Before the Wave: Frank Levering and the Discipline of Being Early

He has never stayed still for long. From the earliest days of mobile data in Europe to the factory floors of northern Italy, from the streets of Bangkok to the startup ecosystem of the Philippines, Frank Levering has built a career at the intersection of technology and human ambition, always arriving just before the wave, always operating from the front line.

He started in e-commerce when Amazon was still losing money on books. He launched GPRS pricing for all of Europe. He joined Microsoft, moved to Thailand, broke his leg in a garden, and took a CTO role in Italian automotive during the early days of Industry 4.0, all before COVID forced a rethink that ultimately led him to the Philippines, where he now runs a lean, globally networked consulting practice.

In this exclusive GER conversation, Frank reflects on what it means to live in the trenches of emerging technology, how he reads markets before others see the opportunity, and why the most underestimated factor in scaling anything internationally is simply the willingness to experience it first.

Early Journey and Foundations

What is your fondest memory from the early part of your life, the moment that first pointed you toward the path you are on today?

So when I graduated college, my parents took me to the USA, because I had been saying since I was about 12 years old that this is where I wanted to live. We had a big trip going all the way from San Diego, working our way up to LA, to the desert. We saw a lot of different things and spent almost a month there. A real, proper visit to get an impression of what it would be like to actually stay there and have a life there. It did not deter me at all. I would say nowadays I would scratch behind the ear a few times, but back in the day I was like, yes, I am on the right path, that is where I want to be, the land of opportunity. And that sort of stayed with me as a little itch throughout many, many years after.

Have you been back to the US since?

Oh, many many times, of course, for work. I worked for Microsoft, so I spent a lot of time there. And some good friends there as well, so even if it was not for work, I would tend to visit. The Microsoft events were always in the big cities. Been to Georgia, LA, Vegas for big events and trade shows. I have a very close friend who works at Dell who invited me to his house to spend some time together. That was in Austin, Texas, which I still think is one of the greatest states in the US. Absolutely loved it there.

I have been to many different places and they are all unique. In Europe you have different provinces inside the countries that already show a lot of difference from the area around them. The US is a little bit like that. By state, you sort of are in a new country or a new province every time, with new food to explore, new culture to discover, new habits to find out about before you make a stupid mistake. It is very appealing to travel to the US.

In your journey so far, what is the biggest obstacle or setback that you have overcome?

You meet a couple of obstacles along the way. Bears on the road. Those are sort of part of life. You lose a job, or your role is not what you expected, or there is a new manager coming in who does not really click as nicely as the previous one. Those are part of your life’s journey.

I think one of the big curveballs was COVID. It came at a time where I was about one year into a new role. But before that, I did something stupid. I came back from the US with bad jet lag, still accepted a dinner with some of the parents from my kid’s school. I was spinning, I was really not there anymore. All I wanted was to see my pillow. But in the meantime the kids had agreed that we would have a sleepover, so I was bringing some of the kids home. Because of the jet lag I was a little bit overly stressed about taking care of the kids, paying a lot of attention to them in the car park, and not so much to myself. As such, I stepped into a little garden they had made while I was away. It turned out it was so fresh they had not pounded the ground firm yet. It was all loose sand. I literally just sank in with one leg, fell forward, my leg stayed in, and I had a nasty break. We rushed to the hospital. Expert not available. They taped me up and said come back in the morning. It was a nightmarish night. It cost me almost a year in recovery to get my mobility back after that.

And then I was talking to my wife, because this was in Thailand where we were staying at the time, and we were basically saying: now what if this happens when you are unemployed? What if it happens and you do not have that umbrella insurance? That is going to be absolutely deadly. As a family there are going to be my two kids and my wife straight away on top if something happens to me. And what if it is not your leg but your neck? Worst case scenario. So all these scary scenarios became very close to home and very real all of a sudden. That is where you had to do a lot of big thinking about why do we not make our next move with that in mind.

And that was the only reason why I would consider going back to Europe again. We had a big talk about it. If you go to northern Europe you live very much in your house. If you go to Asia, you live very much outside. You sleep and you use the bathroom, you might eat in your house, but that is about it. You are in the streets, in the village, amongst people at all times. So if that is your culture and you are suddenly meeting people by appointment, that is extremely frustrating. That would be a devastating change for my wife if we were not prepared for it.

