Alumni Mentoring Program

Oliver Böckmann is a German IT architect, entrepreneur, and technology pioneer with more than two decades of experience in software development, consulting, and digital transformation projects. Born in Dresden in 1981, he spent his childhood and youth in Potsdam and Kleinmachnow.

After graduating from high school, he began his studies at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), where he first studied Software Systems Engineering (Bachelor’s degree) and later IT Systems Engineering (Master’s degree). During his studies, he spent a year abroad as a visiting student at the Indian Institute of Information Technology Bangalore and gained practical experience as a working student at SAP Labs Bangalore and later at SAP in Palo Alto, USA. In addition, he completed training at the HPI School of Design Thinking and spent two years contributing to a research project within the Design Thinking Research Program.

Oliver has been self-employed since 1997, working as a lecturer, consultant, and developer across a wide range of technologies, industries, and projects. In 2017, he co-founded Eigenherd GmbH together with his school friend Paul Herrmann, an owner-managed consulting and implementation firm specializing in Salesforce and MuleSoft solutions with an industry-specific focus, particularly in the energy sector. The company now employs more than 70 people. Eigenherd is considered one of the leading Salesforce partners in the German-speaking region and supports companies in their digital transformation through cloud-based IT architectures. In 2024, Oliver also co-founded Kinova GmbH, which focuses on conversational AI and AI-powered contact center solutions, and in 2025 co-founded The Green Bang GmbH, an implementation firm for ESG platforms such as Salesforce Net Zero Cloud, helping organizations advance their sustainable transformation and ESG data management.

In his private life, Oliver is the father of three children and enjoys sailing, hiking, triathlon, yoga, snowboarding, reading, and cooking.

Stefan is the co-founder of Vara AI, the world-leading company in AI-powered early breast cancer detection. He is a passionate technologist with deep expertise in the potential of software and artificial intelligence to improve healthcare at scale.

Stefan founded Vara with the mission of making breast cancer screening more precise and efficient. Today, Vara already supports 50% of all screening examinations in Germany, covering over 1.5 million cases per year. In the largest published clinical study to date on the use of AI in medicine, involving 500,000 women, Vara’s AI system was shown to increase detection rates, reduce false positives, and save radiologists significant time.

Stefan leads the company’s machine learning and data teams, responsible for training the AI models, evaluating their performance, and integrating them into clinical practice. He also oversees the product team developing Vara’s browser- and cloud-based reporting environment for radiologists, as well as the Clinical Evidence team, which evaluates the effectiveness of the technology in clinical use.

Stefan began his academic career at the Hasso Plattner Institute, where he earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with highest distinction between 2010 and 2016, focusing on machine learning, software development, and healthcare IT. After his studies, he joined Merantix as a founding engineer, contributing significantly to the development of the company’s core machine learning infrastructure before founding Vara in 2018.

Stefan lives in Berlin with his wife and two young children. In his free time, he enjoys photography, spending time with his family, and reading.
 

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After completing her Bachelor's and Master's degrees at the Hasso Plattner Institute, as well as a semester abroad at the University of Technology Sydney, Claudia started her career as a software engineer and Tech Lead at Meta in London. She quickly discovered that the management track matched her passion for bridging product and technical considerations, as well as helping others thrive. She managed various engineering teams in the Trust & Safety/Support space at Meta — from small, specialised teams to multi-team organisations of up to 20 developers.

Upon moving to Munich in 2024, Claudia joined Personio, where she has been applying her expertise in the Core HR data model domain. She is currently on parental leave and cares deeply about gender equality and family-friendly workplaces.

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Philipp Giese is a software developer and tech lead specializing in modern web technologies. He is currently working in the blockchain space, where he is developing Zodiac, a policy engine for Safe-based treasuries that manages multi-signature operations for protocols overseeing more than $11 billion. Previously, Philipp was Tech Lead at Signavio, where he helped build Signavio Workflow (now SAP Signavio Process Governance). He then worked as a Staff Engineer at BRYTER, contributing to the development of the company’s first AI product. His technical focus areas include React, TypeScript, and test-driven development. On his blog he shares insights on software architecture, team leadership, and development processes — ranging from effective software engineering practices to communication within teams.

