As EVP of Industry Initiatives at IAB, Anna Bager spearheads the strategic oversight of the digital media and marketing industries’ most vital and fastest growing platforms which include mobile, digital video, audio, measurement, and data. Under her leadership, she brings together and drives growth for three of the organizations’ paramount centers of excellence: The IAB Mobile Center, representing the mobile marketing, advertising, and media marketplace; The Digital Video Center, encompassing Advanced TV, OTT, and The Digital Content NewFronts, and The Data Center, developing consumer identifiers, data quality, industry benchmarks, and tools for data activation and automation. She is a driving force in building a one-stop shop for producing thought leadership, innovation, research, and best practices for these thriving industries.

Prior to joining the IAB, Bager was heading business intelligence at Ericsson Multimedia and head of research at Ericsson’s Business Consulting unit. Earlier, she was Research and Consulting Manager for IDC EMEA. Anna has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including being named “Most Important Women in Mobile Advertising” for Business Insider, and one of the “Top Women in Media” by Folio Mag for the past consecutive five years.

Sacha Berlik is Managing Director at The Trade Desk. In his role, he oversees development and retention of the company’s clientele for its service territories in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).

Most recently, Berlik was the General Manager of DataXu’s European operations. Prior, he founded mexad, which grew to six offices across the globe before being acquired by DataXu in 2011. Before mexad, Berlik co-founded the Western-European Operations of Oridian (now Lycos), and ActiveAgent (now goldbachmedia), one of the first pan-European ad networks. He also built the online presence for one of Germany’s largest private televisions stations, SAT1.

Berlik holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the Free University of Berlin where he published his thesis, “TV and Internet – Will the Complement be a Competitor?” He is based in Cologne, Germany.

Sophie Blum, married +3, has been an executive with Procter & Gamble for the past 25 years. She has successfully fulfilled various local, regional and global positions in global strategic business development in several categories and countries and successfully led the P&G Israel hub for almost a decade.

In her current role as Europe and IMEA VP Marketing Sophie is leading the transformation of P&G’s Europe and IMEA region into a cutting edge, world leading successful marketing organization, leading the way for P&G globally.

Passionate and inspired by Innovation and recognized within P&G as an Innovation thought leader, Sophie challenges boundaries and has successfully led the establishment in Israel of P&G’s Israel House of Innovation (IHI), recognized as one of the successful Innovation Centers of P&G in the world.
In her previous role, Sophie Blum successfully led the Israeli office of Procter & Gamble for almost a decade, during which she doubled the business and tripled the number of employees.

Sophie is also a lecturer in several universities, specializing in Strategy, Innovation, and Leadership.

Sophie has been elected by Globes business paper, The Marker and Forbes Israel as one of the 50 Most Influential Business Leaders in Israel, for the last 6 years and is highly regarded by the business community as a marketing and business leader.

Being passionate about building a better future through education to future generation, Sophie was nominated in 2008 as the Chairman of Board of non profit organization TZEVA youth building the future, for which she opened a branch in Switzerland in 2015 .Sophie is also actively participating in several non-profit organizations, among them: Mass Challenge, a non-profit organization which promotes entrepreneurship and high impact start ups in the US, Israel and Europe, the Nomads foundation, which promotes the Swiss innovation ecosystem growth via collaboration with the finest global startup hubs, industry leaders and research institutes.

