Anthony Karali: from Engineer to Group Manager, focusing on growth and mentorship

Tell us a little about your background, and how you came to OpenWay.

Well, I am 100% local from the standpoint of OpenWay’s Belgium office! I was born and bred in Belgium, although my grandfather was from Cyprus and I have a lot of different nationalities in my background. I earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Namur, just a short drive from where I work now. I enjoyed the rigorous academic challenge and the idea of getting a Ph.D. even crossed my mind, but it wasn’t really a viable option for me. So I decided to go into the private sector. I attended local job fairs where large companies like Deloitte and Accenture were recruiting, and then through a recruiting agency I came across OpenWay.

What ultimately helped me choose was the feeling that at OpenWay, I could have more freedom in what I wanted to do, in the way I could potentially evolve professionally. Through my conversations with Denis Kvitka, the manager who recruited me, I got a pretty good idea of what I would be doing, how much fun it would be, how much responsibility I would be entrusted with, and how my work would impact the day-to-day running of the company. True, as I talked to friends and peers who were with Accenture and Deloitte, I recognized that these large, well-known and established companies would be like good schools for me. But by that time I had enough of the academic world! I became aware that I wanted to be in the actual playing field, take ownership of what I was doing. And I understood that OpenWay was the better option if I wanted to do that.

At OpenWay, I was given many opportunities to prove myself. There was an informal trial period where I was given tasks and challenges. Each time I wanted to do more, make more of an impact, I was offered that chance. If someone had asked me then where I wanted to be in 3-5 years, I was exactly where I needed to be to achieve that. If you really want something at OpenWay and are willing to work for it, you will not go unrewarded. I’ve been with OpenWay for 10 years now.

What kind of team leader do you aspire to be?

I think about half of the people who I started out with, those who mentored and nurtured me at the start, are still here. Now it’s my turn to be a mentor, a spotter and nurturer of talent. I was rather good at school, but a more important factor in my success academically were the good teachers who showed me the way. The team leaders I had at OpenWay helped me to understand what was important for me in the long run, and what makes me want to go to work. I try to notice that in the people I work with, what motivates them, what are their drivers. Also not just my team members – I try to be attentive to different kind of clients, how their organizations differ from OpenWay.

I believe that if I’m in a good, nurturing environment myself, I can reflect that in the way I welcome others to the team and how I work with them. It is a very OpenWay-specific experience, growing and nurturing. At the end of the day, although it is about what we do – payments or the domain, I was helped by the people I met. They had the biggest influence on my leadership skills. Emulation and repetition of needed skills have always had a big impact on me.

As a team leader, I’m managing people with different backgrounds and very different skills. I need to be people-oriented and it’s important for me to care for the people surrounding me, to understand interactions between people. I’m always thinking about how to organize and motivate our team, while keeping in mind that individual personalities are different. When I realized that I wanted to manage a team, it was a leap of faith. I knew I was pretty good at managing portfolios and programs, and how to be tactful and diplomatic. I had good negotiation and listening skills. But managing people requires a whole different level of skills. There are family and children, things going on at home that affect people, hidden things. I look at someone and try to see how much they are willing to grow. Not so much in an upward trajectory, but more like a professional surfer, more about how they’ll be able to manage the high peaks and the lows. Resilience is a quality that I try to cultivate in people.

At the same time, our team gets a lot of freedom. We are a hybrid team, we get together as a full team twice a week, so we have lunches and meetings face-to-face. Every quarter and every semester, we have a more formal meeting. This helps us bond, touch base with each other and with our progress.

How do you try to lead by example as Group Manager?

I started out at OpenWay as a Junior Implementation Engineer. Now, I function as a team leader, but I try to lead by example. Since I’ve gone through OpenWay from the ground up, it’s easier for me to put on my engineering hat that I had at the beginning and go back to my team, working beside them instead of over them. Interestingly, if you look at the organizational chart of our company, most all Group Managers have had a similar path to mine. They started out as engineers, and then they decided to develop their careers along a different path. Part of my role at OpenWay now includes recruiting, coaching and mentoring, which I enjoy. We often recruit young professionals, because we invest a lot of time in them, training and preparing them for growth. We have stats confirming that this approach works.

I’m fortunate in that I have a close-knit team, and everyone is very different. It’s important as a manager for me to understand that people are driven by different things. While all of us are motivated by the desire to do something meaningful and good, people are much more complex than we might believe. I try to be a good listener and understand each person and understand what motivates them, what makes them feel rewarded and valued. Some people are motivated by intellectual challenges, others, more down-to-earth considerations like opportunities for travel and financial reward. It’s important that we notice each other, take breaks, and listen to what people are telling you or not telling you, to read between the lines.

Besides your team’s growth and professional well-being, you keep a close watch on the success of commercial goals as defined by customer results. What value has your team brought to OpenWay in this regard?

My drive for championing customer success stems from the belief that the best way to position OpenWay as an industry leader is by ensuring our customers experience our best work and see the best version of ourselves. This involves taking a collaborative approach, challenging the status quo, proposing alternatives, and adapting our practices to fit each customer’s unique environment. Achieving this requires open-mindedness, pragmatism, continuous improvement, and sometimes a bit of bravery.

Two examples highlight my team's contribution. First, in the customer portfolios I manage, we’ve introduced additional process documentation and guidelines that aren’t yet part of our company-wide project management framework. Although these updates take time, they’ve proven invaluable for both our teams and customers. Recently, a new hire expressed admiration and praise for this work, and it was encouraging for me that the next generation is already ready to continue these efforts.

Second, the pandemic significantly changed how we collaborate with customers, particularly in areas where in-person presence was previously essential. In March 2020, just before the start of a large delivery project for a customer in Australia, sudden restrictions forced me to cancel my trip. My team and I had to quickly adapt to fully remote work, and despite some delays, we successfully completed the project to the satisfaction of our client. Since then, flexibility in where and how we perform project activities has become a standard practice, ensuring we tailor our approach to best meet our customers' needs—whether physically or virtually.

Please share a fun fact about yourself. What do you like to do with your free time?

Some days of the week I work from early morning so I can leave work while there’s still sunlight. I go to the house I’m renovating, which I started during the pandemic. I’ve always enjoyed building and working with my hands — something I’ve done since I was a child, when my father, who is in construction, would let me work on small tasks. I love it, the physical challenge, and the fact that it’s something that gets me out of my work mode completely. Although I do believe that my work self helps me a lot in this field too — construction and renovation after all has its best practices, rules and learning curves, and in areas where I don’t feel too competent, I delegate some things. But I do take pride in the fact that 95% of the home where I’ll be living with my wife and where, hopefully, we will start a family, I’ve put in the work myself. The air conditioning, the plumbing, electricity, the floors, I’ve put in the researching, the reading, the YouTube video watching. It’s been a rewarding experience.

Thank you, Anthony, for sharing your story!