The Power Of Change

Christian Lindner, born on the 7th of January 1979, is a member of the German parliament (Bundestag) and head of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) parliamentary group.
Lindner was elected party leader of the Free Democrats in December 2013. After four years of being part of the extra-parliamentary opposition, he led the FDP back into the German Bundestag in the 2017 elections. Lindner joined the FDP in 1995. He was elected as a member of the federal state parliament in North- Rhine-Westphalia for the first time in 2000. Between 2012 and 2017 Lindner served as parliamentary leader of the FDP group in North-Rhine-Westphalia. Lindner grew up in Wermelskirchen near Cologne. He studied political science, philosophy and public law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn. Between 1997 and 2004 he owned an advertising agency and was co-founder of an IT-business.
Lindner is a captain in the German Air Forces reserve.

Sven Schmidt, CMO of Machineseeker Group, is known in the digital scene mainly for his regular appearances on the podcasts of OMR and as creator of the deutsche-startups.de insider podcast. After studying business administration in Düsseldorf, Leipzig and the USA, he started his career as a management consultant at McKinsey. In the last 20 years, Schmidt has left his mark on the digital industry as founder of the ticketing platform getgo.de, which was sold to CTS Eventim, as venture partner at Accel Partners and as managing partner of the company builder and investor ICS (Internet Consumer Services).

Dennis is an author and speaker on the topic of “Future Work Skills” – the most important soft skills of the future. His motto is “Skill up” and he is convinced that our soft skills will become much more important than our hard skills in the coming years.

Last year he published the book “52 Ways to Success”. In it, he summarizes his learnings from more than 500 business advice books he has read. The book was named one of the TOP10 business books of 2019 by the Hamburg Abendblatt. You can find all important information about Dennis here: https://dennisfischer.com

Dr. Tamaz Georgadze is co-founder and CEO Raisin (in Germany known as WeltSparen) and is focused on partner bank acquisition, business development, and legal and regional expansion efforts. 

Dr. Axel Haus, works in the research department of Solactive AG, a financial services company that provides indices for different asset classes. He particularly focuses on thematic investment concepts and future trends. Prior to that, he was Head of Investment Office and Senior Investment Strategist at Deutsche Bank AG. He received his doctorate in Economics from the Goethe University of Frankfurt, where he conducted research in the fields of venture capital, entrepreneurial finance, innovation, and patent litigation. His combined background of university-level economic research, investment strategy and communication, as well as financial indexing makes him an expert in finance and capital markets. 

Jakob Berndt is Co-Founder of Tomorrow. Tomorrow is a Hamburg based neo bank that combines mobile banking with sustainability. The vision is to create a full-fledged financial platform, helping customers to invest money solely in projects with a positive social and ecological impact. Before founding Tomorrow, Jakob cofounded Lemonaid a manufacturer of organic soft drinks. 

Christine is the founder of RIDE Capital, a blockchain-based technology company for real estate investments.
Christine started her career at Goldman Sachs in London before joining the Fintech scene in Berlin. Christine has held various positions as managing director/co-founder of Fintech ventures such as BillPay and Pair Finance.
Christine is a member of the Fintech Council of the German Ministry of Finance. 

HHL alumnus, building digital products for the past 13 years, motivated by understanding and solving customer problems

Anastasia Barner founded her first company FeMentor at the age of 20. The first female reverse mentoring platform in the German-speaking region. She is in touch with partners from big companies like McKinsey and is making herself be heard. With 18,300 followers on Instagram, she knows how to use social media for social projects and startups and has already given talks for the German Foreign Office, among others. 
But how does one become a reverse mentor? Why does everyone need a mentor? What can GEN Z give back to an experienced mentor? Besides of FeMentor she is the international TikTok Face for the Deutsche Welle.  
She helps young women find a mentor and jobs in companies after university. Because her big wish is to make the management level more pink. 

Christop Behn is an HHL-alumnus and the founder of kartenmacherei which he bootstrapped from scratch to the European market leader for personalized cards. Since 2020, he invests in early-stage founders with world-improving ideas via better ventures which he has co-founded. 

