As Co-Founder of Circlemakers Studio, I lead all operations for Circlemakers Studio in Europe. Circlemakers Studio is an independent branding agency that combines business & marketing expertise with unparalleled access to the world's largest creative network.As a Brand Strategist for our clients across Europe, I deliver strategic naming, messaging and visual identity projects in partnership with a huge global network of specialized creatives and partners.

With the acquisition of 99designs by VistaPrint a new opportunity has opened up for me as Director Strategic Projects – combining my startup background and creative industry experience. I explore new business avenues which combine design services and printing solutions for Vista.My main focus is on the topic of "the agency of the future", with the emphasis on exploring how we can empower small creative agencies around the globe with high quality solutions at scale.

Thinking about how to open up the 99designs solution to leading digital brands and high traffic online businesses, I became VP Strategic Partnerships and established deep co-operations with Squarespace, Square and Prezi. It was exciting to plan the business processes together with our partners, exploring ways to bring the 99designs brand and offerings to their clients, thus creating the opportunity for our designer community to tap into a new workstream and become specialists for awesome brands. Beside strategic partnerships, I created 99d Studio with a small new business team. The idea of 99d Studio is to combine strong creative direction delivered by experienced brand strategists with the best talent from the extensive 99designs community.

Following the acquisition of 12designer.com, I became General Manager of 99designs in Europe. I built a team whose key responsibilities included internationalization of 99designs for non English markets in Europe, Country-specific Marketing, Client Support and local community building.g. I joined the 99designs Executive Team, where I contributed to the development of the 99designs platform.99designs is the global creative marketplace that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together to create designs they love. Best known for logo, branding, web design and marketing collateral, used by startups around the globe to set up their brand at an affordable price point.

I founded 12designer in 2009 with the support of Barcelona based venture builder Grupo Intercom. First launching in DACH and later expanding into France, Spain and Italy - 12designer grew into the leading European graphic design marketplace that connected creatives with clients to create their brands and marketing campaigns. 12designer was acquired by Melbourne based global market leader 99designs in 2012 to expand their European footprint.

Deciding to move to Berlin, I joined Mediaworx, a highly professional digital agency. My task was to account manage a large client who was undergoing an extensive relaunch. It was a great learning to orchestrate a large team of experts to bring a significant project over the line in time and budget (without taking all the fun out of it). Already dreaming of starting my own business, I began exploring ways to better (and more affordably) connect clients with the creative workforce using digital solutions.

Taking on the role of Manager Strategy and Planning allowed me to combine my 2 passions - creating digital solutions with my team and consulting clients on how to best translate their digital challenges into a solution.The main learning came from leading large pitch teams where countless hours were spent to come up with the best strategy, best visual idea and realistic time frame and offering to win a new client - against other also highly motivated competitors. It was win or lose, and this enabled me to craft my pitch technique and understand how to engage clients with creative concepts.

When finishing my studies, the first wave of digitization was getting businesses excited about the new possibilities to reach clients 24/7 and starting to sell products online. Sounds old now, was big then.This huge shift in how to conduct business - and my love for design - made me decide to not start my career the classic way and work at a consulting firm, but join a digital agency, building the first internet platforms for many DAX companies.Running a tech and creative team taught me the fundamentals about and leading large digital projects.