As Chief Marketing Officer and Chief of Staff, Mary Clark leads Syniverse’s corporate communications, branding, strategic events and industry relations, as well as cross-functional alignment across the business. Previously, she served as Senior Vice President of Next-Generation Roaming Services and Standards, and, prior to that, Senior Vice President of Roaming. In these roles, Ms. Clark spearheaded new product introductions in Syniverse’s real-time intelligence and strategic consulting services, defined Syniverse’s LTE strategy from concept to product introduction, and played a strategic leadership role in Syniverse’s acquisition of MACH. Prior to joining Syniverse, in a career in mobile that has spanned more than 20 years, she held several executive-level positions at MACH, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Cibernet and Cellular One. Within the mobile industry, Ms. Clark is an Associate Director for the Competitive Carriers Association and also serves on the CMO Council North America Advisory Board. She also speaks frequently on industry topics and has presented at such conferences as Mobile World Congress, and her insights have been featured in such publications as Global Telecoms Business. Among her many accolades, Ms. Clark most recently was named to the National Diversity Council’s 2016 “Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology” list and Mobile Marketer’s “Mobile Women to Watch 2016” list. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in communications from the University of Delaware.

As Global Brand President for Starcom Worldwide and member of the Publicis Media global leadership team, Lisa Donohue is driving a next-generation media agency focused on the convergence of media, technology and creativity. Starcom Worldwide is the leading global media agency brand within Publicis Media, part of Publicis Groupe, driving more than $26 billion in global media billings for client partners. In her role, Lisa is responsible for global brand vision, culture, partnerships, talent and product excellence, and is enabling the design of unique human experiences with impressive results.

Most recently serving as Starcom USA CEO, Lisa guided that office to exceed challenges on behalf of the world’s leading marketers and new establishment brands, including Airbnb, Samsung, Procter & Gamble, Bank of America, Kellogg’s, Kraft Heinz, Visa and more. In this role she led $10.3 billion in media billings and more than 1,100 employees spanning four U.S. office locations. She drove Starcom’s industry-leading digital offering and built out the agency’s data and analytics practice.

During her six-year tenure as U.S. CEO, Lisa led Starcom to be the most awarded media agency in the country, winning a total of 571 industry awards. In 2014, this success led Starcom Mediavest Group to be named Most Effective Agency Network by the North American Effies, Media Network of the Year at Festival of Media and Media Network of the Year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. For the last three years, the SMG Chicago office dominated the WARC 100, the annual list of top agency brands based upon performance in effectiveness and strategy industry competitions.

In addition to her Starcom U.S. CEO duties, Lisa oversaw business units including Halogen and Local Spectrum, comprising direct response media and directory marketing, and global practices including the SMG Global Product Committee, the Human Experience Strategist practice and Audience & Measurement Solutions. She was also a member of Starcom Mediavest Group’s global executive team for the past six years.

Prior to assuming the CEO role at Starcom, Lisa served as President, Truth & Design at sister agency Mediavest in NYC. In addition she also oversaw the agency’s digital practice, P&G-dedicated investment group and product development team, helping Mediavest garner 25 award winners and finalists in her last 12 months.

Prior to her time at Mediavest, she worked her way up to EVP, Managing Director at Starcom on accounts including Morgan Stanley / Discover Card, Nintendo and Altria. Since launching her career in 1987, she has exhibited strong strategic thinking on a variety of accounts including Kellogg’s, General Motors, Mars, Miller, NYSE, P&G, Samsonite and Sony.

Lisa was awarded the Chicago Advertising Federation’s Advertising Woman of the Year in 2011, as well as Adweek’s 2011 Executive Media All-Star. In 2006 Advertising Age recognized her as a Woman to Watch. In addition, Lisa is a frequent panelist and public speaker at key industry conferences including New York Advertising Week, mainstage at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing, the 4A’s Transformation Conference, Interactive Advertising Bureau Annual Leadership Meeting and Adobe Marketing Cloud Summit, to name a few.

Lisa is President of the Board of Trustees of Milton Academy in Massachusetts, serves on the She Runs It (formerly Advertising Women of New York) Board of Directors, the 4A’s Board of Directors and Media Leadership Council, the Twitter #Influence Council, and is a member of The Chicago Network and the Economic Club of Chicago. She is a graduate of Brown University and a loyal Brunonian.

