WHOOP Founder Will Ahmed, Commerzbank CEO Bettina Orlopp, and Marketing Prof Scott Galloway are Coming to OMR26
Health Tech, Banking and a Broad View of the Marketing World at OMR26
- Will Ahmed, Founder and CEO, and Martin Oberhäuser, Head of Design, WHOOP
- Commerzbank CEO Bettina Orlopp
- Marketing Professor Scott Galloway
- What else you can expect at OMR26
Less than 200 days to go until OMR Festival 2026! That might still sound like a long time away. But as always, it'll be here before you know it. And that's why we're announcing the next speakers who will be joining us on May 5th and 6th at the Hamburg Messe.
But first, a quick look back: A few weeks ago, we announced the very first speakers for OMR26. These include quarterback legend and entrepreneur Tom Brady, as well as tech and AI thought leader Meredith Whittaker. As always, you can find all the names announced so far on our festival page – along with exhibiting companies and partners.
Of course, the OMR26 ticket shop is already open, and the Festival Pass is currently still available at the Early Bird price. So, if you want to guarantee your spot at OMR Festival 2026 and save some money – act fast and grab yours now.
The Festival Pass includes all program items, access to all stages, applications for Masterclasses, Guided Tours, visits with exhibitors—in short: the complete festival experience. Additionally, we are also offering the slightly more expensive Black Pass as a second ticket category for OMR26. For everyone who wants even more: access to the exclusive networking area, premium catering, and more. You can find all the details about the Black Pass, including all its benefits, right here.
Will Ahmed, Founder and CEO, and Martin Oberhäuser, Head of Design, WHOOP
Back in 2012, while still student at Harvard, Will Ahmed—then captain of the varsity squash team—developed a wrist-based wearable that could track a variety of body metrics, like heart rate. This marked the starting gun for the next wave of health tech and wearables, and WHOOP remains a key player in the space to this day.
Under Will Ahmed's leadership, the company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from notable VCs like SoftBank and IVP. But it has also won over many of the world's highest performing people: football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, tennis pro Aryna Sabalenka, and singer Niall Horan are just a few on the long list of individuals who use or have even invested in WHOOP.
What is little known, however, is the special role the city of Hamburg has played in this global success story from the start. The American tech company’s Head of Design is Martin Oberhäuser, founder of the Hamburg-based "Bureau Oberhäuser." For over a decade, he has worked closely with Will Ahmed, profoundly shaping the WHOOP product design and visual identity.
Next May at the OMR Festival, Founder & CEO Will Ahmed and Head of Design Martin Oberhäuser will reveal how this unique partnership came to be, how WHOOP successfully established a subscription model in a competitive market, and what the future holds for the company.
Commerzbank CEO Bettina Orlopp
She is Germany's most important female banker: Commerzbank CEO Bettina Orlopp is in the process of fending off a takeover attempt by the major Italian bank UniCredit – while simultaneously preparing Germany's second-largest private bank for the digital transformation. She has been leading Commerzbank since October 2024 – the first woman to do so in the bank's 155-year history. After nearly twenty years at the consulting firm McKinsey, she joined the institution in 2014. In 2017, the manager was promoted to the board and most recently served as CFO.
Last year, she was appointed to the top position – right in the middle of what is probably Commerzbank's most turbulent phase. Just days earlier, UniCredit had completely surprisingly become a major shareholder in the bank. The contract of the previous CEO, Manfred Knof, was terminated during those wild days, and from then on, Orlopp had one primary mission: to defend the bank's independence.
Many see the fact that she managed to double the stock price, thus preventing a takeover so far, as a masterstroke. Now she wants to achieve ambitious business goals and must also arm herself against digital companies like Revolut or Trade Republic. She will reveal how she plans to accomplish all this at Finance Forward at the OMR Festival 2026.
Marketing Professor Scott Galloway
New OMR Festival, new predictions from Scott Galloway. For several years now, the digital expert and marketing professor (NYU Stern School of Business) has practically been part of the OMR inventory. And because his pointed analyses of business models and critiques of the market power of large tech corporations, paired with his dry humor, are a fixed date in many personal festival timetables, "Prof G" is coming back to Hamburg in 2026.
When Scott Galloway isn't speaking at the OMR Festival, he shares his insights, including forecasts for the digital industry, year-round on various podcasts, such as with tech journalist Kara Swisher in their joint format "Pivot." Or on "The Prof G Pod," which has over half a million followers on YouTube alone. He also shares his theses, critiques, and predictions in his own newsletter "No Mercy / No Malice," in several New York Times bestsellers, or on his LinkedIn account with around 830,000 subscribers.
But with Galloway, it's far from being "just" theory: He has founded a total of nine companies (for example, the digital intelligence company L2 was sold to Gartner in 2017 for around 160 million US dollars) and has also served on the boards of the New York Times Company and Urban Outfitters.
What else you can expect at OMR26
Tom Brady and Meredith Whittaker kicked things off, now Will Ahmed, Bettina Orlopp, and Scott Galloway are joining them – and of course, many more names will follow in the coming weeks and months who will also be coming to the OMR Festival in Hamburg on May 5th and 6th. Next year, we again want to bring an exciting mix of topics to the big stages. A mixture of international and national decision-makers from the (digital) economy and politics, the startup scene and culture, sports, and more. All to offer the most diverse program possible that inspires, entertains, and provides plenty of learnings or food for thought.