I’m Chris.
I live with my family (four children, my wife, and a dog) in the far west of Germany.
For most of my professional life, I’ve been thriving in startups (founding or joining early teams) or scale-ups with a Global footprint. I’ve gained tons of experience in roles such as running growth teams, serving as a tech leader, consultant, relationship builder, dealmaker, and people leader. I’m also a curious learner about everything 🙂
Currently, I’m the Director of the AI & Cloud Business for EMEA markets at TRKKN, a Google Cloud & Marketing tech partner firm within the Omnicom Group. Here, with my teams, I help Global enterprise firms and their CMO’s get the most out of their marketing data. We build the data foundation and enable full-scope AI automation that helps our clients to get the most out of any invested marketing Euro. Clients include Mercedes-Benz, Puma, Zalando, Continental, Beiersdorf, and many more.
Before my current role, I was a Business Owner at MobiLab, a well-decorated Microsoft Azure partner firm. Here, I helped large global enterprises (e.g., Knorr-Bremse, Fresenius, Sartorius) on their Cloud adoption journey and worked with Microsoft to bring more clients into Azure.
Before joining the Cloud/AI industry, I was the 7th team member at eyeo. Eyeo is known for ad-blocking browser extensions & user-friendly online advertising, and is the maker of the most popular browser extension app of all time, “Adblock Plus”. I helped the company grow from an open-source hobby project to more than 70MM revenue/year and 250+ employees. I started in 2012 in a 2-room office assembling desks and left the company after it had completely turned around the online advertising industry, thriving on a significant partnership with Google. Over my long tenure, I closed deals with Microsoft Bing, Taboola, Outbrain, Criteo, and many publishers to become part of the Acceptable Ads program (and paying clients of eyeo).
In my early career, immediately after finishing my degree at the University of Cologne, I gained valuable experience as a co-founder of the online startup “WerGehtHin” in the events & couponing space. I’ve managed to build a 50-person team on a bootstrapped budget and won the support of famous investors Holtzbrinck Ventures and Tim Schumacher (TS Ventures).
I love learning from people in history who’ve already figured out what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully, you’ll find timeless advice and maybe some inspiration on my blog. My areas of interest cover AI, tech, entrepreneurship, investing, leadership, psychology, sales, marketing, new media, ecology & sustainable businesses, music, comedy & cooking.
As I’ve personally dealt with many tricky situations, I’m offering my support to Startup and Scaleup Leaders, as well as to people who run small and medium-sized businesses.
Just reach out on LinkedIn.