In May 2014, Paul-Henri Ferrand (PH) joined Google in the capacity of Vice President US Sales and Operations, responsible for marketing, selling and delivering Google product and services across a 5B$ US advertiser market.

Prior to this role, PH Ferrand was President, Dell North America Commercial where he was responsible for sales and marketing across the Consumer, SMB, LE, Public and Global segments in the US and Canada. In this capacity, Mr. Ferrand delivered positive growth across the entire portfolio of Dell’s product and services (a 25B$ P&L), defining and executing the strategies necessary to achieve Dell goals of transforming itself into an end to end IT solution provider across the North America Region.

Prior to his move to the US, Mr. Ferrand was based in Singapore and was the CMO for Dell’s Global Consumer and Small and Medium Business (CSMB). In this position, Mr. Ferrand was responsible for all the elements of marketing within the CSMB business, including defining the marketing strategy, driving the Brand across all segments, leading global segmentation, and global online marketing while managing the demand generation programs and marketing activities across all Regions and Channels.Mr. Ferrand holds a Master’s degree in engineering from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications in Paris, France.

Experienced Board Member with a demonstrated history of working in the civic & social organization industry. Strong business development professional skilled in Digital Strategy, Business Planning, DoubleClick, Display Technology, and Television.

Professional radio and television engineer, sound engineer. CEO of SAE, Austria’s first private sound engineering school. Deputy head of technology at Antenne Bayern radio station from 1989 to 1991; head of technology of 104.6 RTL (Berlin). Founder and CEO of Mondocom GmbH (Munich and Vienna) in 1992, which operates the technical premises of Austrian national radio Ö3 since 1998. From 2002 to 2007 Chief technology officer for Austrian national broadcaster ORF. Chief technology officer Officer of Red Bull Media House since 2007. Married, one son.

With 15 years digital and traditional media experience, Ian has held various leadership roles across entertainment, FMCG and media organisations. Throughout his career, Ian has been instrumental in the evolution of digital for a multitude of large brands, music and radio businesses.

From 2008, James continued his digital journey at the world’s largest agencies, including Aegis Media, Starcom and Acxiom, working closer with global brands in the bid to connect them to consumers utilising data and insights.

His latest move sees Ian join the fast-growing, leading mobile location experts, Verve, as Chief International Officer, where he will oversee the companies launch in the UK and international markets. Ian brings a wealth of mobile and data knowledge, truly understanding the importance of a brand story, from consumer intelligence, creative innovations through to measurement and proven results.

AJ Mathew is a media research veteran, and with 15 years in the industry, AJ has been known to promote high caliber, credible, scientific research without sacrificing data quality. Though the years, he’s helped build research and measurement solutions for TV, mobile, desktop, print, and streaming radio, and has conducted numerous forms of custom research in collaboration with advertisers, agencies, research partners, and industry councils.

AJ is currently the Vice President of Research at Kargo, managing a cross-functional team that conducts custom research around products, user experiences, audience insights, market intelligence, advertising effectiveness, and media measurement. Previous to Kargo, AJ was the Head of Global Measurement at Apple for iAd, playing a key role in the building of Apple’s first Research & Insights department for media and services. He has also held key research positions at Yahoo!, Bloomberg/BusinessWeek, and WebMD.

Christina Miller is president for Turner’s Cartoon Network, Adult Swim and Boomerang where she is responsible for leading all aspects of the business in North America and working closely with Turner International to establish short and long-term priorities, as well as an overall worldwide strategic plan that will more closely align the Kids business. Her role includes global oversight of linear and non-linear content, the consumer products group and franchise management, as well as content output from two animation production facilities—Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, CA, and Williams Street Studios in Atlanta.

