Question: "Every career has defining moments that change us. What experience stands out as a turning point in your journey?"

It was 1983, my fifth year teaching, when Anthony Martinez stayed after class, tears streaming down his face. His parents only spoke Spanish, and he was failing because he was translating everything twice - once for them, once for himself. That night I enrolled in Spanish classes at the community college. Within a year, I was holding parent conferences in Spanish, watching mothers cry with relief that someone finally understood. Word spread, and soon my classroom became a bridge between two worlds. I started teaching English to parents on Saturday mornings, using the same patience I showed their children. That boy Anthony? He became a teacher too. The turning point wasn't learning Spanish - it was understanding that teaching meant reaching not just the child, but their whole world.

Question: "Tell me about a moment when you took a leap that scared you - what gave you the courage?"

In 1979, the bank had rejected my loan application three times - who'd lend money to a baker's son with wild ideas about sourdough? I stood outside the empty shop on Rue de la République with Marguerite, eight months pregnant with our second child. The rent would take everything we'd saved for ten years. Marguerite squeezed my hand and said, "Jean-Paul, your bread makes people happy. That's your collateral." We signed the lease that afternoon. I spent the first three months sleeping in the bakery, too anxious to leave the ovens. Every morning I'd stand at the window, terrified no one would come. But they did - first a trickle, then lines around the block. The courage didn't come from me; it came from Marguerite's faith, from Papa's recipes in my pocket, from the certainty that Lyon needed bread made with love, not machines. That empty shop became Boulangerie Dubois, and we fed the neighborhood for thirty-five years.

Question: "Who believed in you when the idea was just scribbles on a napkin? Tell me about your early believers."

Her name was Dr. Sarah Mitchell, an American consultant brought in after reunification to modernize our systems. While my German colleagues still treated me like a secretary who'd wandered into the wrong room, Sarah saw my potential immediately. She found me debugging code at 2 AM, and instead of questioning why I was there, she pulled up a chair and said, "Show me what you're building." I explained my idea for data compression that could work on our outdated East German hardware. She listened, really listened, then made a phone call to Silicon Valley at 3 AM Berlin time. "I found her," she said simply. "The one I told you about." Within a month, I was leading a team of twelve men who'd previously ignored me. Sarah didn't just believe in my code; she believed in my voice. She'd interrupt meetings when men talked over me: "Ilse was speaking. Please continue, Ilse." Twenty-five years later, when I won the European Innovation Award, Sarah was in the front row, gray-haired now, still believing.