Turning science into business.

Vision, a clear North Star and the best people at one table. Over the years I learned that three things matter most in a company: a vision that improves other people’s lives, total clarity on the North Star, and bringing the best A-players together: customers, employees, investors and every other stakeholder the vision needs, with win-win deals negotiated between them. That is how a movement forms behind the vision and small teams grow, as Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman describe in Pattern Breakers. Those companies start small and become unbeatable. The financials follow.

Building companies has fascinated me since the Commodore 64. It started with Kaiser and Hanse, and later Capitalism and Civilization, and it never let go. My tools grew from early entrepreneurial projects, like a magazine for my chess club and projects in my fraternities, then commercial school and an MBA from the University of Graz. Over 17 marathons and ultras and more than 40 years of martial arts philosophy, I refined them further. The principles I use every day come from there.

From corporate M&A to the moments that set a company’s course. I started in M&A at large corporations: Agrana, Atos Origin, Österreichische Post and One. Today I build life-science and deep-tech companies on the executive and board side, from spin-out to exit. CEOs, boards and investors bring me in for the next financing round, a licensing or partnering deal, the route to a listing or an acquisition, and the first customers for a new technology.

Active negotiation runs through all of it, and the show puts it on stage. Besides negotiating for companies from the front, as executive or advisory board member, or supporting them from the back, as advisor or executive coach with reflection and know-how, I have always brought people together. Before the pandemic I ran quarterly meetups and organised an investment conference in Vienna. During the pandemic I turned them into an online show, Beginner’s Mind. Every conversation brings CEOs, investors and executives to one table and shows how deals come together. The goal has stayed the same: help my business partners reach more investors, partners and executives.