Prior to her current new role, Miller was general manager of NBA Digital and senior vice president of Turner Sports Strategy/Marketing/Programming, where she oversaw the day-to-day operations for the NBA Digital portfolio, which includes NBA TV, the league’s 24-hour digital television network, NBA.com, WNBA.com, NBA League.com, NBA League Pass; and the league’s broadband and wireless businesses. Miller’s duties as senior vice president of Turner Sports Strategy/Marketing/Promotions included managing relationships with league partners, Turner networks and their digital extensions, as well as the strategic planning and scheduling of on-air sports programming and developing marketing programs for the division’s linear and digital properties. Previously, she was senior vice president of Cartoon Network Enterprises (CNE) and directed Turner’s youth and young adults consumer products and home video business in the United States, including global licensing partnerships and merchandising strategies and retail business development for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim properties.

Miller joined Cartoon Network Enterprises in 2005 and was responsible for building the division’s first global, multi-property, strategic partnership which brought the entire Cartoon Network portfolio of toys to market. She also launched CNE’s first consumer products franchise Ben 10, overseeing the development of the property in all key categories. Under her direction and in addition to managing the licensing of all Cartoon Network and Adult Swim original series, CNE expanded its role in to third-party licensing through strategic partnerships that built on the division’s core competencies. She currently serves on the Boards of Refinery 29, Scratch, Shed and Funny or Die.

Before joining Turner, Miller served as senior vice president of brand licensing for HIT Entertainment, responsible for brand strategy and licensing for classic preschool brands including Thomas & Friends™, Barney, The Wiggles™ and Bob the Builder™.

Christian Muche, 49, is responsible for the Business Development, Strategy & International divisions on the dmexco Board of Directors and together with Frank Schneider the creator of the biggest and most important annual marketing and media show. A lifetime expert with many years of experience in the online and digital business, Muche was previously the Commercial Director and Director International Sales & Marketing at Yahoo Inc. as well as Vice President Interactive Marketing at AOL Europe. He was also the Founder and Chairman of the Circle of Online Marketers (OVK) and a member of its overall Executive Board for several years after the organization’s establishment.

Rob heads up Facebook’s Creative Shop across the EMEA region. He runs a multi-award winning and diverse group of creative directors, planners, producers and entrepreneurs who collaborate with the industry to build inspiring and provocative work across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Oculus.

Over the past several years, Rob has had the opportunity to work across the smallest and biggest, most dynamic and disruptive brands around the world; exploring the boundaries of great creative that builds meaningful connections between people and business.

Two great passions of Rob’s are working with NGO’s and building out programs to ensure a more diverse and inclusive creative industry. Rob and his team have delivered many campaigns for not-for-profits across the region, including work for Tommy’s, Medecins Sans Frontieres and multiple campaigns for UNHCR to raise awareness and funds for the refugee crisis. Rob sits on the board of the D&AD Foundation, agency 46, and partners with Creative Equals, with an aim to build new opportunities for discovering, developing and elevating truly diverse creative talent in the industry

Rob was recently voted one of Creative Review’s Top 50 Creative Leaders and is a regular keynote at industry speaking events around the world including: Cannes Lions, Eurobest, Dubai Lynx, Most Contagious, D&AD, IAB, Adweek, Loeries, Guardian talks; sitting on the jury at D&AD, Loeries and The Effies and more.

Alex is the OMG MD for mobile across EMEA, and as such leads our approach to ‘mobility’ across the organisation. Under his watch our service offering has evolved to encompass all elements involved in ensuring a client maximizes the mobile opportunity spanning strategy, product design and development, UX/UI design, media planning and buying, and programmatic trading. Alex’s team describe themselves as a bunch of creative technologists who work with clients to solve their business issues from a technology first perspective. His team spans the region and is able to deliver a consistent level of service across the multiple markets that make up the EMEA region.

Alex has worked in the mobile industry for over ten years, beginning when he first launched OMDUK’s mobile planning and buying operation in pre-iPhone days. During that period he oversaw the departments rapid growth in terms of the number of client projects and revenues generated, as well as generating a reputation for delivering high quality work, backed up by a number of high profile award wins including a Festival Of Media award for the best use of mobile, a Cannes Lion for best use of technology and an IAB creative showcase award.

