Meet our team
of venture builders

With over 15 years of engineering experience, Mario not only successfully established and scaled his own international electric mobility company to seven-figure revenue with a team of 20, but he also played a crucial role in guiding numerous startups, either as their first team member, consultant, or during M&A processes. His passion for environmentally impactful startups is deeply intertwined with his background in engineering and management. In addition to his excitement for developing new products, Mario is committed to building the teams and organizations necessary to scale these ventures around innovative products, services, and business models.

With her broad knowledge in curating and executing impactful innovation programs at Austrian Startups, Ipek now sparks and drives innovation within corporates. Being deeply invested in successful project management and putting an emphasis on building strong relationships with stakeholders, she successfully led and coached a founder's program, ensuring that 20+ early-stage ventures have the tools and knowledge they need to become successful. Ipek has lived and studied in the MENA, Europe and the US, making her fluent in four different languages. Knowing the startup environment, Ipek thrives in rapidly changing and international environments.

Friedemann creates magnetic brands and impactful campaigns. He leverages his experience in communications strategy, brand management and digital campaigns to increase marketing's contribution to WhatAVenture's growth. Friedemann combines a systemic approach with know-how gained from over ten years of working with clients ranging from tech start-ups to global players.

Kristina’s mission is to empower people to be the best version of themselves. Her people-first attitude and creative and communicative nature motivate her to maximize each individual's learning and development. Having a very diverse background and startup experience, she knows how to cultivate a collaborative and supportive culture.

Max has many years of experience designing and implementing innovation strategies at organizations across Europe. Having joined WhatAVenture early on he played a vital role in developing the company to its current stage with offices in 3 countries and a diverse team guiding countless ventures to success. Having worked with so many organizations in a variety of sectors he quickly identifies the ideal path moving forward for new ventures and how to establish an innovation portfolio that generates impact and growth.

Having lived and studied in Austria, the USA, Spain, and India, Gunther unites an innovative and creative mindset with a strong analytical foundation. Through previous experiences within startups, consulting, and non-profit organizations, Gunther built his passion for developing new ideas and building systems for long-term sustainable growth.

Timon embarked on his entrepreneurial journey by assisting the inception of an accelerator program in Northern Europe, marking the onset of his passion for innovation and startups. His path led him to Berlin, where he became an integral member of a Venture Builder, actively participating in the development and growth of startups. Driven by his commitment to company building and his passion for innovation, Timon subsequently brought his experience and expertise to Vienna, where he joined the WhatAVenture team.

Are you passionate about building new ventures, new business models, products and leaving your mark on the industry? Write your entrepreneurial story. Join our team.

Having built digital products both as Product Manager and Software Engineer, Daniel gained a wide range of experience from early-stage and scaling startups, to enterprise companies. Originally from Germany and having lived in Italy, Luxembourg, and now Austria, Daniel seamlessly blends entrepreneurial ingenuity with agile methodologies, all while maintaining commitment to a customer-centric approach.

Karyna is a driven innovation manager, project lead and marketer. She's on a mission to kick-start impactful corporate ventures and help them reach their desired audiences. She has developed and executed marketing campaigns for both newly founded ventures and Fortune 200 companies. She gets the ball rolling when it comes to operationalizing innovation, managing multiple stakeholders and getting things done.

After seven years of experience with a tax consultant, Thomas has an excellent understanding of numbers and brings a lot of know-how to the team. He manages the accounting of WhatAVenture and its venture building projects to keep finances up-to-date. In addition to accounting, he is also responsible for controlling and IT for all companies to ensure that all processes run smoothly and without obstacles.

Veljko uses his curiosity and hands on approach to take a business idea from zero to hero. Apart from his entrepreneurial attitude, he also brings the skills to deliver, whether coding up an MVP or managing an agile growth process, Veljko leverages technology and creative marketing to achieve exponential growth.

With her open and objective orientated mindset Martina is always eager for discovering how innovative ideas in various fields can take shape. With an academic background in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and a gained experience in open innovation and corporate-startup collaboration projects, she supports in an agile way clients and new businesses in their innovation journey.

