Reddit founder Steve Huffman, entrepreneur Ann-Katrin Schmitz, tech investor Pip Klöckner: These are the first OMR27 speakers

It is never too early to plan your visit to the OMR Festival to get the most out of it. That’s why the page for OMR27 is live starting now—including the first wave of speakers. Over the coming weeks and months, you’ll find regular updates here. To ensure you don't lose track amidst over 800 speakers, more than 1,000 exhibitors and partners, masterclasses, guided tours, and side events, and to help you find your own personal takeaways, we are organizing everything into our Journeys again for next year. They bundle the dozens of topics and interests represented at the festival under nine overarching headings—so you can find exactly what moves you forward.

He created the "front page of the internet" and defined the way online communities work: Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit. What started in 2005 as a link-sharing platform following an initial spark from Y Combinator has, under his leadership, developed into one of internet’s largest sources of information. Today, over 130 million people use the platform daily to post, vote, comment, and search for answers across nearly every topic imaginable.

Between 2009 and 2015, Huffman left Reddit, during which time he co-founded the travel search engine Hipmunk. Since returning to lead the platform, he has steered the company through its biggest transformation phase. International expansion, a redesign, a successful IPO in 2024—leading to annual revenues of 2.2 billion US dollars in 2025 and a central role in the global AI landscape. Steve Huffman will speak about Reddit’s evolution and why human perspective is more valuable than ever all of this and more at the OMR Festival 2027 in Hamburg.

Her very first speaking gig was over ten years ago. In May 2016, Ann-Katrin Schmitz took the stage alongside Farina Opoku at our event series at the time, "New Platform Advertising." With "Novalanove," the two had built one of the first successful influencer brands, which was developed and expanded into a lifestyle brand managed by Ann-Katrin Schmitz. But it certainly didn't stop there.

What followed were the home-spa brand "NOLES" and her own media brand "Baby got Business," complete with a podcast, conference, and above all, a loyal community. Today, the 34-year-old and her team not only advise major corporations and brands, but as an entrepreneur, she has long since become a personal brand herself. For years, she has traditionally shared her perspective on the social media and influencer industry on stage at the OMR Festival—and, of course, she will be back again for OMR27.

And another tradition: Philipp Klöckner is not only an investor, tech expert, advisor to private equity firms and venture capital funds, and an angel investor. Together with Philipp Glöckler, he also hosts the successful "Doppelgänger" podcast, where he analyzes tech companies twice a week and comments on industry developments. Several times a year, he does the same as a guest of Philipp Westermeyer on the OMR Podcast—often together with OAWS host Noah Leidinger, most recently at the end of July.

That is why he once referred to the recording studio at the OMR office as his second living room, making the stages at the OMR Festival something like his third living room. For several years now, his keynote "Beyond the AI Hype: Where We Stand and What to Expect" has premiered right there. At OMR26, it was nearly an hour packed with slides, figures, and his industry analyses (available to watch on YouTube, as are the versions from previous years, of course). Wonder how long it will be at OMR27?