In 2011 Alex was promoted to his current regional role, which works across all OMG agency brands. Subsequently, Alex has been shaping and developing all OMG companies approach to mobility, helping develop a product set that ensures we are able to lead the conversation and advise our multi-national clients on how to maximize new business opportunities offered by today’s rapidly developing mobile technologies.

Alex is a recognised industry figure speaking at events such as the GSMA Mobile world congress, DMexco, Doubleclick’s CAB event, and various IAB, MMA and DMA events. Alex also sits on Microsoft’s mobile advisory committee, and the IAB’s mobile leadership council.

As Senior Vice President, Mobile Strategy at the National Basketball Association, Christine Pantoya is responsible for expanding the NBA’s mobile strategy in the U.S. and abroad, including the development of the league’s mobile offerings, content and partnerships.

Before joining the NBA in January 2015, Pantoya served as Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Development at Verizon Communications. At Verizon, Pantoya was responsible for developing strategic growth initiatives and multibillion-dollar-revenue-generating business models in key areas, including: media and entertainment, advertising, games, telematics and mCommerce. Prior to her time at Verizon, Pantoya was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cox Communications, where she helped the cable company prepare for increased competition, with a focus on customer retention programs, value-added selling and centralization of key functions. During her career, Pantoya has helped launch sales channels for several startup wireless providers and was instrumental in integrating various systems and processes during the merger between Nextel and Sprint.
Pantoya earned her MBA, with a focus on marketing, from Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the university and remains active in the ODU community, serving as an advisory board member for the business school’s Executive Advisory Council and as a mentor to current students.

Pantoya resides in Summit, N.J., with her husband Steven and son Jacob.

Randall Rothenberg is the Executive Chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association for digital media and marketing in the United States. Among the IAB’s 750 member companies are such major platforms as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Snap; the nation’s most important ad-supported media companies, including The New York Times, Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal, ViacomCBS, Hearst Magazines, Spotify, Verizon Media, Hulu, Warner Media, LinkedIn, and Meredith; incumbent and disruptor brands, including Coca-Cola, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Hubble Contacts, ThirdLove, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, and Citigroup; and scores of technology and data companies, among them Mediamath, LiveRamp, Quantcast, and Pubmatic.

With these members and its 47 affiliate associations on every inhabited continent, the IAB and its sister technology-standards group, the IAB Tech Lab, serve as the digital marketing industry’s public policy and lobbying organization, market and consumer research center, training and development base, and hub for the development of standards and best practices.

Mr. Rothenberg joined the IAB in January 2007 as President and Chief Executive Officer, and led the organization until becoming Executive Chair in September 2020. During his tenure, the organization became one of the largest and most influential media and marketing trade bodies in the world, helping to develop technical standards, self-regulation, government regulation, market and consumer research, and professional development programs to protect consumer privacy, foster brand and media revenue growth, improve data security, and reduce supply chain friction in the digital marketing industry.

Prior to his IAB role, Mr. Rothenberg was the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Director of Intellectual Capital at Booz Allen Hamilton, the international strategy and technology consulting firm, where he oversaw business development, knowledge management, and thought leadership activities, and directed the award-winning quarterly business magazine strategy+business, Strategy+Business Books, www.strategy-business.com, and other electronic and print publications for senior business executives.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Rothenberg spent six years at The New York Times, where he was the technology editor and politics editor of the Sunday magazine, the daily advertising columnist, and a media and marketing reporter. For 10 years, he was a marketing and media columnist for Advertising Age. Mr. Rothenberg has written for a score of major national magazines, among them Esquire, GQ, The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, and New York Magazine. He is the author of four books, including Where the Suckers Moon: An Advertising Story (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), a critically-acclaimed chronicle of the birth, evolution, and death of a single advertising campaign.

