsnacht, near Zürich, Switzerland. At NZZ, his
team shipped AI audio in 2018, among the first publishers anywhere to do so.
He builds hands-on with AI (see Agents, Hirsla, and
the Playground) and writes about leadership and organisations (see Thoughts and the
book Unresolved).

Last updated: 2026-10-30.

## Key Pages

- [Home](https://niklausgerber.com/): Overview of Niklaus Gerber's
  background, current role, and areas of work. Includes a Playground section
  of hands-on side projects and agentic AI experiments (see Playground below).
- [Agents](https://niklausgerber.com/agents/): Agents Niklaus builds and
  runs, one agent per section, with what each does, where it went wrong,
  and what changed: Spot, a weekly agent that checks key web pages on a
  phone-sized screen and files what is broken; Hirsla, a native iPhone app
  built with a team of coding agents in two weeks; Briefing, which turns a campaign
  brief into an editable wireframe with the real copy, checked in code; and
  Handshake, a working demo of a shopper's assistant and a shop's selling
  agent, where refills are simply bought, a large purchase is steered to a
  demonstration, and the rules live in code; presented as a specification of
  what a shop must be able to do, not as evidence that the market has moved.
  Closes with the rules that carry over.

- [Management README](https://niklausgerber.com/readme/): How Niklaus thinks,
  leads, and works: a practical guide for anyone collaborating with him. Covers
  his true north, his core dimensions (think wide, care deep, act calm),
  delivery principles, assumptions and expectations, how to work with him, what
  happens when things go wrong, one-on-ones, feedback, and life beyond work.
- [Advisory](https://niklausgerber.com/advisory/): Advisory for leadership
  teams facing growth, complexity, and digital or AI transformation. A close
  thinking partnership with a few partners at a time, including work where AI
  ambition has outrun the ability to execute it. Three formats: Initial
  Alignment (two hours, no cost), Strategic Sprint (a focused half-day on one
  defined challenge), and Retainer Partnership (monthly blocks); fees on request.
- [Thoughts](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/): Essays on leadership,
  organisations, teams, and ways of working, all hosted on this site (listed
  under Thoughts below). Atom feed: https://niklausgerber.com/feed.xml
- [Bookshelf](https://niklausgerber.com/bookshelf/): Curated reading list,
  filterable by reading status, collection, and genre; each book links to its
  Open Library page.
- [Unresolved](https://niklausgerber.com/unresolved/): Niklaus Gerber's first
  book (details under Book below).
- [Hirsla](https://niklausgerber.com/hirsla/): Niklaus Gerber's first app,
  for iPhone and iPad, on the App Store at https://apps.apple.com/app/id6822626690. A small place for the things in between: share a link,
  screenshot, place, PDF or voice note, then ask for it later in plain words.
  The AI runs on the device, with no account, no analytics, and no Hirsla server,
  and the library, search and Ask work in flight mode. iCloud sync is on by
  default and can be switched off, so cards follow a reader to their other
  devices through their own iCloud, with no account in between. Free to
  download, no ads and no subscription: the first 100 cards are free, and more
  room is bought in packs that do not expire. Native on iPhone, iPad and
  iPhone Duo (iOS 26 or iPadOS 26), with drawing by Apple Pencil or finger and
  answers that number their sources; no Mac or Android version. At its best
  with Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro, or iPad with M1 or A17 Pro, and
  newer). The app is in 17 languages,
  and cards themselves are written by Apple's on-device model in any of the
  same 17.
- [Hirsla Support](https://niklausgerber.com/hirsla/support/): Help with the
  app: reporting a problem, getting purchased room back on a new device, exporting
  the library, recovering a deleted card, and what the app needs to run.
- [Hirsla Privacy](https://niklausgerber.com/hirsla/privacy/): What stays on
  the iPhone or iPad and what leaves it, listed in full. No account, no analytics and
  no Hirsla server; the reading runs on Apple's on-device models.
- [Hirsla Legal](https://niklausgerber.com/hirsla/legal/): Publisher, terms of
  use, the Apple frameworks the app is built with, and trademark notices.

