I'll admit something that surprised me more than I expected: I don't enjoy being alone at the office. Today, as I sat down to write this blog, I found myself here on my own, and it felt strange. What makes this surprising is that I actually like being alone. Although my work is deeply people-focused, I'm a typical introvert, an old soul trapped in a young person's body, and I usually find energy in quiet moments. In my personal life, I love solitude, especially the kind that comes with the relative calm of evenings at home, calm being a generous word when you have a toddler running around. But at work, being alone has an entirely different feeling. The office feels alive when I'm surrounded by what I jokingly call the Kastelo "boys club," though they prefer their own nickname, the "gossip girls." They bring energy, lightness, and sometimes a little chaos, which makes the workday meaningful and human.
Why am I sharing this? Because it highlights how we're intentionally busy building Kastelo. First, I never thought I'd get to a stage where working from home would feel less appealing than coming into the office. Remote work has been promoted as the ultimate perk that signals modern, forward-thinking culture. And yet, I find myself craving the energy and connection of being around the team.
The second reason is that Kastelo is a highly remote company by design. We don't recruit based on location, we recruit based on exceptional, strong, and outstanding talent. Talent does not come with a postcode, and even though our headquarters are in Cape Town, our people are spread across cities and countries. This intentional design allows us to work with the very best, wherever they are, but it also requires something no policy can enforce: trust.
The Culture We Create, Even When No One's Watching
Trust is not built in one moment, or held together by posters or policies. It shows up in the invisible, everyday choices we make. It is captured in how we respond to each other, how openly we give feedback, how consistently we meet deadlines, how the leaders of our organisation admit and acknowledge when we have made a mistake, and how willingly we step up when things go wrong. These micro-moments repeated daily are the threads that hold our culture together and ultimately determine whether we deliver on our strategy.
Two of the most important values at Kastelo are not written down anywhere, yet they are everywhere: excellence and ownership. Excellence is not perfection, but the constant raising of the bar. Ownership is not only about accountability, but about stepping into gaps, taking initiative, and executing with intent. Together, they create the invisible engine that drives trust and performance.
From Strengths to Strategic Outcomes
Values alone don't create results, we have built systems to make them tangible. Team gap analyses help us understand where we're strong and where we need to grow. Strength-finding coaching sessions help people work in the ways they are naturally wired to excel. Clear organisational objectives ensure everyone knows not just what we're aiming for, but why it matters. And most importantly, ownership empowers people to execute on all of it. When ownership meets trust, culture turns into velocity.
From Values to Velocity
Looking back, our biggest wins as a company haven't come from what's written in strategy documents or employee handbooks, but from the small, invisible moments: the unprompted handovers, the micro-celebrations, and the consistent acts of excellence and accountability. Those are the moments that define our culture. This year, we are being even more intentional about curating them, because culture doesn't just happen. It is shaped, moment by moment, choice by choice, person by person.
Part of what makes this culture so powerful is that it extends beyond day-to-day work. The values we live internally, trust, ownership, and excellence, naturally show up in everything we do, shaping how the company presents itself and interacts with the world. It's a reminder that culture is not contained within our walls, it's the invisible thread connecting every experience at Kastelo.
I may still prefer a noisy office to a quiet one, but our ability to perform doesn't come from where we sit. It comes from the culture we have built together, one founded on trust, excellence, and ownership. That is why culture is not our side story, it is our operating system, it is non-negotiable.
People before policies. Always.
