Speakers & Artists

When it comes to digital marketing, Scott Galloway has a knack for seeing what's next before the market does. Cases in point: He accurately nailed WeWork's unsuccessful IPO and Amazon's successful takeover of WholeFoods. In addition to being a digital marketing clairvoyant, Galloway is a professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, has founded and sold numerous success businesses, the most recent of which he sold to market researcher Gartner. On top of all of that, he co-hosts one of the most popular business podcasts on the planet in Pivot together with US tech journalist Kara Swisher.

As far back as 2003, Kara Swisher has been considered one of the savviest and influential tech journalists in the US of A. Starting out at the Wall Street Journal, Swisher met regularly with the biggest names in the industry and asked the critical, pressing questions of the day. Over the course of her impressive career, she has interviewed Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and other such absolute a-listers. Currently, she has made a name for herself as the host of "Recode Decode" (she co-founded tech site Recode) and still manages to find the time to co-host the world’s leading business podcast Pivot alongside with Scott Galloway. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone more qualified than Swisher to break down tech anywhere.

Nicolas Julia is the co-founder and CEO of Sorare. He is building the next generation of football games where fans can play with skin in the game. Sorare’s first game is a fantasy football game where you can buy, trade, and play with officially licensed digital cards. Prior to Sorare, Nicolas was the VP of Operations at Stratumn. He holds an MSc in Management from EM Lyon and an MSc in Economics from the Hanken School of Economics.

Fynn Kliemann does a bit of everything. Founder and king of Klienmann's Land, the world's first, best and most interactive free state; he's the self-styled Duke of DIY; musician and author. When he's not busy with those duties, he also sells his own collection of fashion fo do-it-yourselfers on www.orders.cool and roams far and wide in the search of old furniture and other fixer-uppers to transform and sell. If that weren't enough, he's designer, front-end developer and co-founder of herrlich media, which runs several startups.

Together with her co-founder Kristine, Kati founded ooia in 2018. The company has moved on from “only” selling period underwear; it now has over 150K regular customers and views itself as a female empowerment company, with a vibrant community that engages in open discussion on female-centric products and female founding. At ooia, Kati heads up marketing and finance and spent over a decade at McKinsey prior to founding ooia. For a couple of months every year, she travels around the world with her husband and three kids

Together with her co-founder Kati, Kristine founded ooia in 2018. The company has moved on from “only” selling period underwear; it now has over 150K regular customers and views itself as a female empowerment company, with a vibrant community that engages in open discussion on female-centric products and female founding. At ooia, Kristine is responsible for products and operations, and ran several purchasing divisions at Zalando prior to founding. The dedicated feminist lives in Berlin with her husband and two kids.

Thanks to videos featuring him criticizing the current state of politics, Rezo has become one of Germany’s most well-known creators. His story dates back to 2015, when already then he was generating views in the millions and is now on his third YouTube channel. Across all channels, he has a total of roughly 4 million subscribers and over 550 million views. But it’s not all politics that his flourishing community has come to expect—he’s also known for entertaining videos that are just for fun.

Maya Leinenbach is Germany’s most-popular vegan blogger. With over 1.1 million subscribers on Instagram, a far cry from the 70k she had this time last year. How? Her success can be primarily traced back to Instagram Reels and to recipes, appearing daily in brief, snackable clips. The top-performing videos of hers are wont to crack the million-views mark in no time at all. Thanks to her massive reach, Maya has fulfilled one of her lifelong dreams: writing her own cookbooks with her mom.

With 1.8 million followers on Twitch, Knossi is among the world’s most successful streamers and is the host of his own late-night show "Täglich frisch geröstet" (roasted fresh daily) on German TV. He has established himself as the king of the internet with a variety of entertainment formats on Twitch, which have become a popular meeting point for many creators, stars & co. As the co-founder of Streamblast, he aims to continue shaping the entertainment industry by enabling viewers to interact and co-create show formats.