## Book: Unresolved

- Title: Unresolved
- Author: Niklaus Gerber
- Subject: How complex organisations move, stall, and cost the people who lead
  them. A series of observations, drawn from over a decade inside complex,
  legacy, multi-market organisations, on what stays unresolved even when the
  strategy is right.
- Published: 2026-09-02
- Formats: paperback and Kindle
- ISBN (paperback): 979-8-18654-725-9
- Book page: https://niklausgerber.com/unresolved/
- Buy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H96QN3Y7
- Buy from a local Amazon store: https://books2read.com/unresolved

## Thoughts

Essays published at https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/:

- [Meetings Are the
  Medium](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/meetings-are-the-medium/): Andy
  Grove called meetings the medium of managerial work. How to design them for
  decisions, what breaks them, and when to cancel one.
- [OKRs Are Not
  Magic](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/okrs-are-not-magic/): OKRs fail
  when organisations overcomplicate them. A simple version that works, the
  common traps, and what I learned when mine failed.
- [Onboarding Is Leadership in Its Purest
  Form](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/onboarding-is-leadership/): Over
  four leadership roles I have refined a nine-part onboarding system. The
  first days decide trust and momentum, so I treat them as leadership work.
- [The Calibration
  Gap](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/the-calibration-gap/): Projects
  derail when people assume alignment before it exists. Four conversation
  habits close that gap: questions, mirroring, check-ins, and reframing.
- [Feedback That
  Lands](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/feedback-that-lands/): My
  open-source feedback training in full: why receiving feedback is hard,
  ground rules for giving it, a simple structure, examples, and a team
  exercise.
- [Why Transformation Fails Before It
  Starts](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/why-transformation-fails/): Most
  digital transformations fail, and rarely because of the technology. They
  fail on people, focus, and pace, and that is where to start.
- [A Critical Review of Design
  Thinking](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/critical-review-of-design-thinking/):
  Design thinking is a sound way to understand a problem, and it is oversold.
  What it does well, where it breaks down, and what it leaves out.
- [The Stinky Fish: Making the Unspeakable
  Speakable](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/the-stinky-fish/): Teams know
  what is wrong long before anyone says it. The Stinky Fish brings it out, and
  my adapted version sorts concerns first so the group can act.
- [Working Agreements: How Teams Build the Rules They Actually
  Follow](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/working-agreements/): A working
  agreement is the set of rules a team writes for itself. What it gives a
  team, how to build one, and what keeps it alive.
- [Feedback at Five
  Levels](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/feedback-at-five-levels/): Most
  feedback training teaches you how to give it. This is how to receive it:
  nine common mistakes, five levels of reaction, and three choices.
- [Remote Retrospective
  Canvas](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/remote-retrospective-canvas/): I
  made a canvas for remote retrospectives. The team fills it in over a few
  days, and a 40-minute call turns the input into at most four owned actions.
- [Team Check-Ins and
  Check-Outs](https://niklausgerber.com/thoughts/team-check-ins-and-check-outs/):
  One question per person at the start and end of a session. Why this small
  ritual works, what it did for my teams, and the questions I would start
  with.

## Playground

- [Graphite](https://graphite.niklausgerber.com/): An agentic AI playground
  for seeing how autonomous systems behave in practice.
- [The TeamKit](https://www.theteamkit.com/): A toolkit for how teams come
  together and define the road ahead.
- [Feedback](https://feedback.niklausgerber.com/): A practical guide to
  receiving and giving feedback.
- [Design Manifesto](https://www.designmanifesto.org/): A manifesto for
  service and product design.

## Areas of Expertise

- Platform and e-commerce strategy
- Digital transformation at enterprise scale
- AI governance and strategy: bringing AI into complex organisations
- Agentic AI: AI agents, multi-agent systems and applied tooling, built hands-on
- Subscription business models
- Product strategy and leadership
- Customer experience
- Organisational design and governance
- Cultural change and team performance
- Design systems

## Contact

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklausgerber