This week, we sit down with Georgina Lupu Florian, co-CEO of Wolfpack Digital and founder of Women in Tech Cluj. She shares why articulating values within the first two years became the cornerstone of Wolfpack's culture, how responsible AI requires human accountability as co-pilot rather than replacement, and why the self-doubt many women leaders face actually produces higher-quality decisions. Georgina reveals what it means to lead with adaptability, ethical conviction, and multidisciplinary curiosity.
You founded Wolfpack Digital from zero to 85+ people in just a few years. What was the single most pivotal moment or decision in those early days that made people want to follow your vision, and how has that lesson stayed with you as you transitioned into the co-CEO role?
From the very beginning, my intention was to create a start-to-end digital product development agency that was different from the existing software companies in the local and regional landscape, which were mostly focused on outsourcing as a business model. We were ready to take on responsibility in the creative and strategic dimensions of a software project, going beyond pure execution.
This vision attracted talented people who were proactive, creative, curious, and dynamic, and these people helped lay the foundations of who we are today and of our later success. We knew from the start that we wanted to stay focused on quality and remain rather small — a boutique agency — which allowed us to do work we love and stay true to our values while building a strong culture. We also knew that we wanted to have a broad impact, working with startups, scaleups, and large enterprises, and that vision is alive today, with our work covering clients such as Sephora and Deezer, as well as promising startups such as Cashli and Recordio.
Our mission is to bring performance and beauty to the world through technology, while being inspired by the wolf in its agility, result orientation, teamwork, excellent communication, and playfulness. Communicating this coherent mission and our values regularly, and walking the talk through the smallest actions up to the biggest plans, is what has contributed immensely to our success and capacity to adapt over the years.
To answer the question directly, having clarity and articulating our vision and our values early on, within the first one to two years, and then being consistent about them in our actions and branding, was the most impactful decision made in our early days.
Your work with Women in Tech Cluj has created a community of over 2,000 members. What specific gaps were you seeing in the tech ecosystem when you started, and what would surprise people most about the challenges women still face today despite the progress?
Romania is a country with a relatively high percentage of women working in tech, especially as software developers. Therefore, the most striking gap I could see when we started the community back in 2018 was related to the entrepreneurial side — specifically, the lack of women tech startup founders in our region. Fast-forward less than ten years, and there are many more women tech entrepreneurs than before; in fact, some of the most successful Romanian tech startups, both financially and in terms of impact, are co-founded by women.
I think most people would be surprised to learn about the internal struggles and self-doubt that many women in managerial and leadership roles in tech experience. However, in my direct observation, it is precisely this doubt — uncomfortable as it may be, and even if it sometimes slows down decision-making — that makes women leaders and managers very strong decision-makers in terms of the quality of their decisions. It pushes them to explore the full picture and multiple sides of an argument, so that the best course of action is taken.
Still, self-confidence is an area where many women in tech leadership continue to struggle and where they need to consciously invest precious energy, making them less likely to apply for higher-impact roles. This issue will probably only be fully addressed with future generations of girls in STEM.
Yet I believe differences in leadership styles and decision-making related to gender are to be expected and should be celebrated and harnessed.
You've worn many hats from iOS developer to founder to board advisor. How do you decide what to say yes to when so many opportunities come your way, and what criteria do you use to know when a role no longer serves your growth?
I believe in the importance of being passionate about the mission and impact of any organization I join. Boundless energy is, of course, impossible, so whenever I feel my drive diminishing, I turn on the self-discipline tap.
Whenever the mission of the organization starts drifting, or I notice my motivation running low for too long, after trying to address any potential external factors, or if there is a shift in priorities in my life, I reconsider my role(s) and see if an adjustment is needed. I must also say that I’ve always been very curious, and multidisciplinarity is a big part of who I am and what excites me.
I learned early on that full dedication to a specialist role or to a single project doesn’t suit my energy, and I get a lot of inspiration, creativity, and drive from juggling multiple roles and projects, counterintuitive as it may sound. Having contact with and an impact on various projects in healthtech, fintech, beautytech, mobility, accessibility, IoT, and other industries has always been a huge motivator for me, especially since I’ve had the opportunity to get involved from various roles and organizations.