Mr. Rothenberg, an avid nature, urban, and portrait photographer, serves on the Board of Directors of the International Center of Photography and the Board of Overseers of the Columbia Journalism Review. He received an undergraduate degree in Classics from Princeton and lives in New York City.

Donna Speciale is president of Turner Ad Sales, where she oversees all advertising revenue for the company’s domestic entertainment, news and kids multi-media brands.

Speciale joined Turner in 2012 as president of Turner Entertainment and Young Adult Ad Sales, and had an early impact on the business as she redefined the client partnership model. She was promoted to her current role in 2014, and has further re-imagined how Turner collaborates with marketers and agencies utilizing advanced data and content capabiltiies. During a time of vast industry change and clutter, partners have thrived in spaces like content development, social amplification and audience targeting.

With her more than 20 years of experience on the media agency side, Speciale came to Turner from MediaVest Worldwide, where she served as president, Investment & Activation and Agency Operations. During her tenure, she led the agency’s integrated digital, broadcast, print and out-of-home practice, overseeing investments on behalf of clients including Kraft, Walmart, P&G, and Coca-Cola. Prior to MediaVest, Speciale led the broadcast investment team at Mediacom. Over her career she has managed investments for several leading marketers including Warner Brothers, GlaxoSmithKline, Hasbro, Kmart, Diageo, Staples and Subway.

Speciale is well-known for driving innovation in the marketplace and has received numerous industry recognitions, while her teams and the companies she has represented have received countless honors. Most recently, she was featured within the Top 10 of the 2016 Adweek “Most Indispensable Executives,” a list she has consistently been recognized by since joining Turner. She has also been honored by Broadcasting & Cable for their 2015 “Hall of Fame” and named as a Multichannel News “Wonder Woman” (2013), Advertising Age “Top Women in Advertising” (2012), CableFAX “100” and “Most Powerful Women” (2012-16), Television Week “TV Buyer of the Year” (2006), MediaWeek “All Star” (2003), and Advertising Age “Woman to Watch” (2001). She has thrice been honored by Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) as an “Advertising Woman of the Year” and received both their “Impact Award” and “Working Woman Award.” Speciale was honored in 2014 as a recipient of the “Reisenbach Award for Distinguished Citizenship” by the John A. Reisenbach Foundation.

In addition to her professional accolades and active participation, including as a former executive judge with the Adweek “Project Isaac” awards, Speciale is on the Board of Directors for The Advertising Club of New York and an active member of Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) and the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB).

Turner Ad Sales monetizes the company’s portfolio of leading entertainment, kids, news and sports properties through advertising and brand activations. Attracting a wide-scale audience of diverse consumers, the collection includes leading media brands CNN, HLN, Great Big Story, TBS, TNT, truTV, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, Bleacher Report and Turner Sports’ high-profile coverage of the NBA, MLB, NCAA, PGA and the newly-formed ELEAGUE. In addition, the company has digital sales partnerships with the NBA, NCAA and PGA.

Turner, a Time Warner company, creates and programs branded news, entertainment, animation and young adult media environments on television and other platforms for consumers around the world.

A graduate of Moscow State University, Leonid built a truly global marketing career that spans continents (from his native Russia to the US, China and Europe), categories (from Soft Drinks to Connected Health) and business models (from Traditional Grocery to Software-as-a-Service).
Following successful international marketing assignments with PepsiCo and Danone, Leonid joined Mars in 2008 as Vice President of Marketing for Wrigley Europe, and expanded this role to include Russia / CIS, Middle East and Africa in 2010.

In 2013, Leonid became the global Chief Marketing Officer of Mars Petcare, the $15+ billion global leader in pet health and nutrition. In this role, Leonid led the business growth agenda and served as the guardian of Mars Petcare’s seven billion-dollar brands; Pedigree, Royal Canin, Whiskas, Banfield, IAMS, Cesar and Sheba. Leonid led Mars teams around the world in doubling the organic growth of the core business and embracing the impact of digital disruption.

