CV
Summary
- Parter at b2venture (fka btov Partners), a European venture capital firm focusing on digital and industrial technology
- Serial Internet entrepreneur, involved in 6 startups.
- CTO at multiple SaaS and Internet companies in both Europe and the United States. 4 U.S. patents.
- Co-founded one of Europe’s leading web technology consulting firms (600+ employees). Sold in 2000. Led the company through a successful turnaround as CEO.
- Multiple successful investments as angel investor.
Work Experience
Jan 2019 - today
b2venture (fka btov Partners), St.Gallen, Switzerland and Berlin, Germany.
Partner, investing in digital technology startups. Focus areas are SaaS, AI, mobile, fintech and marketplaces.
Aug 2010 - Apr 2018
Pixability, Inc., Boston, MA, USA.
Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, responsible for Pixabilty’s video marketing platform. Led technology and product strategy, product marketing, data science.
Jun 2007 - Jul 2010
Buzzient, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA.
Chief Technology Officer and co-founder at a software company in the social media analytics space.
March 2006 - Sept 2012
Blogwerk AG, Zurich, Switzerland
Co-founder and board member at leading blog network in German-speaking Europe.
Acquired by WEKA in 2012.
Nov 2004 - Nov 2005
PubliGroupe SA, Lausanne and Zurich, Switzerland.
Founding CEO for a new strategic business unit in the field of cross-media classifieds.
Mar 2000 - Oct 2004
Namics AG, Zurich, Switzerland.
Market-leading Swiss company for Internet professional services; 7 offices in Switzerland and Germany, 600 employees, 67m CHF sales (2017).
- Sep 2002 - Oct 2004 CEO
- Mar 2000 - Sep 2002 Head of Consulting
- Sep 2002 - March 2008 Board member
Oct 2001 - July 2003
SVOX AG, Zurich, Switzerland.
Board member and first angel investor
SVOX, a spin-off of ETH Zurich, is a leading supplier of embedded speech solutions. The company offers Speech Recognition (ASR), Speech Output (TTS) as well as complete speech dialog solutions for platforms such as Google Android.
Acquired in 2011 by Nuance Communications Inc.
Apr 1996 - Feb 2000
delta Consulting Group AG, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Co-founder, CTO.
Grew company to 80 employees and sales of 10m CHF in 4 years.
Acquired by PubliGroupe SA in 2000, merged with another company to form Namics AG.
Jan 1995 - Mar 2000
Electronic Mall Bodensee AG, St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Co-founder, webmaster, board member 1996-2000.
Pioneering e-shopping and e-government project in the international region between Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Mar 1993 - Apr 1996
University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Research assistant at the Institute for Information Management. Research projects in the fields of electronic markets, e-banking, groupware, and e-learning.
July 1986 - January 1990
Gallus Ferdinand Rüesch AG, St.Gallen, Switzerland
Part-time programmer (during high-school years) at industrial company. Wrote programs in Fortran, Cobol, Modula 2, VAX RDB for CAD systems, production planning systems and database management.
Education
2006-2007
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation and Global Leadership. Master’s thesis on web-based enterprise software. S.M. in Management of Technology.
1996–1997
University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Doctoral studies as preparation for a dissertation (which never happened due to business success).
1991–1996
University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Graduate degree in information management. Graduate thesis on strategic potentials of the Internet for the media industry; received AT&T Award for outstanding graduate theses in information and communication technologies.
1985–1990
Kantonsschule St. Gallen(High school diploma)
IT Skills
Programming languages (significant project experience):
Assembly, Basic, C, C++, COBOL, Fortran, Java, JavaScript, Modula 2, Python, Pascal, Smalltalk, Visual Basic
Databases:
MySQL, Redis, DynamoDB, Microsoft SQL Server, RDB, Oracle, Snowflake
Enterprise and Internet software packages:
Tableau, Salesforce, Hubspot, Apache, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Typo3, Day/Adobe Communique, OpenText Obtree, Microsoft IIS, Microsoft Commerce Server, SAP R/3, Lotus Notes
OS and Infrastructure:
Linux, Amazon AWS, Windows server, Mac OS X
Other:
Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop; JIRA, Pivotal Tracker and other agile dev tools; the usual MS Office stuff, Slack, etc.
Other Activities
Since 2000
Angel investor in a number of small technology startup companies
Since 1992
Frequent speaking engagements. Speeches and presentations at various industry events and seminars.
Since 1995
Projects in contemporary arts and documentary/experimental filmmaking
1991-2006
Sergeant Major, Swiss Army, Signals Corps (mandatory Swiss military service and reserve duty).
Expert for digital communication systems.
1986 – 1993
Freelance programming, various programming engagements