Investing Is a Marathon: A Night at The Circle in Berlin
On the evening of April 15, 2026, Avalon Advisory Managing Partner Nicki Lange joined a curated dinner at Borchardt in Berlin. The setting was "The Circle" by Sopra Steria, an exclusive format organized during FIBE Berlin that brings together decision-makers from FinTech, banking, investors and the European tech ecosystem.
A small room, a long horizon
"The Circle" is a deliberately intimate dinner series. Invitations are personal, the conversation runs under Chatham House Rules. The Berlin edition focused on a question that quietly shapes most boardrooms today: how do leaders make decisions in environments that change faster than experience can be built?
For Avalon, the question lands close to home. We work daily with founders, investors and family offices at the intersection of capital, conviction and uncertainty. Nicki was invited to share a perspective from a less obvious angle, drawn from a parallel discipline that operates on the same logic: ultra-distance running.
The marathon frame
Nicki has completed events like the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc and the Marathon des Sables, races that demand sustained focus over hundreds of kilometres. The translation he brought to the table sits in three sentences. Investing is a marathon. The decisions worth getting right are not measured in quarters. They play out over years. Focus on the next step. When pressure rises and the picture blurs, the relevant question is rarely where the finish line is. It is what to do next.
Resilient decisions are not made from data alone. They emerge where data, experience and intuition meet, and that meeting point is where most of our work as advisors actually happens.
Why the framing matters
The bridge between ultra-distance running and investing is not a metaphor for its own sake. It maps onto a real challenge we hear from founders, capital allocators and operators today: how to stay confident and disciplined when conditions move faster than playbooks can be updated.
The same principle holds in an M&A process, in a fundraising round and in long-term capital deployment. Discipline beats speed. Long distances require short steps. The next decision matters more than the perfect plan.
Closing the loop
"The Circle" was a reminder that the most consequential conversations in our industry still happen in small rooms, between people who think in long horizons rather than next-quarter terms. Thank you to Sopra Steria for the invitation and for creating a setting where these conversations are possible.