So I gave some options. If you go a bit further south, you can think of Italy, Spain, Portugal. Those are more like Asian cultures. Family is very important. Life is much more outside in the summer. At least half of the year matches. And you end up in an environment that feels more warm and familiar. We decided to take that gamble because we had some good friends in Italy who would be able to guide the process. So we were not exactly on our own and we could take a bit of a chance.

How does working across cultures shape your leadership philosophy?

I learned to not take yourself too seriously. In the beginning I was studying management books. I had to go to Taiwan for the first time and I bought a book on Taiwanese culture, 400 pages, and I was hovering through it thinking: how am I going to remember all this? And as I was thinking it through I realised: what is going to be worse, if I get it half right or if I get it completely wrong? Because if I get it half right and miss something, it is just going to seem like I am being rude. Whereas if I have no knowledge whatsoever and I do something stupid, I make it very clear that they are welcome to teach me so I will not do it again. I think that is the preferred option.

So very early in my career I decided: get the basics right and get the rest through human contact. For example, I was in Malaysia and I stuck out my hand to a lady official of the government, who was insulted that I would dare suggest we touch each other. I looked at her face and said: oh my god, so sorry, I never thought of that for a second, I should have. And then the room relaxed right after, because the next thing I did was the right thing. The minute you do something wrong and make up for it straight away, show your understanding of the situation, everything goes away.

Career Evolution and Turning Points

You have spent time at Microsoft and at Geico SpA in Italy. What major technology shifts did you witness firsthand at those companies?

When I first came out of university I graduated in e-commerce, which was already massive because Amazon was still making a loss on books. Those were the very early days. I was at a little Dutch company selling computer hardware business to business. Something like a printer cartridge, you do not need to see it before you buy it. Very suitable for e-commerce. Moderate success, and I was a part of that from the front row. That was my first sneak peek at being somewhere early, which I really enjoyed.

From there I joined Microsoft because I always wanted to work for Microsoft. After about a year I was able to work with the launch teams for Office, Windows and SQL, the 2000 milestones. Windows 2000, SQL 2000. Those were milestone products. Still famous. And there was lots of budget for those launches. It was still a little bit cowboy-ish back in those days. Super fun.

When I was all finished I basically said: I would like to have my own product. How about mobile? Mobile is up and coming, mobile is going to be a hot thing. Why not jump on that? So they let me, but after about a year they said: okay, you have had your play and now you have to find out for yourself. It is too early for us. But we are very close friends with O2 and they are launching a Windows phone when they launch data on the network. We would like to recommend you for that project team.

So the CEO and my manager went to O2 and wrote a nice letter recommending me as part of the Microsoft friendship, and basically told me the door is wide open. Go and do that, learn all you can, and when you are ready, come back. So I did that. I launched GPRS with the project team and set the prices for all of Europe, because we were the very first to do it. That was proper frontier stuff. We were also dealing with the BlackBerry launch on another team at the same time.

We had the pre-smartphones with styluses and touch screens, the old days. It was still GSM data, dial-up modem sounds out of your phone to connect to a mobile network. As early as that. But it also inspired us to invent the GPRS counter. How do you explain to people how much data they are using? You could say I am going to do a thousand emails and that is about 5 megabytes, but not if you also download the attachments. With the counter, you got a warning: you are going to be out of bundle and every megabyte from here is going to cost you a euro. We prevented a massive amount of trouble with that.

We also worked with broadcasters to stream goals live after they were scored. Literally somebody in the stadium pressed a button, rewound seven seconds of the running recording, uploaded it to a mobile server, and the application sent you an alert. If you accepted the alert and paid one euro, that live goal would be sent to your phone and you could watch it. As a showcase app it was remarkable.

We also had third screen applications, where shows like Fear Factor were on TV and you could play along on your phone, predicting whether contestants would complete the challenges. If you got it right you got points and could spend them in a virtual store. My job was to really showcase those value-adding services that data would bring to mobile devices. I was speaking of cool stuff, basically.

What was the turning point that led you from global technology roles into the manufacturing sector in Italy?

After the injury and the conversation with my wife, we decided on Italy. I joined a family business as CTO in automotive. It was an incredibly exciting job, really exciting people. A company built by engineers that decided they needed somebody who was an outsider, who would function independently next to the engineers rather than with the engineers, to bring them into the next century thinking of Industry 4.0. Smart manufacturing, smart plants. And really help them cross the gap they were facing by working only as engineers.

That would be my chance to manage the resistance, to convince people on why it would be useful to sit next to them and say: okay, you do your job, I do mine, and together comes out magic. Although for me the technology was very familiar and something I had been using for years, it was still the frontier for them, and therefore also for me in terms of the trenches, which is where I love to be the most. They were extremely generous. They made a very good offer and assisted very well on settling me down so I could find a house for the family first.

I basically sent my wife and kids to the Philippines, where my wife is from, for an extended holiday while I sorted out the house, visa, and paperwork. And that is when COVID struck, 40 kilometres from my house. People dying all over the place, body bags outside of the hospital nearby. It lasted extremely long. The friction was gigantic everywhere. Professional, personal, me being in the middle. All together a gigantic mess.

When the second wave of COVID was threatening I told the guys at my company: at this point it is unfair to ask of me to be separated any longer from my family. Almost three years. I do not see any sustainable options anymore. And they were incredibly nice and supportive about it. They said: this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, nobody can predict this, we are not going to hold this against you, family first, we understand here in Italy. So all very positive.

What made you decide to create your marketing consulting business in the Philippines?

It was an absolute must. When I arrived in the Philippines I realised there are maybe five jobs a year I can apply to and probably 500 people like me who would like to have that job. That is not going to work. But I had good friends in the Philippines and many Asian countries. I spoke to them and a friend said: I have an office for you in the duty-free zone. If you find business, you can invoice through my company. You have a legitimate business, you can charge for your services and work remote. That seemed like the smartest thing to do.

So I went: okay, what can I do? I have been CMO, I have been CTO. The most important parts of those roles were not the implementation of the technologies, not even the technology selection. It was understanding what the business needed and translating that to the appropriate technologies, and then making sure they were tools and not obstacles by the time they were deployed. Those roles, especially the IT role, were all about making technology match the needs of the people who are going to use it.

Reading Markets and Building the Business

How are you able to read a market before others see the opportunity?

I think it is the word read. I read a ton of information. I consume an endless amount of information on things that entertain me, that I find interesting. I like to live in those trenches at the front end of things. So something new comes up that is interesting, like AI, or how marketing blended with technology and became measurable. All those things, when they started to happen, I was right there when all the tools came out, and I knew all of them and studied all of them. I go as deep as I can to have a deeper understanding of what the difference is between this and that, which one I would select and why, and how I would improve them still. Purely because that makes me happy. There is no other reason. I find it entertaining, I find it a good use of my time.

And it creates insights that might come in handy or might not, but it at least gives me an opinion on what is going on in the world. That is almost like a hobby. And now it is my profession.

What I try and do now is find those clients who say: Ukraine used to be our go-to place to get extra resources, but that does not work anymore. India used to be the backup, but India is crazy expensive nowadays and a lot more unreliable than it used to be. China is sort of scary. The options are not that obvious. As I have been here for a long time, I have dealt with talent across Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia. I have a deep network of developers, marketers, and designers.

So I basically start by selling myself. I go and say, through word of mouth: I have heard about this project you have coming up. It sounds like something you do not really have the skill in-house for. Does it not make sense to have those strategic conversations so you have a really clear outline of what the project is supposed to achieve, and then just give it to me? We have conversations, we now have an equal understanding of what you need, we agree on the price, on the time, and on the level of quality that you need to succeed. Then forget about it. Assign your people as much as you want, tell me what you are missing and I will supplement from anywhere in the world where I think is best. And we will deliver.

I am not going to come back one week after and say here is what we have done so far. I am going to take the worry away from you. I am going to make sure you have no concerns. And I am going to make sure that on the deadline you get exactly what you need, for the price you wanted to pay, at the quality agreed.

How do you balance being analytical with being creative when you are designing marketing strategies?

Analytical is very much a forced quality and a forced skill set you have when you are creative. I am extremely good with numbers. I just do not like numbers. Absolutely not my thing. I probably would have been a really great accountant because I remember all the formulas and figures from when I was studying them in school, but I do not want to deal with that at all. It is boring to me.

But I have also learned along the way that certain things are necessary for your success in the bigger things that you do. A good example: I used to be a 90 percent guy. As soon as 90 percent was done, the last 10 percent felt boring as hell. It is all the little details, the documentation, making sure everybody understands, the handover to the production people. That is the boring part. And there was always something shiny and new ready to jump on. You have to choose the next shiny object.

So I was already distracted. And that is something I truly had to force myself to change. You are not ever going to get the same accolades and the same appreciation for what you do if you always leave the last 10 percent to somebody else. People will start to look at you and say: that is the guy who runs away when it is almost finished. Very very profound lesson.

Industry 4.0, Technology and the Philippines

What excites you the most about Industry 4.0, and in emerging markets like the Philippines, what potential do you see?

I think Industry 4.0 is actually something we probably need to take a quick look at and integrate with AI. Those two trends go hand in hand. With those two technologies combined you can make the quickest jump from engineering-driven manufacturing towards really optimised smart process engineering.

The real impact is that you can predict, based on information coming from sensors, that something is going to fail. In automotive, one hour of normal operations that is unplanned and unscheduled is a lot of money. Millions. If you can prevent that by predicting that maintenance is needed, or a replacement is needed, or something does not sound right and somebody should check it when the line is off, that is massive. That is where Industry 4.0 will have its first impact, because it is very money-driven.

Then there are unmanned vehicles. Instead of having everything on a fixed conveyor, having every individual car body move around on its own as a separate unit allows you to optimise paths, use much smaller spaces, and makes every factory almost like a Ferrari factory. Much more optimised, much more personalised per individual unit that you are producing.

3D printing in metal is also a massive impact on manufacturing. There was a discussion recently where very high-end car brand makers were basically saying you need to be extremely skilled, you need special utilities, only two places in the world can maintain cars like this. All kinds of excuses for why you should not support a do-it-yourself approach. What they were worried about was getting exposed. They were using cheap parts on a very expensive sports car. But instead they played hide and seek and got themselves into trouble.

3D printing allows for what in marketing is the pipe dream: one-on-one marketing. Now you have almost one-on-one manufacturing. I love this car but I hate that little edge on the roof. Can you propose an adjustment for that? The idea that you can have that almost individual conversation about what your product should look like, what your service should feel like. I always try and keep that in mind when I do business. I sell myself and I am very flexible, and therefore I can almost do a one-on-one sale of something that the customer uniquely needs.

You have said you aim to unlock the potential of the Philippines. What potential are you seeing that others are overlooking?

I do not think anybody overlooks it, but a lot of Filipinos work overseas to support their families. COVID made it very clear how much many Filipinos hate doing that, being away from their family. And I think it is not the solution to the problem. You have to send the money back here. It supports economies with very high unemployment. It hides all the problems. It hides all the urgency to address those issues.

So I would like to play my part and say: if there is a project that needs a great project manager, I am going to step up and lead that until we reach a certain point, and then I will find a Filipino with that experience and ask them to take over on my behalf. Escalate to me when necessary, and free myself up for the next project.

What structural challenges do you see for entrepreneurship in the Philippines, and how can foreign expertise contribute without overshadowing local identity?

Filipinos are very service-centric. They will walk through fire for a customer. If you are a customer they will do everything for you. But if something is wrong with their family member, they expect your understanding as well, because family is part of their culture and very important to them. Since they always give you the priority 365 days of the year, those few times that they need your priority back, they expect you to be there. That is the first thing to understand from the culture.

The second thing is that Filipinos are automatically pushed into service industries. There are a lot of nurses coming from here because it is an easy education path guaranteeing a job. And the alternative for many is either local farming or a call centre. There is a lot of outsourcing here for the call centre role because of the great English, the extreme politeness, the very friendly nature, and an accent that is soft and not abrasive. A lot of companies appreciate that.