Dr. Mandy Hecht is COO at CodeCheck and the only woman in the board. As one of few female chemists she has been part of a minority since the start of her career. Since then, she is fighting for more diversity in companies.

Annemarie Heyl comes from an entrepreneurial family with many years of food tradition. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in General Management at EBS in Östrich-Winkel. She then joined the family business to accompany the extensive restructuring of the holding for three years before the companies had to be dissolved. She then worked for Dr. Oetker in Shanghai and for Axel Springer in Berlin before starting her full-time MBA at HHL in 2013. In the course of a semester abroad in Cape Town, she came up with the idea for today’s company Kale&Me, which she founded while still studying in Leipzig.  

Kale&Me sells cold-pressed juices as ready-made fasting programs online. Approximately 1500 – 2500 packages per week are shipped to the end customer, the company consists of 40 employees and its own production facility in the ‘Alte Land’, just outside Hamburg. 

A perpetual student and mental athlete. A challenge seeker always looking for the next personal and professional mountain. On the lookout for inspiration, and driven by new ideas and the way to make them real. 

Three guys with the goal to strengthen the identity of their homeland while addressing the challenges of regional structural change.

Three guys with the goal to strengthen the identity of their homeland while addressing the challenges of regional structural change.

Three guys with the goal to strengthen the identity of their homeland while addressing the challenges of regional structural change.

My name is Carsten Bartsch and I generally introduce myself as the guy with the three lives. In one of those lives, I am a Professor of Marketing and Strategy, Director of Business Programs and Vice-President at HDBW – Hochschule der Bayerischen Wirtschaft. In my second life, I am managing Partner of DB&P an internationally operating consulting platform focusing on (digital) business modelling, digital transformation and strategy in complex service industries. In my third life, I am Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Vesto LLC, a San Francisco based Start-up providing blockchain-based crypto banking platform solutions. 

What does “Power of Change” mean to me? Well, look at my life – change always gives you the opportunity to grow into new areas and to do what love doing. Change is the most powerful teacher in your life – and that learning can be inspiring, or it can come the hard way. But no matter which way it comes, never stop learning! 

Bruno, Co-Founder and CEO of CleverShuttle and working with my team on improving urban and rural mobility. 

Following positions at B2B- businesses in IT and wholesale he worked at HHL and the SMILE startup initiative in the field of entrepreneurship and as freelance startup consultant. Moreover, he co-founded a small media agency and led several associations. Since 2014 he is founder and Managing Director of SpinLab – The HHL Accelerator (www.spinlab.co), a leading 6-month accelerator program based in Leipzig. In 2019, he co-founded the startup seed fund Smart Infrastructure Ventures and serves as Venture Partner. Eric holds a BA from the University of Cooperative Education Saxony, a MSc from Leipzig University and a PhD from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management. 

Karsten Nölling has been CEO of KIWI.KI GmbH since September 2016. At KIWI.KI, he and his team are digitizing keys and gate systems. Before that, Karsten Nölling was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and project manager for lean manufacturing at Mercedes-Benz. 

Matthias Engel is a partner at Virio Ventures in Berlin and supports young startups in the field of smart cities, infrastructure and mobility with his team. Prior to that, he was Senior Project Manager Mergers & Acquisitions at Innogy for 10 years. Matthias Engel graduated from the HHL in Leipzig. 

Prof. Dr. Timo Meynhardt researches and teaches at HHL on public value issues. He is the editor of the GemeinwohlAtlas (Switzerland and Germany), co-developer of the Leipzig Leadership Model, and co-founder of the Public Value Awards for Start-ups. His motto is: “He who contributes, leads.”

Founder and CEO of Isar Aerospce forging europe’s space power house. Starting with the development of the Spectrum – a launch vehicle for small and medium-sized satellites and constellations.

Tina Dreimann, founder & CEO of better ventures, who will join Márton Sarkadi and Dirk Frohnert in our Pitch Jury. After previously working for Bain Consulting and Die Kartenmacherei, Tina founded better ventures alongside Christopher Behn and Cedric Duvinage. Better ventures invest in and help early-stage founders to build companies that change our world for the better.