David Fischer has made Highsnobiety a globally recognised style authority, advising lifestyle brands and building its own DTC business

Anna Alex is co-founder of online shopping platform Outfittery, but today’s primarily known for her work with climate tech startup Planetly. She founded the startup in 2019, roughly 1 year after leaving the Outfittery board Outfittery. Her mission is to help other startups measure and reduce their own CO2 footprint.

With Berlin Brands Group (Chal-Tec until 2019) direct-to-consumer pioneer Peter Chaljawski has built up an internationally successful e-commerce company that is now one of the most valuable German start-ups

Franziska is the founder of the jewelry label The Siss Bliss and the associated recycling company Bliss Bang Capital. Her mission: to turn old gold into new, precious jewelry. As a founder, Franzi already has experience: in 2012 she founded Bloomy Days, the first ever cut flower subscription startup. When she's not posting on Instagram, Franzi is active in numerous honorary offices, including the Young Digital Economy Association and Edition F's Female Future Force.

There’s no way they really work… right? Aroma pads that transform the taste of your regular bottled water into peach, coffee, kola and the like? Munich-based startup Air Up is proof that, yes indeed they work. In 2016, product designer Lena Jüngst drafted the concept for the air-up bottle and the aroma pods for a uni project. Together with co-founder Tim Jäger, she turned the concept into a company that’s been on the receiving end of nearly USD 70m in investor capital. One of the Air-Up’s most prominent investors? Pepsi.

Piran Asci, born in 1993 in Berlin, is an entrepreneur, mathematician and process enthusiast. He studied mathematics and business administration at Freie Universität Berlin. His enthusiasm for entrepreneurship came about when he won the Funpreneur Competition at Freie Universität Berlin in 2014. He financed his studies and later his start at KoRo by buying and selling Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon cards. The following year he joined KoRo as a working student and in 2016 acquired the company shares of the then founder Roberts.Piran Asci is now responsible for marketing, sourcing and IT.

Laura Kampf is a maker! Not ringing any bells? She creates crazy things in her workshop and uploads videos of the creation process to her YouTube channel–and her 300,000 followers. Whether it’s a beer bike, a children’s bicycle carousel, a tiny house and a drill-propelled raft, every new workshop and project sharpens and expands Kampf’s skillset and motivate the world to engaging in DIY activities. Furthermore, she appears in seminal German kids show "Sendung mit der Maus" and has built a bottle opener with Mythbusters legend Adam Savage.

The German is the founder of the Paris-based DTC furniture brand NV Gallery. The company launched in 2017 as a bootstrapped startup, was profitable right from the start and today generates double-digit millions in sales.

When a few years back, Johannes Kliesch was unable to find any decent socks for his sneakers, the proverbial light bulb went off. Together with his cousin Felix Bauer, he founded Snocks in October 2016. Initially the startup focused on lower cut socks for his sport shoes, selling them primarily on Amazon. Today, his product offering has grown to include underwear, undershirts and hoodies—and Snocks has established itself as a brand. In 2019, Amazon Deutschland crowned it as merchant of the year.

Céline Flores-Willers is one of the most-successful business influencers on Linkedin. She has built up a community of over 100k followers thanks to her innovation and business-related content. With her company "The People Branding Company," she provides consulting services to other entrepreneurs and businesses on personal branding and corporate influencing matters.

Felix Ohswald is co-founder and CEO of Vienna-based digital learning platform GoStudent, which provides individual, digital tutoring sessions for all grades and subjects. In November 2020, Felix was listed in Forbes’ “30 under 30” ranking and was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in October 2021. Since the most recent round of funding in June 2021, GoStudent has been valued at EUR 1.3 billion and is thus the most valuable startup in Austria.

Katjana Gerz is a German-America and known in Germany for her work on the funk comedy program “Gute Arbeit Orignials.” The trained actor regularly appears in German-American productions and is currently active on a variety of TV and ad formats, a regular guest on Rocket Beans TV, Luksan Wunder and interviews a variety of people for the OMR podcast production “Nie Gehört.”