Kosta Calios in a light shirt

I am
Kosta.

KoRo founder. Entrepreneur. Advisory board member.

I wanted to be free. That is why I founded a company.
Today I work alongside entrepreneurs and speak
about crises, culture and leadership.

Discover speaking & sparring
My companies & projects

I wanted to do my own thing.

Robert and I founded KoRo. The name comes from our first names: KOsta and RObert. The idea of turning it into a food company came from Michelle. Together we took KoRo in that direction.

We wanted to make retail simpler. Big packs, fewer middlemen and a direct route from producer to customer. With the product, we focused on taste and quality. Whatever added no value, we left out.

How I work with you
01

Speaking
Crises & culture.

At KoRo, the shareholder structure changed three times. New shareholders bring their own ideas. Employees need direction. And as a founder, you have to decide which changes help the company and what you stand for yourself. These tensions are what I speak about on stage.

The focus is on crises and how they affect the way people work together. How do you address conflict? What holds a team together when things get hard? I share what I learned about this at KoRo.

Carrying culture through crises

What changes when new shareholders come in. How to discuss expectations, put conflicts on the table and give the team direction even in difficult phases.

From founding team to organisation

When you can no longer make every decision yourself. On handing over tasks and the question of how employees can take on responsibility.

Growing while staying entrepreneurially free

Which tasks you want to keep as a founder and which you have to let go. On personal goals that remain alongside the expectations placed on the company.

What I learned on the mat

Dealing with pressure, questioning your own reaction and carrying on after a mistake. Lessons from taekwondo that stay with me in business.

Request a talk Keynotes · Panels · Entrepreneur events
02

Entrepreneurial
Sparring

You want to hand over responsibility, but the important decisions still end up with you. Or your shareholders disagree about where to go next. In sparring, we take time for the specific situation in your company.

We sort out who is involved, what interests lie behind it and what options you have. I ask questions and give you my assessment. We also discuss what you want to take on yourself and where you can give others room.

Talk about sparring
03

Mentoring
for founders.

With a migration background

I grew up in Berlin and have Greek roots. While raising capital for KoRo, I experienced how hard it can be to win investors over for your own venture.

That is why today I particularly want to support founders with a migration background. In mentoring, we talk about your idea, preparing for investor meetings and the next decisions as you build. It is also about what you personally want to achieve with your company.

Present your venture
Kosta Calios laughing, hands in his pockets
My story

Freedom was
my starting point.

I studied law and wanted to become a judge. Justice mattered to me. During my studies, I realised I wanted to change something myself. Retail seemed unnecessarily complicated to me. That is where I saw the chance to build something and make a living from it.

The way I treat people has a lot to do with the home I grew up in. When I brought friends home, there was one more plate on the table. Nobody asked whether they were staying for dinner. That is how I grew up in Berlin, with my Greek roots.

I took that attitude with me into the company. Whoever joined KoRo was meant to belong. That applied to the team just as much as to the management. Long-term relationships mattered to me, and the trust to speak openly about uncomfortable things.

At the same time, I wanted to build a life I could shape myself. The company's success was meant to improve that. So for me, the entrepreneurial journey also includes the question of how much of your own day you still decide for yourself. Running a large company and keeping that freedom: both matter to me.

Today I am still a shareholder in KoRo and sit on its advisory board. The distance from day-to-day operations gives my role a different shape. What I take from that time, I bring into new companies and into working with other founders.

My profile on LinkedIn
Over 30 years of taekwondo

What I pass on
today.

The mat is part of my story. Martial arts have been with me for as long as I can remember. In taekwondo, I learned to hold my ground, to respect boundaries and to keep going even when someone pushes back.

On the mat, conflicts are fought out. There are rules and an opponent who fights back. That shaped how I deal with conflict as an entrepreneur. Difficult conversations with employees, partners or shareholders are part of the responsibility.

Training has always been a place for me to think, too. Many big decisions were already made on the mat before I took them in the office. Today I continue this connection between martial arts and entrepreneurship at CC Sports Institute.

Visit CC Sports Institute
Kosta during taekwondo training with a training partner
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