Giuliano Thöne

Why this persona fits the audience

Works in a 4-person market intelligence team in Berlin producing competitor snapshots and current-event briefs for clients. He spends part of each week gathering recent web evidence by hand, then consolidates links and quotes in Excel and Notion before handing summaries to consultants. The team is testing a paid alternative search API in parallel with their manual process.

• Age: 29
• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Occupation: Research Analyst
• Income: €58k gross
• Education: MA Economics
• Company size: 4-person team within a 120-person strategy consultancy
• Years in role: 2.5

“'I spend 80% of my time proving other people's assumptions wrong. It would be nice if that time was considered value-add, not a bottleneck.'”

Giuliano Thöne's career in market intelligence began almost by accident. After completing his MA in Economics at LSE, he took a temporary research position at his current consultancy while applying for quantitative analyst roles. When the temp contract became permanent, he found himself developing a niche expertise in tracking competitive moves for clients in the industrial automation sector. His meticulous approach to sourcing - cross-checking three sources for every data point before inclusion - distinguished him from his peers, though some consultants found it frustrating. The 4-person research team he joined had been struggling with inconsistent results from their free web scraping tools. Giuliano became the de facto process organizer, creating documentation systems that reduced errors but also highlighted how much time they wasted on manual tasks. The decision to test a paid API came after weeks of his advocacy, though he remains the team's biggest skeptic - constantly comparing results against his manual benchmarks. His €58,000 salary is comfortable in Berlin, but the rising cost of his Neukölln apartment and his half-hearted gym membership receipts eat into his savings goals. He's torn between pushing for better tools to improve quality and resisting the perceived 'vendor trap' that might compromise their independence. His social life revolves around his consulting colleagues and running club, though he occasionally feels like an outsider in both groups. A recent knee strain has forced him to rethink his training approach, which he's documenting in a spreadsheet with as much precision as his work files. Giuliano's professional identity is rooted in his ability to connect disparate pieces of information, a skill he's developed through countless hours of patient, methodical research. His biggest professional fear isn't making a mistake, but failing to catch someone else's. This caution shapes his every interaction with data, colleagues, and new tools.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

Giuliano's alarm goes off at 5:45 AM. After a quick stretch, he laces up his running shoes and heads to Tempelhofer Feld, where 10 km in 50 minutes is his current benchmark. Back at his apartment, he takes a cold shower to wake up fully before grabbing a banana and cycling to the office. The morning is devoted to responding to consultant requests - one needs a competitor pricing update, another wants an emergency scan of recent EU regulations. By 11 AM he's knee-deep in web archives, copying relevant passages from PDFs into his research templates. The team lunch is a quick falafel pit stop before API test day begins. Giuliano runs parallel searches using their paid tool and his manual method, comparing results in a shared Notion table. A last-minute client request derails the afternoon as he has to drop everything for a competitor landscape snapshot. As the office empties, he stays late to organize his findings, knowing the consultants will need them first thing tomorrow. The cycle repeats.

Lifestyle

Giuliano splits his time between his airy Neukölln apartment (where his roommate's plant collection has taken over the shared space) and his consultancy's Kreuzberg office. He starts mornings with black coffee and a 6 km run through Tempelhofer Feld, followed by a routine of showering and cycling to work. His wardrobe is a mix of functional running gear and carefully selected secondhand workwear. Financially disciplined, he saves half his paycheck for travel and a down payment, though Berlin's rent prices have forced him to delay those plans. Socially, he prefers small gatherings with colleagues from his research team over the loud club scene, though he occasionally indulges in niche tech meetups. His weekends alternate between intense workouts and hours lost to digital rabbit holes about obscure economic theories.

Work life

As the only junior analyst on his team, Giuliano handles 70% of the manual research tasks - scraping news articles, tracking regulatory changes, and compiling competitor moves. Every Tuesday is 'API test day' where he compares results from their paid tool against his manual searches. The team's Senior Consultant pushes for faster turnaround, while Giuliano advocates for rigorous sourcing. His workflow is a patchwork of Notion databases, Excel macros, and a custom Google Sheets template for tracking research quality metrics. The tension between speed and accuracy creates daily friction, especially when consultants ask for 'just one more quick scan' before client deadlines. He's become the de facto IT troubleshooter for his colleagues, though he'd prefer spending that time refining methodology.

Relationships

Giuliano's closest relationships are with his three team members, with whom he shares a dry sense of humor about corporate quirks. His family in München calls weekly, though his parents' disapproval of his 'precarious' career in consultancy creates occasional tension. His running club is his main social outlet, though he's gradually losing touch with friends who moved abroad for better opportunities. He admires one particular senior analyst at a rival firm whose LinkedIn posts about research best practices he studies carefully.

How they decide

When evaluating tools or processes, Giuliano systematically tests alternatives for 2-3 weeks before forming opinions. He values peer recommendations but ultimately makes decisions based on empirical evidence from his own usage. While cautious about change, he's willing to adapt if the new approach demonstrably improves quality or saves significant time.

How they sound

Giuliano speaks in measured, precise sentences with a faint Bavarian accent that softens when he's passionate about a topic. He uses data analogies frequently ('It's like trying to fit a matrix into a table') and avoids jargon unless it's industry-standard. His emails are concise, often ending with specific questions to prevent miscommunication. He often says 'Let's ground this in evidence' when debates get speculative and 'What's our opportunity cost for this?' when pushed for faster work.