about

Kay is an entrepreneur with nearly 20 years experience founding and leading venture backed software start-ups. In 1996 he co-founded and led VPIphotonics - today’s leading supplier of photonic design automation solutions. In 2000 he acquired technology from Siemens, Bell Labs and Telstra and formed VPIsystems, the leading network planning solution provider with offices in USA, Europe and Australia. Before his entrepreneurial career, Kay built a new broadband mobile communications group at the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft in Berlin. He holds an engineering degree from RWTH Aachen and a PhD from the Technical University of Ilmenau. Kay won awards for research from the state of Thuringia in 1996 and a McKinsey business plan completion in 1997.

Before joining Market Logic in 2010, Haiko was an Associate Principal at McKinsey&Company, where he started to work as a consultant in 2000. As a leading member of both the Marketing and Innovation Practices, Haiko served some of Europe’s foremost companies. He has deep functional expertise in marketing and product marketing, which he used to help his clients launch new products, services and successful marketing campaigns. Haiko studied media management at the University of Music and Theater Hannover and the University of Texas and has a PhD in media economics from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

Olaf has been developing commercial software products for 15 years. He designed and led the development of enterprise products that are used by companies including Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Cisco, Deutsche Telekom and BMW. He also led multi-million dollar development partnerships with the German Ministry for Education and Research and the Advanced Technology Group at SAIC, where he evaluated, customized and deployed collaborative software. Olaf holds an engineering degree from Technical University Berlin, where he won the 1998 Erwin-Stephan-Award for swift and successful academic performance. His professional work has also been recognized with an Optical Society of America Engineering Excellence Award.

Elizabeth is a marketing communications specialist who launched VPIsystems, growing global brand awareness from zero to 68% in two years. She has 20 years experience designing and executing campaigns and building enduring consumer brands, including STA Travel International and Triple J Broadcasting (Australia). As an independent marketing consultant through the 1990s, Elizabeth led several projects for the World Bank and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation on information industry development in developing and remote economies in the Asia Pacific region. She has a BA from the University of Melbourne and an MBA from Swinburne University.

Tizian is a marketing strategist who leads consulting projects in FMCG and telecommunications. Before joining Market Logic in 2010, Tizian was an engagement manager at McKinsey&Company, where he started to work as a consultant in 2004. He was responsible for projects at leading European companies, concentrating on market strategy and product innovation, where he helped several of his clients to launch and reposition consumer products and services. He holds an MBA from the University of Muenster and a PhD from Ludwig Maximillian University Munich.

Karsten is a specialist in the architecture and engineering of large scale enterprise software systems. Before joining Market Logic in 2008, Karsten completed his doctoral studies in computer science and engineering at the De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. During his studies he was awarded several scholarships and passed his diploma studies with distinction. In 2008 Karsten won the IHK Award of Excellence for his PhD thesis “Higher Availability of Services in Heterogeneous Distributed Systems”.