Leonid was recognised as one of the most innovative global CMOs by Business Insider in 2016, and one of the world’s sixteen most tech-savvy brand leaders by Adweek in 2017.

Leonid was promoted to Global President, Connected Solutions in 2016 to lead the transformation of the Mars Petcare business ecosystem. In this new role, Leonid leads consumer technology, diagnostics, business innovation, data and analytics ventures. These include Whistle, the world’s #1 connected dog collar, and Wisdom Panel, the global leader in pet genomics and DNA testing.

Dr. Kimo Quaintance is an Education Strategist specialized in the design of educational experiences that create lasting change. His enduring passion is learning how culture and technology endlessly reinvent each other, and how education can be used to solve complex social challenges.

He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and has more than 15 years of research, university teaching, and strategy consulting experience in the United States, China, Scotland and Germany. He has conducted and co-published research on the economic power of digital social networks in East Africa, and has been exploring the psychological impact of virtual reality for the past five years, in cooperation with university research groups focused on virtual environments and interactive role play.

He is a former United States junior national champion in fencing, and a two-time Emmy award winning broadcast engineer for CBS television. But his proudest accomplishments are the many students he has inspired to be lifelong learners and innovators in education, technology, art, and philosophy.

He has a keen eye for human potential, and connects deeply with his audiences, clients and students, inspiring and challenging them to accomplish what they first see as ‘impossible’ missions, leading them to unexpected learning and growth. He is a passionate believer in the power of philosophical imagination, and empathy-based teaching, pushing his audiences to question their assumptions and reimagine their challenges from fresh perspectives that lead to breakthrough insights.

After founding the Social Media Team Torsten lead Lufthansa to one of the globally leading airlines in social with more than 2m fans on Facebook today. He is one of the most experienced digital thought leaders in the airline industry. Today, his Digital Innovations team develops marketing innovations and digital innovations for Lufthansa, Austrian and SWISS Airlines – creating new digital assets to drive enriching travel experiences with the well-anticipated premium brands.

As example, Lufthansa presented as first airline an interactive 360 degree experience with Oculus Rift already in 2015 at the world largest travel fair ITB, being awarded as best booth. Lufthansa was the first airline releasing a 360 video on Facebook where one of its latest 360 videos generated more than 1m views on Youtube and 5m on Facebook. A single 360 degree photo of an A380 generated more than 130.000 likes. Today Lufthansa uses about 200 Samsung Gear VR worldwide in its markets, runs first pilots to sell tickets via VR and is leading in the airline industry in VR content and technology.

Last summer Torsten launched the Lufthansa FlyingLab on the maiden flight to San José (Silicon Valley) where passengers could experience new products and services – digital and physical – enhancing the travel experience in a digital world. Besides a live conference on board streamed to the personal devices of the guests with speakers from Instagram, Mercedes etc. partners like Samsung and Neuroon gave their innovative devices to the passengers to test and experience them during the flight.

For digital innovations Torsten works with leading minds like behavioral economist Dan Ariely (“Predictably Irrational”) or best-seller author Jeff Jarvis (“What would Google do?”).

Previously Torsten managed strategy & business development of Lufthansa Miles & More – Europe’s leading frequent flyer program. His background is in business & economics combined with sociology as part of his Ph.D.

Before working for Lufthansa Torsten was executive assistant to Dr. August Oetker, proprietor of Germany’s most well-known family business. Torsten started his career at an international think-tank in Malta creating mobile ventures and ran his own IT-business while studying and training sales reps in the pharmaceutical industry in mobile CRM.

Torsten is regularly speaking about digital innovations at leading international venues like LeWeb (Paris), SXSW (Austin), DLD (New York), NEXT (Berlin), eyefortravel North America (Chicago), Loyalty World (London), Webit (Istanbul) to name a few.