About Me

I am Angel Donchev -- a technology executive, husband, and father of two who has built, scaled, and transformed businesses across three continents over two decades.

Dad, Husband, Geek

Before anything else: I am married to my best friend, and we are raising two kids -- 13 and almost 11 -- through the beautiful chaos of early teens. A lot of what I think about these days is how we prepare them for a world where AI is everywhere. What skills still matter? What does creativity mean when machines can generate? How do you teach judgment in an age of infinite information? These questions keep me up at night more than any boardroom challenge.

The "Geek" part is not performative. I write code on weekends. I build tools for myself -- this entire website, my personal AI assistant, my investment system -- all built by hand. I believe the best leaders in technology should still be able to build, not just manage people who build.

The Path Here

I started where every real technologist starts -- hands on keyboard. Full-stack developer, system administrator, network administrator. I built things, broke things, debugged at 2 AM, and learned how systems actually work before anyone trusted me to lead them.

From there: IT Director in Sofia, running technical operations. Then entrepreneur -- I co-founded a software development company. We started by delivering projects for clients, then evolved into building our own portfolio of SaaS products. That journey -- from services to product -- taught me that building software and building a business are two very different skills, and you need both.

That led to McKinsey & Company, where I spent eight years climbing from Junior Associate to Associate Partner, based in Prague and London. I was part of Digital McKinsey -- the team that actually understood what was inside the black box. In my final years, I helped establish a joint venture with McKinsey's Recovery & Transformation practice, which meant I had to implement the strategies we put on slides. Turns out, that is a completely different sport.

Today I serve as Senior Vice President at A.P. Moller - Maersk in Copenhagen. In my previous role, I managed Maersk's digital channels -- maersk.com (one of the largest B2B platforms on the planet, handling $40 billion in revenue and powering 90%+ of operations), API/EDI integrations, and TradeLens, a blockchain initiative to digitize global trade. Now I lead platforms spanning Forwarding, First-Mile Transportation, Technology Operations, Finance Technology, and Technology M&A.

My master's degree is in Aviation Engineering. Because apparently I am drawn to complex systems in every domain.

What I Bring Together

Most executives are either technical or commercial. I have been both -- often at the same time:

Technology: From writing code to leading platform engineering at Fortune 500 scale. I understand architecture, infrastructure, AI, and what it takes to ship.
Business & Operations: P&L ownership, M&A, cost transformation, organizational restructuring. McKinsey taught me the frameworks; Maersk taught me the reality.
Product: Building and scaling digital products -- from SaaS startups to platforms processing billions in transactions. I think in user outcomes, not feature lists.

Whether the title is CTO, COO, or CPO -- the work I do sits at the intersection of all three.

What I Think About

Raising kids in the AI era -- how do we prepare the next generation for a world we can barely predict? What do we teach them when knowledge is commoditized and judgment is the scarce resource?
Digital Transformation -- what it actually takes to transform a Fortune 500 company. Not the consultant deck version. The version where you are in the room at 9 PM realizing the org chart is fighting the architecture and both are losing.
Building with AI -- not the hype, the practical stuff. I build with AI daily -- this blog, my personal tools, my workflow -- all powered by autonomous agents I built myself.
Leadership -- forming and leading high-performing teams across cultures, time zones, and corporate politics.

Find Me

💡 Key Insight

The goal is not to be comprehensive. It is to be useful. Short when short works. Long when the idea demands it. And sometimes the most important thing I build today is not a platform -- it is a conversation with my kids about what they want to become.