What advice would you give the next generation of Filipino entrepreneurs, and what mindset shift would you encourage?

I have my own two kids, so I deal with this almost daily. First of all: know what you want. And if you do not, take all the time in the world to decide, but explore everything. Do not sit there and say I do not know. Make a plan. What is my life going to be? What am I going to achieve? What am I going to be? How am I going to make my money? What do I aim for? Do I want to be rich? Do I want to help a lot of people? What do I want to do with my life?

And once you start to paint that picture, it is not a final picture. Every now and then you need a new canvas and you start drawing again. You relaunch your life all over again. But if you have that level of clarity, you have the biggest chance to succeed. Once you have that clarity, you can go and say: I am going to dedicate some time to athletics because it makes me feel good, and when I feel good I can do more, I have more energy to do the not-so-fun busy side of things.

Scaling, Innovation and the Art of Building

What is the most underestimated factor in scaling a product internationally?

Graphene is a very nice example. I am not a material scientist in any way. When we were developing pro cycling tyres with graphene in them, I was given material properties on why we were doing that and I had to study so many different new things just to understand the subject matter. And then I realised: nobody is going to be interested in all of this. It is so technical, it goes so deep.

Something like graphene: it is rock hard, but when you flex it, it becomes flexible. How do you explain that? How do you make that credible? There is only one way. Prove it. So we spent a lot of time and energy developing products that we would send to magazines and tell them: test them, put them all together in a big test with other brands and other products, and you will see these remarkable properties that make a massive difference in speed, in strength, in puncture resistance, in the flexibility of the casing that makes it more comfortable to ride.

All the things we were claiming, we said: here is the list of what we are claiming, here is how you can test for that, and here is how you can actually experience it. Now go and do it. New technologies only have their real impact after that person goes: now I see what this can do for me. Now I have a feeling of where this can take me. Now I can start to dream about what product I would like to have made with this. Maybe not a bicycle tyre, maybe I want to do this for car tyres, or skis, or I have a brilliant idea to make a football out of it. It starts to inspire people because now they have a real understanding of what the technology is capable of.

How do you decide whether to adapt a global solution locally versus building something entirely new?

It comes down to how much it fits you and how much you can afford the luxury of building yourself. Customising something that is close to what you need is always going to be a lot cheaper than building from scratch.

Take the car analogy. I want to build a car that is exactly what I want, from scratch. That is going to mean four years and millions of dollars. But if you say: I like the classic look of a certain car and I want that to be the starting point, but I want to take some elements from other cars I like and then use a real car designer to arrive at a final product. That is probably going to take a year and a half. Cheaper. Shorter. You still get what you need.

So you need to be very careful to consider what is most important to you. Getting the perfect product? Having it early and getting a competitive advantage? Getting it cheap so you are not bankrupt by the time you are ready to use it? All those things have to be considered. But if you ever get the chance to build, build. Because it is like the English tailor making your suit. It is going to fit like a glove. Every detail has been looked at. And you get to be the tailor. What is more exciting than that?

After more than two decades in tech and marketing, what still challenges you intellectually?

Usually the first conversations when we are considering a project. They are with the top-level C-suite, generally speaking. And they are usually trying to frame exactly what it is they are trying to solve or create. It is clear in their mind, clear as day. But if I write it, it is not exactly what they mean. To bring that conversation back to where we have a perfect understanding of each other is a very challenging part. I have some tools for it: questionnaires, and also a little list of images I can go through that I put in front of them and say: take a look at this, share how you feel about that, and how does that translate to what you are doing? Those things help.

But it is really the deep conversations with different people to get a perfectly clear picture of what everybody wants. And the fun part is that you go into the room with maybe three or four stakeholders and you say: as far as I understand, this is what the CEO wants. Yes. But your CFO has this in mind, and you both want the same thing, but it is slightly different. So that phase is always a lot of fun. To then translate that into a project where everybody says yes, this is going to be the best of all worlds and the final product we need, that sets you up for success. And that part is always unique, always intellectually very very challenging, and it brings you into unique worlds.

