The shape you never chose is running your day | Aleksandra Kireeva | TEDxHSRW

Systems such as coffee shops, startups and universities are often shaped by people who are no longer there, for conditions that have since changed. Over time, people working inside these structures tend to accept them as fixed until the costs grow too high. In this TEDxHSRW talk, Aleks Kireeva, a senior commercial operator, argues that organisations behave more like organisms than machines, and that the constraints that seem permanent, such as queues, silos and unwritten rules, are design choices that others can change.

• Organisational structures are often inherited from earlier conditions
• Constraints such as silos and queues are design choices
• Companies are presented as organisms rather than machines
• Speaker's background includes fintech and B2B SaaS operations

Every system you move through was shaped by someone who is no longer there, for a world that has already changed. That's what a coffee shop has in common with a startup or university. We treat these shapes as the way things are and work inside them until the costs become too high. Aleks Kireeva on how to see the shape you inherited, and why you have the power to redesign it. Filmed and edited by Fotocinema (Arkadiusz Tomala). Aleks Kireeva is a senior commercial operator who has spent fifteen years rebuilding operations at European fintechs and B2B SaaS companies. She currently leads Commercial Analytics for a €1.5 billion vertical at Delivery Hero, after earlier roles at Billie, Smava, and Neugelb, Commerzbank's digital subsidiary. Her thesis is that companies aren't machines, even though we keep designing them like they are. The constraints that look permanent inside organisations: the queues, the silos, the rules everyone has accepted as "just how things work here", are almost always design choices someone made. Someone else can change them. Aleks is Berlin-based, speaks five languages, and was named a Women in Tech Global Role Model in 2024. Her TEDxHSRW talk is "Your Company Is an Organism - Stop Treating It Like a Machine." This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx