Andreas Unseld

Partner at Unternehmertum Venture Capital

Andreas has dedicated his career to technology entrepreneurship. He is a computer scientist by education and a technology enthusiast. His fields of interests are artificial intelligence and knowledge-based systems. He likes to work with technical teams on their product strategies. He has built up the technology scouting and startup coaching operations at UnternehmerTUM and gained startup experience with own ventures

Anke Corbin

Founder and CEO at Globig Strategic Advisor

Dr. Benedikt Groh

Associate at Taylor Wessing

Benedikt is a lawyer at Taylor Wessing’s Employment, Pensions & Mobility practice group in the Munich office. He advises in Christian’s team national and international HR departments on all areas of individual and collective employment law as well as immigration law matters and has a strong focus os US clients as well. During his clerkship at the German Consulate General in New York (Economic Affairs) he had the chance to gain insights in the New York start-up scene and the German Accelerator.

Dr. Carsten Rudolph

CEO at BayStartUP

With BayStartUP, Dr. Carsten Rudolph heads the central institution for business start-ups and financing in Bavaria. During his career, he gained extensive experience in industry, management consulting and the national and international start-up scene: Until 2009, he was project manager of the high-tech start-up initiative "unternimm was." of Microsoft Deutschland GmbH, which promotes and internationally supports young founders from the high-tech industry. Before that he was managing director of the network nordbayern, which hosted the business plan competition for Northern Bavaria and coordinated the network of entrepreneurs and investors. Since 2009, Dr. Carsten Rudolph has also been Managing Director of evobis GmbH, which merged with the network nordbayern to form BayStartUP GmbH in 2014. As CEO, Dr. Carsten Rudolph also successfully set up an IT start-up. His first professional stations were sales manager at Siemens AG and senior consultant at McKinsey & Co. Dr. Carsten Rudolph studied and earned his doctorate in electronics at the Technical University of Berlin.

Dr. Christian Maron

Specialist Lawyer, Labor Law

Christian is specialist Lawyer for Employment Law and a Salary Partner at Taylor Wessing’s Employment, Pensions & Mobility practice group in the Munich office. The focus of his practice is guiding US clients through German employment law pitfalls. He has gained broad experience on advising US-based clients starting and doing business in Germany. Christian is also an experienced speaker at employment law seminars and regularly publishes on current issues of employment law. He teaches as a honorary lecturer at the Munich Business School (MBS) and is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA).

Frederik Roever

Founder and Managing Partner at R&P Global

Hauke Holtkamp

Managing Director at Ecomply

Dr. Hauke Holtkamp is the founder and CEO of ECOMPLY.io. ECOMPLY.io simplifies data protection management for SMEs. Before founding ECOMPLY, Hauke worked in the telecommunications industry and several startups.

Jason Hirshman

Co-Founder of Uncountable Inc

Jason is a co-founder of Uncountable, where he leads the engineering team and works to build software that will accelerate product development for materials and chemicals companies.  Jason is an experienced software engineer and specializes in machine learning after having received degrees in math and computer science from Stanford University.  Jason has worked with a variety of startups and led the mentorship program for Stanford's StartX accelerator.

Joshua Cohen

Managing Partner at Giant Innovation

Joshua Cohen leverages his years of experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and adviser to give large organizations the tools and know how they need to move and act with speed, agility, and creativity.  He guides GIANT Innovation’s clients to develop cutting edge products, services and business models with minimal resource expenditures using the same Lean Startup Methodology that he has applied in his startup career.

Joshua has deep roots in technology-intensive sectors, having founded and built startups in both Europe and the U.S., including Germany-based iPharro, a spinoff of Germany’s world-renowned Fraunhofer Organization, and NYC-based Ganxy. He is the former co-head of US investments for SevenVentures, the venture capital division of one of Germany’s largest media companies. As an entrepreneur-in-residence, he’s worked as part of the core team at Citibank's D10X program, helping Citibank create and roll out an unprecedented number of new startups within the organization.

Through many years of international work and living, he’s developed a deep global network and continues to advise startups and companies all over the world. A fluent German speaker (with a smattering of French), he is responsible for all of GIANT’s European practices. He serves as an adjunct professor at the European School of Management and Technology where he teaches entrepreneurship. Joshua is a graduate of Princeton University with an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business and additional studies at the University of Cologne.

Martin Reichel

Executive Director at BayFOR

Oliver Kempkens

Senior Partner at Talent Tree

Oliver is Senior Partner & Executive Consultant at one of Munich’s largest and fastest growing tech recruiting company. He places C-Level executives, non-operative executives and advises on cultural transformation. Oliver lived and worked as an executive in California (Palo Alto) and - due to an engagement with Stanford University – has a very profound understanding of the US startup scene and mentality, in addition to the German one.

Patricia Spanier

Managing Director, Germany and European Center of Excellence at Rudolph Research Analytical

Patricia recently moved to Munich to establish the first office in Europe for Rudolph Research Analytical, a New Jersey-based company. She currently serves as their Managing Director, Germany and European Center of Excellence. She is an internet veteran having experienced what has now become the global reference for online retail, Amazon.com, when it was just an online bookstore. As a multilingual Business Executive in emerging technologies, she has extensive experience in developing and managing strategic partnerships spreading across many industries. She understands how embracing change is a huge catalyst in moving forward and staying ahead of the curve. Managing large and complex launch projects like Amazon France, Google Checkout in the UK or Google Fiber in Kansas City, is part of her DNA.  In addition to her entrepreneurial spirit and appetite for pioneering business models, Patricia advises a Palo Alto start-up in the AI space.

Quintus Bartscherer

Partner at QUBA

Siegfried Haider

Siegfried Haider - The brand positioner The easy way that people find and buy from you!

Siegfried Haider is one of the most successful and best known brand and marketing experts in Europe. He talks his walk and his workshops and keynotes are full of practical Wows in order to motivate people to act. The founder and honorary president of German Speakers Association has coached hundreds of companies to become well know brands. Many of his clients are famous experts and personal brands in their field of competence. His "Sold out!"-concepts are easy to use and deliver amazing results: Attractivity, visibility and magnetism on customers. More longstanding clients. Higher prices. More and better recommendations.

Dr. Kai Westerwelle

Partner at Bird & Bird

As a German Certified Specialist Attorney for Information Technology based in our San Francisco office, Kai supports companies with their international business, with particular focus on international privacy law, IT law, and tech transactions. He also assists companies regarding their international expansion. For more than 18 years he has advised national and international, mostly US, companies in Germany on IT transactions, outsourcing and cloud computing projects, national and international license agreements, restructuring and IoT projects. In addition, he has always focused on German, European and international data protection law. Using his comprehensive international background and incorporating the overarching international presence and expertise of Bird & Bird he provides business oriented, solid, and timely solutions turning a 'no go' expectation into a 'know how' experience.