I have done logistics, which is a completely different universe. Private jet rentals, which is also a very interesting world. An experience bar where one drink costs you almost $100. Working with them to discuss: how do we translate this into an enticing online environment that invites people to come and experience it without giving too much away, while justifying that price tag? Every project is a new world.

Impact, Legacy and What Drives the Decisions

You are currently working with a big AI company focused on manufacturing. What is the opportunity you see there?

I am currently working with a big AI company that is going to be massively successful in manufacturing. I am waiting for the right moment to bring that to my previous employer in Italy. To go and say: I am going to get this for you practically free as a thank you. But I would like you to have a look at all these things that are going to change your world. We are building all these things and I know from my experience that you are experiencing exactly the problems we are solving. So by the time we are finished building all those products and have them at the level where we want them to be, I am going to be bringing a big present to Italy.

It took a big right turn somewhere and we ended up on the exact same street, which is brilliant. Two, three years later and we are on the same highway, two metres away from each other.

Having done all you have done and achieved all that you have achieved, what does impact mean to you at this stage of your career?

Everything is about the next boost of energy. Everything is about making a difference, contributing something that is tangible. I always tell people: the hardest thing about my business has nothing to do with the achievements. It has to do with the scalability. How do you scale me? They cannot skip me and I cannot break myself into pieces and stop at a certain point where I need to continue, then hand it over to somebody else, which does not feel natural, and then focus only on the top part where I am at my best. That is not what I do.

I guide the project so that when a customer says I do not feel good about this, I am there, my feet and my hands are dirty, and I can tell them: you do not need to worry. Or: you should worry, I am also worried, but I am on top of it and my hands are dirty. The impact you make is absolutely critical. And it is to your environment, to your customers, and also to yourself.

When you use the word legacy it is different. People will not remember me in 50 years and I will be fine with that. But those people who I have worked with, who I have changed the world with a little bit, if they forget me, I would be sad. That is the real measure.

What are three key principles that drive decision-making in both your personal and business life?

First: I try to follow the wire to the end. The first big impulse is to think through what the possible consequences are, where do I end up. Based on that you can make a decent decision most of the time. If everything is a dark place, you pick the least dark place.

Second: the impact on others. Especially my family on the private side. On the business side, my clients, my customers, but also their clients and customers. That is something to consider. What decision do you make in an e-commerce shop about how you calculate VAT? If that becomes extremely tedious for the customers of your customer, then it is not the right decision. You need to consider that deeply. You need to be looking at a very broad spectrum of impacts of what you do.

Third: instinct. Gut feeling. I would use the word instinct more than emotional. I do not ever let it lead me, but I do let it lead my next step, in the sense that I force myself to research more if everything says yes and my instinct starts to make noise. Something does not sit right, something does not feel right. Never ever ignore that. Ever. I have been wrong 20 out of 25 times. It does not matter. I still never ignore it, because those few times that I listened, something serious came up that I wanted to avoid. There is a truth to the subconscious mind trying to tell you something.

Sometimes it is speaking an alien language you will never understand. Sometimes it is clear as day and you need to listen to it. So until you find out which one it is, you want to listen to that little voice and take a moment of pause.

The impact you make is absolutely critical. And it is to your environment, to your customers, and also to yourself.

Editor’s closing note

There is a particular kind of professional who is most useful in the moments just before something becomes obvious to everyone else. Frank Levering is that kind of professional. He was in mobile data before most people had data plans. He was in e-commerce when Amazon was still unprofitable. He was running Industry 4.0 inside an Italian factory while most of the world was still defining the term.

What holds it all together is not a strategy. It is a disposition, toward curiosity, toward being present in difficult terrain, toward following the wire to the end. The leg that broke in a Bangkok garden. The years spent apart from his family across a lockdown zone. The consulting practice rebuilt from a duty-free office in Manila. Each of these looks, in retrospect, like a detour. None of them were.

Frank Levering is not a man who builds from a distance. He is, as he says, always at the front, hands dirty, feet planted, moving forward. In a world that rewards the appearance of expertise, that is rarer than it sounds.

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For another inspiring story on purpose-driven leadership, don’t miss our earlier feature: The Safe of Time: Bruce Wagner and the Art of Enduring Wealth