I am a former fund manager with JPMorgan and one of the co-founders of Smart Infrastructure Ventures: an early stage VC fund based in Leipzig. 

Lukas Keppler is the co-founder of the footbal data startup Impect.  With his team, he is working to take soccer to a new level with the help of data analytics. Before founding Impect, he worked in marketing at Roland Berger and adidas. 

Thomas Ehemann is head of Digital Strategy & Innovation of the FC Bayern Munich. He works on the digitalization of Ticketing, Merchandising and Sponsoring. Furthermore, Thomas supports Bayern Munich´s new businesses FC Bayern TV and FC Bayern Digital Media. Before working for the FC Bayern he gathered considerable experience at Deloitte and the German Football Association (DFB). 

Lorenz Beringer is founder and CEO of LOBECO. LOBECO is a consultancy for social media and digital strategy. Important customers are football clubs, sport institutions and German SME´s. Before founding LOBECO, Lorenz worked as Head of Social Media and CRM of the FC Bayern Munich. 

Formo is a German food biotech startup producing real dairy products without cows through precision fermentation and novel food science. With Formo I am working on the future of food production. Instead of mammals we domesticate micro-organisms to produce food in a more efficient, safe and sustainable way through fermentation. Our team of molecular biologists, bioprocess engineers and food scientists are currently focused to develop the world’s first animal-free cheese.

the nu company is a green food startup from Leipzig, Germany, that aims to challenge the food industry with holistic healthy and sustainable products.

After spending close to a decade in traditional FMCG marketing, Insa became an independent consultant for start-ups. She then founded Open Kitchen where she now combines the best things from her previous activities. Open Kitchen is a business builder and innovation lab that supports food start-ups in all aspects – strategically, on brand building, channel strategy, campaign development, funding and negotiation,… therefore we believe Insa is a perfect fit for our Food panel.  

Lara Schuhwerk is founder and managing director of Beneto Foods. The company produces insect-based high protein pasta. She is currently working on building the first fully automated insect farm in Germany to secure insect meal.  

Fabian Riedel is founder and CEO of Crusta Nova. His company is a pioneer in land-based aquaculture with a focus on prawns. Crusta Nova produces the prawns in a vertically integrated facility close to Munich. It claims that its business model is much more species appropriated and sustainable than traditional prawns farming.  

Jennifer Baum-Minkus is the Co-founder and managing director of Gitty a Berlin based beauty brand. Its main product line is water and plant based nail polish. Before founding Gitti, Jennifer held various managing positions at Coca Cola. 

I am Jakob, ex Senior Manager with Bain & Company and since January 2021 co-Founder of Sparrks, an innovative coaching platform based in Berlin  

Before joining Wintershall Dea as CEO of Wintershall Dea Technology Ventures GmbH, Andreas ramped-up a Silicon Valley Innovation & Investment Center for innogy SE with a 50m$ annual budget and spearheaded seven venture investments in US-Startup’s as well as an investment in the Westly Group and eight partnership-agreements with Silicon Valley companies. Besides that he initiated the Free Electron Global Accelerator Program http://www.freetheelectron.com, which recently attracted 515 Start-Ups from 65 countries in the World. These activities were part of the digital transformation and digitalization of RWE AG/innogy SE and led to the successful IPO of innogy SE. Besides all this he is also an Angel-Investor.

After starting his career at IBM, Dennis quickly found his way into the start-up ecosystem, where he remains deeply rooted until today. He currently works at SpinLab where he helps the classes of start-ups to further develop their business model and streamline their sales approach.  

I facilitate disruption in one of the largest & most old-fashioned industries – logistics.  

Justinus C. Pech is a monk and managing director of Monastic Dry Gin, a gin from the Helfta monastery. Based on his doctorates in business administration and theology, he teaches Authentic Leadership and Leadership Ethics at HHL and Aarhus University. He teaches Fundamental Theology at the college of his monastery in Heiligenkreuz (Wienerwald). As a business coach, he works with people in positions of responsibility who want to further develop.