Michael Mueller is in charge of the UK operations of ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA, Austria's international trade promotion organisation, helping Austrian companies export and grow their business in international markets, and connecting best minds and ideas.

This was busy 3 years with 5 strong teams in our marketing group. The main idea being to be impactful when reaching out to customers in Austria and abroad, knowing your customer and measuring results. Apart from developing and switching to a new CRM system worldwide, we redesigned our service portfolio, developed new online services for Austrian companies, set up a testimonials campaign, relaunched our web presence, and got serious about generating exciting content and distributing it online.

Just started rolling out our new organizational structure (no matrix no more). I am now in charge for our industry sector teams where we bundle our worldwide event programming and make certain it matches our clients demands, worldwide business opportunities/trends & creates real impact for Austrian business. Glad to work with some great people and be part of this new chapter.

By coordinating worldwide activities of our regional and industry sector teams I contribute to providing high quality and relevant services to our clients, adding value to Austrian companies’ businesses.

I set up this new office and team in 2010, from Almaty our team covers Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. There are too many highlights in this exciting region during my 8 years there than I can mention. But co-organizing heads of states visits as well as Austria’s participation in the EXPO 2017 in Astana (now Nur-Sultan), business development from scratch for Austrian business, putting Central Asia’s opportunities to the attention of Austrian companies, and establishing and growing our presence and network in all 4 countries is what I am proud of. None of this would have worked without my dedicated team in Almaty, our consultants in the region and some truly inspiring friends from the Caspian to the Pamir.

Our office in Guangzhou worked under the leadership of our ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA office in Hong Kong. Apart from Guangdong we covered the regions of Guizhou, Hunan, Hainan and Yunnan. Given that Guangdong is the manufacturing capital of the world a lot of our work was dedicated to support Austrian companies in proper production and sourcing operations. Other key issues included an industry sector focus program on introducing Austrian environmental technologies and helping Austrian investors setting up their projects and operations.

During my time in London we started to introduce Austrian business to work in several new industry sectors such as renewable energy and waste management as well as ICT and biotech/life sciences. Also I worked a lot on office organization and staff training, online presence and some regional work in Scotland (oil & gas) and Northern Ireland. I enjoyed organizing meetings of the many alumni of my alma mater Vienna University of Economics and Business in London.

During the boom years of foreign and Austrian investment to Russia a lot of my work related to trouble shooting (e.g. customs) and supporting Austrian companies in complex cases and disputes. Given the regional responsibility of our Moscow office, I then helped set up a first small office in Yerevan and covered business relations with Armenia.