PARTNERS &
ADVISORS
Our partners and advisor are one of our most important resources and always do their best to support us and our founders. Backed by some of the leading German entrepreneurs and innovators, we can open you many doors – be it investors, politicians, or industry leaders.
BOARD
Dr. Conny Clausen
Dr. Conny Clausen studied mathematics with a minor in economics at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken, where she subsequently earned her doctorate. Following her doctorate, she worked as a management consultant for various strategic IT management projects in Germany and Switzerland. In 2014, she took over the management of the patent exploitation agency (Patentverwertungsagentur) of the Saarland universities, whose IT department she had previously established from 2012. From 2014 to 2018, she held the position of managing director of Wissens- und Technologietransfer GmbH (Wissens- und Technologietransfer GmbH, WuT) at Saarland University together with Axel Koch. Since 2018 she has been Deputy Head of the Research Management and Transfer Department at Saarland University.
Dr. Florian Kirschenhofer
Dr. Kirschenhofer has been working for Max-Planck-Innovation GmbH as a start-up manager since 2007. He is jointly responsible for the evaluation of business ideas and the support of spin-offs from the Max Planck Society. In addition to his function as start-up manager, Mr. Kirschenhofer is also active in other functions, such as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of GFKD - Gesellschaft für kommunale Digitalisierung AG and Member of the Advisory Board of Aircloak.He studied business administration at the University of Regensburg and completed the MBA program at Murray State University. After completing his studies, he was involved in the founding of a biotech start-up. After leaving the company, he moved to the finance department of Ford Werke AG, where he was employed in the areas of controlling and pricing. From 2003 to 2006, he taught entrepreneurship and strategic management as an assistant professor at ESC Toulouse. After his return from France, he worked as a consultant. In autumn 2007, he completed his doctorate on factors influencing the success of habitual entrepreneurs at the University of Regensburg.
Thomas Arend, Ph.D.
Product Management Lead at Facebook
CEO and Co-Founder at Savvy
"The IT Inkubator helps to transform state of the art research into successful companies."
Dr. Thomas Arend was Airbnb’s Head of International Product before he started his own business in early 2014. Prior to that, Thomas was Twitter’s International Product Lead, and he led Mozilla’s mobile effort as the Principal PM. Prior to Mozilla, he led important initiatives at Google for five years, driving the company’s localization in 40+ languages and launching "Google Translator Toolkit", a community-based translation tool that supports almost 400 languages and dialects. Thomas also changed the face of the Google homepage for hundreds of millions of users with background image personalization. Previously, Thomas was at the IBM Research Center and at SAP, where he developed SAP's mobile technology, and acted as a strategic consultant to the CEO and the executive team. At SAP, Thomas launched the world’s first mobile business application for a Tablet PC device in 2001. Thomas holds a Masters degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Berlin Institute of Technology (TU Berlin). He earned his PhD degree in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction in 2003. Today, Thomas leads a product team that drives Facebook’s international growth.