Alex’s passion is building innovative products and making them fly. As a serial entrepreneur, he knows by heart how to validate and invalidate ideas. He creates prototypes within hours, draws the correct conclusions, and builds unique brands that sell. As our Head of Marketing, he has over 12 years of international experience in marketing and branding.

Elisa makes growth happen - with her experience in all fields of marketing and the in-depth knowledge in digital and performance marketing she gained working in hotel tech and omnichannel e-commerce, she finds the most efficient marketing mix to grow. Developing customer centric strategies in paid advertisements are the key for her, while always having an eye to numbers and performance.

Stefan is our innovation all-rounder. With his 10+ years of international experience in innovation, he contributes to implementing innovation strategies, co-creation and intrapreneurship programs, and the launch of corporate ventures. Stefan’s unique skillset combines an entrepreneurial mindset with a deep understanding of the corporate world and true cross-industry experience. His passion to help others succeed makes him a great leader for WhatAVenture - and your next innovation project.

Stefan has more than 10 years of experience in supporting 150+ established companies in innovating and building new ventures. As one of the Co-Founders of WhatAVenture, Stefan’s hands-on attitude drives him to seek new challenges on a regular basis. His passion is to build new ventures in the digital and non-digital field, and continue to drive our own portfolio of ventures, that already has 100+ employees and received multiple investments.

Yannick discovered his curiosity for innovative business models during his economics studies in Lyon and Vienna. Drawing on his creative thinking and hands-on mindset, he co-founded an urban mobility start-up while graduating from university. Due to his international background and open-mindedness, Yannick easily navigates dynamic environments and quickly makes an impact on any project.

Federica brings an in-depth experience with both new ventures and corporate innovation. After having executed market validation and market entry for one of our portfolio company gaining customers in 15 countries around the world, today she is program manager and coach in intrapreneurship programs and Corporate-Startup collaborations, supporting the identification, validation and implementation of various business ideas and the development of innovation strategies.

Georg is an experienced two-time founder and business consultant who knows how to speak startup and corporate. With his founding experience spanning from e-commerce to SaaS and machine learning, Georg is versed in all venture steps from ideation to market launch or even exit. As a Swiss born, originating from a small village, Georg's urge to explore brought him to study, work and live in many countries all over Europe and beyond. A strong passion for ventures, business models and innovation is what brought Georg to WhatAVenture, where he helps teams and clients in achieving their growth targets.

Andy is our go-to guy when it comes to telling visual stories and bringing pictures to life. Having an academic background in marketing and sales the self-taught video creator combines his knowledge about customer needs with his passion for the camera and lets his work speak for him.

Philippe has shaped the innovation landscape in Austria and Germany for more than a decade, having supported more than 150 corporates in their creation of sustainable innovation structures and governances. Through WhatAVenture's focus on venture building, Philippe has supported the creation and growth of numerous corporate ventures. Projects that Philippe has been involved in have received funding of more than €500 M.

With experience in coaching and facilitation, finance, and project management, Caroline brings different perspectives to designing new processes. Sustainability and diversity are topics that drive her to build innovative solutions with corporates for lasting change.

Her primary role is to set up and execute growth marketing strategies and experiments for our ventures. She is an expert in effectively using the broad marketing spectrum to foster the value ventures create for their customers. What she enjoys the most in marketing is setting up processes for newly established teams and seeing a venture she worked on become a known brand.

Sascha uses his broad marketing expertise in growth, performance, brand and content marketing to develop and implement go-to-market strategies and scale our client projects and ventures. His passion is the best possible combination of upper and lower funnel measures for the efficient and sustainable development of ventures. As our Head of Venture Scaling, he has over 15 years of international marketing experience in various industries and business models, both B2B and B2C / D2C.‍

Franziska has long years of hands-on experience in consulting DAX30 / MDAX companies as well as SMEs in her field of expertise, namely: Innovation Strategy, Corporate Innovation, Venture Building and Service Design. She has a strong international project background and a deep understanding of cross-industry requirements. Additionally Franziska has a passion for leading and implementing innovative flagship projects against all odds, never loosing the big strategic picture out of sight.