Camino Primitivo

 I got feedback from people saying my previous posts inspired them to either lose weight, start exercising, run a half marathon with their sibling or consider doing the Camino. So one more post hoping it also serves as inspiration for someone. If it does, please let me know! 

 My active holidays comes to an end and, for the third year running, I have been doing some walking, this time along the Camino Primitivo. In fact, well over 500k steps in eleven days to cover the distance between Oviedo and Santiago, a superb and challenging experience with plenty of time to walk on my own for hours and also to meet some great fellow pilgrims. If that was not enough, it was made all the more "interesting" by the mix of rain, wind and scorching temperatures I got the pleasure to enjoy throughout the days. 

 One word of caution though, consider your fitness level and rather start small. It's taken me a couple of years to get to a point where I feel I can walk 30km per day on average up and down through rough terrain (and to be fair, my feet probably beg to differ). Training can get you anywhere but it takes time. 

 And while we are on the topic of walking, my department, Digital & IT, has organised a step challenge called Steptember, raising money for Children's Cancer Research Fund. Any donations, big or small, are highly appreciated. 

Rolls Royce Digital and IT is fundraising for Children's Cancer Research Fund

This was posted in LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/p/eqRVsqxa

The world wins with happy developers

I just spent the last couple of days at the We Are Developers World Conference in Berlin with my team. Not surprisingly agentic AI was a big topic especially how the software development life cycle is being redefined along with the job of software development itself, what is worth measuring and what is not, and how different companies are tackling similar challenges.

My aim in this conference was not to gather technical details, but rather to look for inspiration to become a better manager, therefore several of the talks I decided to attend were about creating high performance teams, removing friction and improving developer experience. Time well spent.

Plus there is the possibility to watch all other talks online. In that sense, zero FOMO during the conference knowing everything will be available. Kudos to the organisers.

First published in LinkedIn

S25 Half Marathon 2026

This was posted on LinkedIn on 20th April

A year ago I would have thought this was impossible, and yet it happened yesterday. I finished my first race, a half marathon!

The real challenge has been keeping the discipline to show up for the training sessions on my own over the long cold winter, even if it meant running while snowing in the evenings or along frozen tracks in Grunewald. In retrospect, signing up for another race later in Spring or in early Summer would have been much better. Lesson learned for next time.

Kudos to my brother for coming all the way from Madrid to run along with me. Without him it would have been even harder. With him it was still hard but also fun, and this will become a core memory. Even more so as arriving at the Olympic Stadium through the marathon gate was truly magical.

LinkedIn Queens

 

This makes me a bit proud, I have achieved many times top 10% and top 5% rankings. Around 20 days ago (forgot to post it here) was the first time I got to be in the top 1%. No idea if this is true or just engagement tactics though. Maybe there should be a queens.com, similar to chess.com

Civil ET&S Award 2025

Posted in LinkedIn earlier this week

What a great way to finish the year, really honoured to be part of the team which has received the Civil ET&S Award in the Engineering Excellence category.

Nice example of how collaboration across Services, Digital & Engineering working as one team towards a common objective really makes a difference.

Kimon Abu-Taa, Theodora Tzortzoglou, Christian Otterbach, Oguzhan Bozkurt, Theresa Robinson, Łukasz Więckowski, Alberto Bava, José Manuel Sarrión Navarro, Luca Fontana, Pasquale D'Urso

Business trip to India

I posted this in LinkedIn a few days ago

Kristian Harder and I visited Tata Consultancy Services in Bangalore and Pune two weeks ago, and I would like to thank the whole team for making us feel truly welcome, specially our hosts Anil Gangolli, Ronney Samuel and Sneha Sikchi (Malpani).

Our teams have been working together for several years and there is a strong foundation to continue our collaboration, based on our common commitment to deliver high quality data and software products. Thanks for letting us take part in your townhall meetings to provide context on Business Aviation and how we use data to drive decisions and enable value.

On a more personal note, playing cricket for the first time and doing it in India will be a cherished memory.