I left home at 19 and moved to another country with no money, no safety net, and no plan.
What I had was an inner certainty that I was meant to build something meaningful.

Since then, I have navigated reinvention many times, across leadership roles, entrepreneurship, personal loss, burnout, and rebuilding from scratch. Those experiences shaped how I lead, how I listen, and how I guide others through change.

Today, I work at the intersection of leadership, human dynamics, and artificial intelligence.

I help leaders and organizations navigate transformation without losing trust, clarity, or their humanity.

I am the CEO of APEK.ai, where we build secure, enterprise-grade Agentic AI and voice solutions that modernize operations while humanizing communication. My work focuses on helping organizations adopt AI in ways that feel intelligent, responsible, and deeply human.

With over 20 years in enterprise transformation, leadership strategy, and reinvention, I bring a perspective that blends technology, psychology, and real-world leadership experience.

⸻

Who I Work With

• Executives and boards navigating AI-driven change
• Leaders in transition who look successful on paper but feel misaligned inside
• Organizations ready to evolve beyond legacy thinking and systems
• Founders and senior leaders preparing for their next chapter of impact

People usually come to me when change stops being theoretical and becomes personal.

⸻

What I Believe

AI will not replace leadership.
But it will expose it.

The future belongs to leaders who can combine intelligence with clarity, technology with trust, and innovation with humanity.

If my work resonates, explore my writing, talks, and leadership resources.
Or reach out if you are looking for a trusted advisor, speaker, or strategic partner during moments of transformation.

Eva Karnaukh

If you’re a senior leader carrying pressure from above, friction from the sides, and execution below, you’re probably not failing.

You’re overloaded.

In many organizations, pressure doesn’t spread evenly. It concentrates. Capable leaders absorb decisions without authority, vague priorities, and conflicting demands so work keeps moving. For a while, performance holds. Then strain shows up. Not because people stop trying, but because it’s unclear where the load is coming from or how to relieve it without breaking something else.

This is the space I work in and what I spend my time thinking about.

I’ve led in high-stakes, fast-moving environments where decisions are visible, timelines are compressed, and small misses compound quickly. 

In that work, responsibility included live execution in environments where multiple teams, external partners, and clients were under pressure simultaneously, and someone had to keep the system steady while decisions were made.

I’ve also worked with operators and senior leaders who were still performing, but could feel the conditions that made that performance possible starting to erode.

What experience has taught me is this:
pressure is information.

Sometimes the strain is personal. Bandwidth. Recovery. Decision fatigue.
Sometimes it’s structural. Decision rights. Role design. Work intake. Unrealistic or shifting expectations.

The risk is guessing and acting before the pressure is understood.

Some common patterns are:
→ decisions being made without clear ownership
→ priorities that compete rather than trade off
→ work processes that no longer fit the pace or complexity
→ pressure repeatedly routing through one role

My role is not to diagnose from a distance or prescribe a solution too early. It’s to help leaders distinguish personal strain from structural pressure and decide what would actually relieve it.

When that’s useful, I do this through a short, focused engagement called the Decision Unlock Sprint. Over a couple of weeks, we identify the primary sources of pressure, map where the load is landing, and clarify what questions or decisions need to be worked through, and who needs to be involved, to reset expectations and stabilize the operating condition. The work ends with a concise readout designed for the people who can act, so the output gets used rather than merely admired.

Sometimes that points to coaching. Sometimes to team or system changes. Sometimes to do nothing further.

DM me if you’re carrying more pressure than your role was designed for and want a clearer way to make sense of it.

David Parsons

Most leadership problems won't disappear in the next decade.
Misaligned systems will.

The future of leadership isn't about knowing more, working harder, or being everywhere at once.

It's about knowing what actually holds when pressure rises.

What gains leverage as complexity rises:

🧠 Skills that help leaders think in systems
→ Systems thinking
→ Decision clarity under uncertainty
→ Pattern recognition

🤝 Human skills that scale pressure without breaking teams
→ Emotional intelligence
→ Trust building
→ Psychological safety

📈 Capabilities that stay relevant
→ Leading through ambiguity
→ Designing clear decision rights
→ Creating alignment without control

📉 Behaviors that lose effectiveness
→ Heroics
→ Micromanagement
→ Overconfidence and certainty theater

McKinsey’s research shows most organizations don’t stall from lazy leaders, but from systems and behaviors that no longer fit their level of complexity.
​
Leadership failure is rarely an effort problem. 
It’s using yesterday’s playbook in today’s environment.

As complexity rises, leadership shifts from...
“How much can I do?” to “How well can this system think, decide, and adapt without me?

The goal isn't to become a different kind of leader.

It's to build systems that don't require you to carry everything yourself.

How do you lead through systems?

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Senior ops leaders → from overload to clear decisions under sustained pressure | 10+ years ops experience

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