Your Webby Award for Responsible AI with Equality AI shows your commitment to ethical technology. How is your company practically integrating AI into your development practices, and what does responsible AI actually look like in a real product development cycle?
A preoccupation with ethical and sustainable technology has always defined us at Wolfpack Digital, as we’ve repeatedly refused projects with negative social impact. We are especially excited about technology projects that create real long-term value and use resources wisely to promote health, wellbeing, and inclusion, making life better for companies and individuals alike. We are currently developing core AI products for both web and mobile platforms, and we are actively using AI-assisted coding tools to enhance productivity and speed up time to launch, which is particularly valuable for startups and large enterprises looking for early validation of their digital products.
At later stages, we evaluate maintainability and adjust accordingly to ensure scalability. Scaffolding, refactoring, UX/UI research, and documentation are some of the areas where our engineers, designers, and QA testers use AI, allowing them to focus on architecture and high-value problem-solving.
For AI integration, we’ve sandboxed any new AI tool or process adoption initiative in our organization to ensure we identify and address risks — for example, by piloting a new tool (e.g., Cursor) on a single project at first, or involving a small fraction of our team in the experimentation phase before rolling it out at the organizational level.
We see responsible AI as essential in a real product development cycle. Some of our practices include clear data boundaries (e.g., no use of client data for public model training), bias awareness, transparent communication about AI use with both users and clients, and clear accountability for deliverables according to team roles and responsibilities. We, as humans, remain responsible for the data and outputs used to develop digital products, and we take this very seriously, as we see AI as a co-pilot rather than an autonomous decision-maker.
You've become a voice for the European tech ecosystem serving on boards and at international events. From your perspective working between Cluj, New York, and Brussels, what's the biggest untapped potential you see in the Central European tech region that the world isn't paying attention to?
Thank you for that! I’ve always been passionate about the global dimension of a career in tech. Central Europe has a lot to offer, going beyond strong coding skills. Over the past ten years, people in tech here have learned and evolved significantly in terms of product and managerial skills by working in multinationals alongside international colleagues and by serving global clients — although there is still a lot to learn, of course.
Additionally, Central Europe is a region where adaptability is one of our greatest strengths, with many tech professionals coming from personal backgrounds involving different degrees and types of hardship. I would say there is a greater “hunger” for improvement and change, and people are more accustomed to thriving under challenging conditions and going the extra mile. This results in highly productive professionals who now have stronger than ever product and business knowledge and skills. UX/UI design skills have also improved greatly in the region, and you can confidently trust many of the teams and software development companies here with full product development delivered at very high efficiency. In short, I believe you get excellent ROI by working with teams here.
You're pursuing a PhD on brain decoding using pattern recognition while running a company. What drew you to research during your most demanding professional years, and what are you discovering that could genuinely change how we approach mental health or human-computer interaction?
My PhD is currently on hold, but I’ve been deeply interested in AI and machine learning long before they became so popular. My bachelor’s thesis at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 15 years ago, was on a machine learning topic: a bimodal biometric authentication system using voice recognition and dynamic signature. The system used supervised learning (e.g., SVM), and I still remember the absolute thrill of seeing it work. I still get that same thrill every time I talk to a chatbot or interact with an AI agent now, in 2026.
I started Wolfpack Digital around the same time as my PhD, and what attracted me to the research topic was the intertwining of engineering, science, and psychology — understanding and predicting how the human brain works and connecting experienced emotions to biometric data.
Although I’ve decided to pause my research for now, what concerns me is the importance of becoming aware of the power these AI tools and agents have over us, in both subtle and obvious ways (e.g., by shifting our attention, influencing or manipulating our emotions, deepening social divides, increasing productivity, solving complex issues that are beneficial for humanity, or replacing humans in certain lines of work).
This awareness allows us to act consciously and with agency, instead of being passively drifted into the unknown. We must recognize the immense influence these game-changing technologies and the content they generate have on our mental health, perspectives, and positions, so that we can harness what is positive while remaining in control.
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Coffee with Calyptus. Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep building what matters. Explore more editions and insightful articles at https://www.calyptus.co/blog.
