With enthusiasm and a beaming smile, Mona Ghazi enters Zurich’s Monocle Café, which is located between the lake promenade and her current apartment. The place belongs to a lifestyle magazine and breathes the spirit of New Work – which suits the young visitor well. Behind the counter, English-speaking baristas brew oat cappuccinos and matcha teas. You can also buy all sorts of accessories for modern working nomads: elegant notebooks, leather luggage tags or stylish computer backpacks.
Ghazi orders a homemade ice tea and we find a quiet place in the next room, which also houses a podcast studio. The 23-year-old entrepreneur reports on how she consciously chose Zurich as her home base: “I wanted to live in a city on the water, go for a run in nature in the morning and have good international connections.” She then sorted out Lisbon, Singapore and New York when she realized that her “personal brand”, the Mona Ghazi brand, was already well established in German-speaking countries.
At the age of 23, Mona Ghazi has already achieved more than others at the age of 50: She has completed two bachelor’s degrees and founded three companies. She is also working on her doctorate and has 24,000 followers on LinkedIn. Mona Ghazi, the high-flyer – that is one side of her story. But the other has to do with fear of failure. And with unusual methods to overcome them.
At 16 she founded her first startup – the idea failed
Ghazi speaks disarmingly honestly: “The fear of not being good enough accompanied me for many years.” Even when she was at school, there was an inner voice that kept pushing her forward. At 14, she began studying economics on the side, later adding computer science. At 16 she founded her first startup – the idea failed. She founded another learning platform for employees in the industry, which she sold to an international logistics group three years later.
