Thomas Offner

Background

About Thomas Offner

Founder and Owner OFFNER.tech GmbH - Austrias leading elevator and escalator inspection company. Until recently he was bridging the gap between the corporate and the startup world - in his self-defined role as a Quarterback for PwC - where he was responsible for all startup related activities such as company builders, scouting schemes, incubators, accelerators, corporate venturing units for international PwC clients. Before that Thomas has been working for Media Saturn Holding, where he was the co-founder of the group's accelerator program MS-Spacelab that he designed and set-up including vision, strategy, processes, sponsorship and mentoring program as well as for EY, where he brought in his accelerator knowledge to successfully bring the EY Startup-Challenge to Germany. Before that, he was active for SevenVentures, the venture arm of ProSiebenSat.1, where he founded the SevenVentures Pitch Day - named as one of the world's most relevant startup competitions by Forbes Magazine), co-founded and managed the ProSiebenSat.1 accelerator and was responsible for several strategic investments in digital commerce start-ups. The business management graduate held management positions in numerous European corporates, such as Intel, Audi and Siemens and has successfully founded and/or developed several Internet startups, including his first venture, Media Service Group, in the late 90s, fatfoogoo (successfully sold to Digital River) and also Groupon in Austria and Switzerland as CEO and co-founder (IPOed). He is a designated expert in building and managing startup programs and his operative expertise ranges from product and business developement, business and revenue modelling, pricing, to marketing and sales (primarely B2B), financing (VC, private equity) and HR. Thomas studied at WU Wien and at the University of St. Gallen and was working as a lecturer at both universities as well as Joanneum in Graz and FH Salzburg.