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Carl Gödecken works as a software developer at the Federal Government’s DigitalService, currently focusing on the topic of digitally ready legislation. In this role, he is substantively involved in methods of legislative drafting and supports ongoing legislative initiatives across various federal ministries. Prior to this, he worked on the NeuRIS portal, the successor platform to gesetze-im-internet.de. Carl’s other professional experience includes roles as a developer at Spread (a data integration start-up), Accenture, the luca app, and Nexenio.

During his bachelor’s and master’s studies at HPI, he also completed an internship at SAP in California, took part in the Semester at Sea program, and was active at the HPI d-school as well as in the band club. In addition, he participated several times in the IT Summit Blog with HPI, traveled to Apple’s WWDC in San Jose as a student, and completed the Tech4Germany Fellowship. His master’s project was supervised by Prof. Baudisch (extension of the 3D editor Kyub), and his master’s thesis was supervised by Prof. Uebernickel (development of a tool for qualitative data analysis). Carl lives in Berlin and still regularly comes to HPI for band rehearsals with his saxophone.

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Tina Heimer was one of the first students at the Hasso Plattner Institute. Immediately after graduating, she joined the Volkswagen Group, where she specialized in technical risk analysis and functional safety in vehicles. In this role, she was involved in various vehicle projects and contributed to the safe development of new technologies. Since 2018, Tina has held several leadership positions. At CARIAD, the Volkswagen Group’s software subsidiary, she most recently led a team of agile facilitators in the ADAS & AD division and was a member of the group-wide management circle. At the same time, she deepened her systemic training and developed a strong passion for transformation processes, leadership development, and supporting organizations in complex change situations.

Since September 2025, Tina Heimer has been part of 1000 ELEPHANTS. In early 2026, she took on the role of Managing Director and became a shareholder of the company. In this capacity, she combines her corporate and technology experience with systemic thinking, organizational development, and impactful leadership. Her focus is on creating structures that enable growth and on supporting organizations and leaders in remaining capable of action during times of change, gaining clarity, and strengthening collaboration sustainably.

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Svitlana Hepp is Team Lead – Purchasing Car Software at BMW AG, with over seven years of experience in strategic procurement and the leadership of high-performing teams and international partnerships for automotive software solutions.
She holds a degree in International Relations from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and later completed a degree in Computer Science at the Hasso Plattner Institute. Based in Munich, Svitlana combines strong technical understanding with strategic leadership, driving key purchasing initiatives that shape the digital in-car experience, including infotainment, navigation, and entertainment systems.

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Fabian Heseding is an Investment Manager at the Hasso Plattner Foundation's Investment Office, which is responsible for managing the Foundation’s endowment. He covers the full investment cycle across asset classes for fund investments and direct investments and has been responsible for the Investment Office’s quantitative efforts since he joined in 2021. He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in I.T.-Systems Engineering from the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam and is a CAIA charterholder.

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Nina Ihde is a Senior Data Scientist and Project Lead in the innovation division of Bundesdruckerei, as well as a member of the AI Competence Center, which was founded in 2023 in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of Finance. In this role, she takes on a technically and strategically shaped position in the development of AI solutions for public administration, which sits within Bundesdruckerei's portfolio of identity, security, and digitalization solutions.

She previously completed her Bachelor's degree in IT Systems Engineering and her Master's degree in Data Engineering at HPI. During her studies, she worked at the Data Engineering Systems chair, developed a Python online course for openHPI, and contributed to AI research projects and publications. She has a particular interest in medical applications, which she pursued through collaborations with the Robert Koch Institute and Charité, among others. These experiences form the foundation of her current work at the intersection of academia and practice.

To this day, she enjoys returning to HPI regularly — for example, to visit the dance club. In her spare time, she is committed to fostering the next generation of IT talent, including through her involvement with "Jugend hackt".

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Mandy is Director of Product Management for SAP Signavio, based in Potsdam, Germany. Mandy drives the development of customer-centric products with a strong emphasis on user experience, interaction design, and business impact. With an interdisciplinary background—holding degrees in IT-Systems Engineering (MSc), Business (MBA), and Social Sciences (BA)—she combines technical expertise, strategic thinking, and a deep understanding of user needs.

