Who are we?

Dastan Kasmamytov is a true globetrotter: he has lived in 5 countries, visited 50+ countries, speaks 5 languages fluently. He is a reckless adventure, who cycled from Central Asia to Germany and now plans to conquer Seven Summits.

Dastan was born in Kyrgyzstan, a fascinating country with rich nomadic history and jaw-dropping mountain sceneries. There, in his home country he learned to love nature, appreciate the beauty of it and enjoy hiking, snowboarding, mountaineering and rock-climbing.

Dastan loves sports and active life style and enjoys swimming and running in-between the epic trips to the mountains. The sports helps him to push his limits whether it is skiing in the Alpes or running the marathon in Berlin.

In his professional life, Dastan is a programmer. He works now as a freelance developer for startups and IT companies in Germany. He has a long academic experience behind him: he finished his Master's at Metropolitan University in Oslo (Norway), but studied also at Freie Universität - Berlin (Germany), American University in Central Asia/Bard College (Kyrgyzstan), Pierce College (USA).

Dastan is a gay activist. He was one of the first kyrgyz who openly came out in the media. This brought to backlash that forced him to continue education in Europe and to pursue a safer life.

Steffen is the co-founder of Pink Summits, a successful entrepreneur, who founded and led several social impact startups, digital initiatives and companies. He holds a Doctoral degree, wants to make the world a better place and now has another big goal to conquer all Seven Summits together with Dastan and others.

Steffen has some mountaineering experience, but he loves sports and regularly ``tortures`` himself with high intensity trainings. Steffen enjoys also snowboarding and regularly attends the gay ski and snowboard events in the Alps.

Steffen is a proud openly gay CEO of several digital companies and he was included into the Germany's Top100 Out Executives List in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Christian V. is a judge at the court in Wittenberg, Germany. He is a gay mountaineer who has scaled dozens of mountains including Pik Lenin and Khan Tengri in Kyrgyzstan; Aconcagua in South America, Mont Blanc several times from different routes, Elbrus and many others in Europe. He also climbed a mountain named Pik Leipzig in Kyrgyzstan (Chris comes from Leipzig originally) which was climbed only once before him.

Chris is also fond of alpine rock and ice climbing, scuba diving, and paragliding. He also did a lot of trail running and speed hiking. His passion for the mountains and outdoor sports led him to be based partially also in Allgäu, Germany, at the forefront of the German Alps.

As a defender of pride and dignities, Théo Challande Névoret is one of Marseille’s Vice-Mayors, in charge of Democracy and Discriminations. He also has been Project Leader of RAHM – The Global LGBT Leadership Contest & Community.

As an activist, advocating for LGBTQI+ visibility, he initiated among many other actions in 2017, the giant painting with rainbow colours on the second largest steps in the heart of his hometown (Marseille, France)and helped LGBT+ refugees from Chechnya, Ivory Coast, Syria, and other countries to find a safe home with basic needs.

M.A Graduate from Sciences-Po Aix and the University of Freiburg i.Br. in Germany, Théo Challande Névoret previously led the political strategy and analysis of the Socialist and Green Group in the County Council of the Bouches-du-Rhone on issues such as social safety net for unemployed people, deprived households and children, territorial development policies, political agenda-setting and PR.

Théo Challande Névoret strongly believes in humanity, dignity and justice. He aims to advocate for the shape of a better world for everyone.

Christian is an academic psychiatrist and psychotherapist with training from Germany, US, UK and Canada. He is an international speaker and has a special focus on palliative and end-of-life care. Christian is Assistant Professor in Palliative Care Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Canada, and Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, UK. He is a faculty member of the Global Institute of Psychosocial, Palliative and End-of-Life Care (GIPPEC) and the current chair of the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe (FETE) with teaching commitments in Canada, Israel, Turkey and Germany.

Christian is driven by studying the interplay between existential suffering and meaning-making. He is interested in the psychology of ingroup favouritism and aggression towards others. His passion is to understand better how awareness of our own mortality and personal regrets are influencing the way we interact with others who are different from us.

Hans Martin works in banking within capital markets on digitalization and heads up different products. He lives in the happiest country of the world, Norway and as a proper Norwegian enjoys cross-country skiing, hytteturs (hiking tours with staying in huts), and has the best equipment among all of us.

Hans Martin found recently his new passion in long-distance cycling and alpine skiing, especially if it is sunny outside. Sun is fun for him and with the first weak sun beams hitting his balcony in Oslo, he starts to grill and to chill out outside.

Hans Martin has some mountaineering experience and is a true planning guru who has everything in case if something was forgotten at home.

Xavier is a badass boulderer and a climate defender. His fight: energy transition. Combining efficient energy storage systems and performant renewable energies, he addresses the issues of integrating renewable energies in the German grid and developing relevant local ecosystems. Proud Alsacian, both French and German, he basically loves food and wine (but no milk), bakes cakes for all of his beloved and friends.

Mister X joined the Pink Summits team to conquer the Mont Blanc in 2021.

Martin is CEO of Relaxdays, a fast growing commerce company in Europe and a straight ally of Pink Summits. For more than a dozen years he has been working hard to make his company successful. Martin lives in Halle/Leipzig and loves his home city more than any other metropoly. Even sinnful Berlin does not stand in the competition with his lovely Halle. However, his heart of a passionate football fan beats not for FC Halle, but for BVB (Borussia Dortmund), probably the only real player against FC Bayern München.

Martin also loves nature and sports. Since childhood his parents were taking him for camping almost every weekend. Now he is camping on the next level: with our Pink Summits team! He joined us in 2019 on our trip to Kilimanjaro.

As a final word, here are some of Martin's preferences: summer over winter, beer over wine, tolerance over North Korea.

Daria has been involved in feminist activism in Kyrgyzstan since September 2013. She co-founded and coordinated Girl Activists of Kyrgyzstan initiative which received Global Girl Award in 2015 as well as other projects involving girl’s human rights advocacy. She also co-founded the first creative queer magazine for teenagers in Central Asia - Boktukorgon.

She enjoys film photography and riding a bike. She is not sure that she will be doing all Seven Summits, but she is in any case a proud part of the team taking care of many aspects that make this campaign successful.

Although Bjørn lives in the very flat country of Denmark, he loves going to the mountains in the Alps, Norway and sometimes even in Central Asia.

Bjørn is active in the sport of adventure racing, a team sport of 3 - 4 people involving navigation, running, mountain biking, kayaking and climbing nonstop for multiple hours or even days. A lot of Bjørns friends are also from outdoor sports and activities.

Bjørn lives with his husband in Copenhagen and they can often be found in their cosy summerhouse on the weekends. Bjørn has co-founded a LGBTQ student community in Aalborg, Denmark.

``Unfortunately, many people in the world have negative images of LGBTQ people. Being part of Pink Summits means to spread positive images of strong and capable people and meaningful human relationships.`` - Bjørn