Tech, VC and social media expertise: these topics highlight the next round of OMR24 speakers

The wait is nearly over. The OMR Festival is slated to return to Hamburg, Germany in just over—checks calendar—two months! In keeping with the time-honored OMR tradition, we’re committed to putting together an entertaining and diverse schedule of enthralling and informative speakers. Insights, inspiration and entertainment is the name of the game when OMR24 opens its doors this May 7 & 8. Today, we’re dropping our next quartet of top speakers.

If you happened to miss one of our last drops over the past few months, you’re gonna want to check out what and who you missed. How about the world’s biggest influencer and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian and OMR stalwart/marketing prof. Scott Galloway, there’s Galloway’s partner in proverbial crime tech journalist Kara Swisher and star podcaster and author Tim Ferriss, plus legendary music producer Rick Rubin. Be sure to check in regularly to see who’s speaking where and when. The lineup is updated on the reg.

A quick word to the wise: in recent years, not only has the Festival completely sold out shortly before doors open, but so too have all the hotel rooms and Airbnb rooms. If you really want to be at OMR24 on May 7 & 8, get your ticket today and start looking for a place to sleep.

Head of product for the world’s biggest inspiration platform

Safe to say that if someone asked us what our colleagues do in the Product Management, Product Marketing and Product Design teams that most of us could offer a pretty accurate approximation. Now if those tasks aren’t handled by a team, but rather a single person, or that it’s not a SME we’re dealing with but one of the world’s biggest platforms, then we may struggle to truly grasp what that job entails.

Lo and behold that description pretty much hits the nail on the proverbial head for Sabrina Ellis. Ellis took on the role of Chief Product Officer at Pinterest about a year ago, where she is responsible for the user and product experience for the platform's vibrant global community of nearly 500 MAUs—a record set in 2023 for the company founded in 2010. And those users on the search for inspirado helped propel the company to another record in Q4 2023: USD 980m in revenue. Previously, she spent over 12 years as VP of Product Management for Android and Pixel at Google. 

Super returns instead of supernovas

Try as you might, you won't find many other Germans in finance circles as prolific or successful as Freise. In 2001, he started at American investment firm KKR and today he's Co-Head of European Private Equity. The crazy thing: he was originally intent on pursuing a career in astrophysics, but those plans were grounded quickly and Freise got an econ degree in Vallendar, Germany. In the now 20+ years that he’s been at KKR, he's taken the lead on numerous deals—primarily in the media and media rights space, having brokered deals with ProsiebenSat.1, Bertelsmann's BMG Rights Management division Bertelsmann and Axel Springer.

Gotta a SM question? This baby’s got the answer

If a brands wants to get serious about social media and/or influencer marketing, their first port of call for DACH is usually Ann-Katrin Schmitz. In 2014, she founded fashion blog Novalanalove together with Farina Opoku. Today, the 32-year-old not only provides invaluable consulting services to large enterprises and brands, but has become a personal brand herself thanks to her successful podcast and conference "Baby Got Business." Some 150,000 follow her on Instagram (under her alias "Himbeersahnetorte" engl. raspberry creampie) and another 67k subscribe to her Linkedin channel.