Before joining SAP, Mandy led the development of multiple successful products as Head of Products at Digital Masterpieces, where she built and scaled web and mobile applications for creative and consumer markets. Earlier, she gained Silicon Valley startup experience, contributing to an innovative platform that empowered crowdsourcing for art projects through social media.

In addition to her work as a product leader, Mandy is also a certified career and life coach, supporting professionals in navigating their career journeys and growing into leadership roles. She is currently completing a Yoga Teacher Training, deepening her expertise in embodied leadership and cultivating clarity — physically, mentally, and in the way leaders show up and lead.

Mandy Klingbeil on LinkedIn

Stefan Krumnow has extensive leadership experience in B2B SaaS, most notably from his 16 years at Signavio, where he helped shape the company’s journey from a bootstrapped startup to a strategic SAP business unit. He joined Signavio as one of the first software engineers and built large parts of its initial product. Over seven years, he went on to establish and lead Signavio’s global post-sales organization as Senior Vice President in the go-to-market area. Later, he returned to his engineering roots to head a growing department of up to 18 scrum teams. Following the acquisition by SAP, Stefan played a key role in the post-merger integration of Signavio. 

In late 2025, he left SAP to co-found addressable value, a B2B SaaS company on a mission to boost the go-to-market performance of SaaS businesses and strengthen their position in the global marketplace.

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Daniel Moritz is CEO and CTO at neXenio Engineering, a Berlin-based software engineering company specializing in custom software development, identity & access management, and AI prototypes. Since 2016, he has been responsible for leading agile software projects primarily in the public sector and guiding engineering teams in delivering secure and sustainable digital solutions. In addition, Daniel serves as CTO at TIKI Projektentwicklungsgesellschaft, where he shapes the technical foundation of a serverless IoT platform powering intelligent locker systems. 

With a background in IT-Systems Engineering (B.Sc. and M.Sc.) from the Hasso Plattner Institute and ongoing MBA studies in Sustainability Management, Daniel combines deep technical expertise with a strong interest in responsible innovation and long-term value creation. He is driven by the idea to use technologies potential to build a better and more sustainable future. 

Earlier in his career, he worked as a technical consultant in the financial sector, which shaped his understanding of regulatory environments, stakeholder management, and the importance of aligning IT strategy with business impact.

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Cornelia Rehbein is a Senior Software Engineer and Engineering Team Lead at Valsight, a Berlin-based SaaS company founded out of HPI in 2015. She joined as one of the company’s earliest engineers and has spent the past decade contributing to its technical foundation across engineering, team leadership, hiring, DevOps, security, and QA. Most recently she has been driving the adoption of AI tooling and best practices within her engineering team, with a focus on practical implementation in real development workflows. Her primary technical focus in recent years has been React and TypeScript. 

Cornelia holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in IT Systems Engineering from HPI. Between her degrees, she spent a year at SAP in Palo Alto working across iOS and JavaScript projects — an experience that gave her an early look at large-scale corporate software development, which she has been able to contrast ever since with a decade inside a growing startup. 

She has mentored students and junior developers throughout her career and is particularly suited to conversations about: choosing between startup and corporate environments early in your career, navigating responsibilities that grow beyond your job title, and building a long-term engineering career without a linear path.

David Schwalb is Head of Engineering and Co-Founder of Valsight. During his studies at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), he worked on the “HANA Bachelor Project” at the Plattner Chair, contributing to an early precursor of SAP HANA, and subsequently gained international experience at SAP in Palo Alto. While pursuing his Master’s degree at HPI with a focus on HCI and Enterprise Computing, he continued his work at the chair and began his PhD, during which he co-founded Valsight. In addition, he supported the German National IT Summit as Sherpa to Prof. Meinel. Today, he is responsible for the technical evolution of the SaaS platform, drives the development of AI for the simulation of financial scenarios, and leverages AI to strategically scale marketing efforts.

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Johan Uhle is Head of Security and IT at Gigs, the Stripe for Telecom. Previously, he was a Product Manager at Dance, leading IoT and hardware-software integration for their custom ebike. Before that, Johan spent over six years at digital mapping startup Mapbox, joining at Series A and growing with the company through Series D, holding roles across backend engineering, infrastructure, and security. He started his career as a Software Engineer at SoundCloud in 2008. Johan holds a Master degree from the Hasso Plattner Institute and is based in Berlin.

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