Cultural Anthropologist. Brand Marketer. Disruptor. Susan Lindner is a 20-year Innovation Storyteller and Founder of Emerging Media, an innovation communications consultancy dedicated to helping innovators and disruptors to create stories that get them the resources, runway, and recognition they deserve. Her award-winning strategies have gotten 10 companies acquired and she is focused on sharing them with the world.  Susan works with startups, innovators, and top executives from 60+ countries at Fortune 100’s like GE, PWC, Deutsche Bank, Capital One and speaks at global conferences, consulates and trade organizations about strategic storytelling, US market entry, and how to master the message and the media for maximum impact.

His critically-acclaimed book, Play Bigger, introduced business to the idea of category design and has sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide. As a founding partner of CDA, Maney has helped leadership teams at hundreds of companies all over the world focus their strategic thinking. Maney’s most recent book, out in July 2020, is UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance. Maney has been a contributor to Newsweek, Fortune, The Atlantic, Fast Company, CNN and ABC News. For 22 years, Maney was a columnist at USA Today.

Robert Mata is Vice President of Marketing EMEA & APAC at Dataminr, recognized as one of the world’s fastest growing and most innovative AI companies. Dataminr surfaces the earliest signals of unfolding events and emerging risks within an increasingly diverse and complex landscape of publicly available information. Robert has extensive experience building international go-to-market and brand awareness strategies in both technology and financial services, having been the global head of marketing for Infotrieve, a SaaS based information management company, and holding marketing leadership roles at both MetLife and financial market intelligence company Greenwich Associates.

Thomas is a Partner at Cherry Ventures, where he supports  product-centric founders and seeks out industry-defining opportunities in software. Prior to Cherry, Thomas gained experience as an entrepreneur building Bonusbox, an e-commerce data and loyalty network. He also worked as assistant to the CEO and in corporate development at Penguin Random House in New York and in the e-commerce division of Bertelsmann/Arvato. He gained additional experience at McKinsey and in several startups. Thomas studied economics in Essen, London, and Berkeley and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Frank is passionate about expanding Cybersecurity startup companies in Europe for more than 20 years. Important positions held by Frank are various leadership roles at Bluecoat Systems, Secure Computing, FireEye and Palo Alto Networks. Today he is managing the business for Cybereason, a leading Cyberdefense and Analytics company, in Central Europe. Frank studied Computer Sciences and holds a Masters Degree in Marketing.

Kathryn Cartini is a venture capitalist with a proven track record of fundraising, recruiting top founders, managing portfolio companies, promoting the firm / Movement, and making investment decisions. She represents a new service-oriented VC. In addition to Chloe Capital, Kate is the CMO / COO of Upstate Venture Connect, and the owner of Peacock Media, LLC, a content marketing firm that works with investors, founders and personal brands. In these roles Kate excels as a business coach and promoter – having connected hundreds of founders with investors.

Mr. Krish Ramadurai is a Principal at Neue Fund­­­-–an early-stage venture capital firm that invests at the intersection of healthcare, life sciences, and deep technology. He is a multi-published scientific author and researcher that has held previous appointments at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and MIT. He earned an MBA in healthcare and strategy from Washington University in St. Louis, a master’s degree in biology from Harvard University, and bachelor’s degrees in integrative biology and economics with a chemistry minor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Oliver is co-founder and Managing Director of KINEXON. He studied business administration and electrical engineering at the Technical University of Munich. In parallel, Oliver studied technology management at the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM). He then completed his doctorate at the Technical University of Munich. In addition to product development, he is primarily responsible for marketing and human resources.

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.

For fifteen years Jan has been supporting US companies across the tech, life science, industrial and automotive sectors with their European/EMEA expansions with a focus on Europe’s powerhouse, Bavaria Germany. Together with her team she founded the organization’s Expand 2 Europe web-based program, to help growth stage companies with the ins and outs of forming a successful business location in Germany.  Jan is also the German Honorary Consul in Connecticut and Rhode Island focusing on transatlantic relations.  Before joining The State of Bavaria’s U.S. team, Jan worked in sales and marketing of IBM technologies and in supply chain at Mercedes Benz and Kendall Healthcare (now Medtronic). She has a BA and MBA from Northeastern University.

Daniel Grassinger, Sr. Manager Investment & Expansion at the Bavarian US Offices, facilitates transatlantic investment from the US to Bavaria, Germany and visa versa. Prior to relocating to the US, Daniel worked at UnternehmerTUM, Europe’s biggest entrepreneurship and innovation center, where he designed, developed, and managed XPRENEURS, an incubation program for early-stage high-tech startups. XPRENEURS supports startups in the fields of Mobility, Smart City, Industrial IoT, Smart Enterprise, B2B Tech and Med Tech. Daniel closely collaborates with Germany’s DigitalHUB: Mobility, which is also operated by UnternehmerTUM. While living in Zurich and prior to joining UnternehmerTUM, Daniel co-founded ‘nexussquared’, a blockchain business platform with the focus on accelerating blockchain ideas through ‚nexuslab’ – a virtual blockchain acceleration program. Daniel designed the program and managed its first cohort with 10 European blockchain startups. Holding degrees in civil engineering and business administration, Daniel has worked in real estate consulting for more than ten years. While building up and managing AECOM’s Swiss branch, Daniel designed various innovation processes for corporate clients.