Solving the challenges of tomorrow.

At Pioneers we guide companies through their transformation, empower them to unlock their innovation potential, and help them develop and scale new products, services, and business models.

Our Vision

We build a future where organizations have the capabilities to create sustainable value for society and the planet.

Our Mission

We #inspire and #empower organizations and #create innovative new business.

Our DNA

We know the startup scene.

Since 2014 we work on startup collaborations and have built a large network for international scouting. We know how innovative business models can be developed and implemented through startup tools and methods. 

We understand corporates.

Our team has 10+ years of experience in developing and managing corporate strategies. We understand the barriers of creating an entrepreneurial company and guide a successful transformation.

We deliver results and are execution experts.

During all our projects we never lose sight of the important things: Delivering innovation to solve people’s problems while at the same time returning the investments.

We create sustainable innovation.

In every project we consider the impact on the planet and CO2 creation and offer additional services for sustainable innovation.

Management and Senior Consultants

Picture of Anton Schilling

Anton Schilling

Managing Partner

Anton is Managing Director of Pioneers. A technology enthusiast specializing in helping corporates achieve their innovation goals through working with startups and building new ventures. He has experience organizing and planning hackathons, product design sprints, accelerators, and company building programs.

Christina Senft

Senior Innovation Consultant

Christina works as a Senior Innovation Consultant at Pioneers. She gained experience as project lead in the establishment of a tech startup including product development and prototype testing as well as in a corporate setting by leading and implementing company-wide projects (digitalization/IT, restructuring, etc.) and strategy implementation. Her professional background includes experience in several sectors like energy, banking, the commercial office of the Austrian embassy as well as facility management and civil engineering/construction.
picture of Jonathan Zilberberg

Jonathan Zilberberg

Innovation Manager

As an Innovation Manager, Jonathan focuses on corporate innovation and venture building within Pioneers. Having 6+ years of technology consulting experience, he has strong expertise in program management and a deep understanding of corporate technology strategy. Jonathan engaged in his own venture journey and helped to build the strategy and business model for a startup in the human resource area. Additionally, he has industry insights in Data Analytics, Payments, Insurance, Cybersecurity, Compliance, and Treasury.
Julian König

Julian König

Senior Innovation Consultant

Julian is a Senior Innovation Consultant at Pioneers. His focus lies on innovation strategy as well as idea development and business model innovation. He has several years of experience in the management of digitalization and innovation projects. Most recently, he worked in the public sector. Having worked in the Austrian startup ecosystem before, he is an expert in navigating through the startup landscape and facilitating collaborations. Moreover, he has a strong academic background in strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship by having completed the SIMC Master at WU Vienna.
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Michael Lunzer

Manager and Head of Venture Design

Michael is our expert in venture development. Having worked in 3 startups prior to Pioneers, he brings in vast know-how in how to develop new business models. He also helps clients introduce startup tools and working styles and developing customer-centric products based on iterative testing and validation.Having completed a full-stack software development program, he also provides the necessary tech skills to develop software products from design to production.Additionally, as an alumni of the Strategy, Innovation & Management Control Master (SIMC) at WU, he has also a strong academic background in innovation topics always challenging the tools and methods applied at Pioneers.
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Michael Obrist

Manager & Digital Product Designer

In his role as an Innovation Manager, Michael builds strong connections with corporate clients and further develops the business and digital products of Pioneers. He has a background in Economics and has worked for several years in the Berlin and US startup ecosystem in digital technologies such as 3D printing, machine learning or online education. He has built and managed new products and services in growth-stage startups and unicorn companies alike.

Philip Reuchlin

Pioneers.Climate

For over 18 years, Philip has worked on sustainability and strategy in China, Colombia, Switzerland, Austria and Central Asia. His work has focused on decarbonization, footprinting, carbon markets, green growth and sustainable innovation. He has an MBA from INSEAD and a MSc from London School of Economics. As Head of Climate, Philip will help clients connect their decarbonization, ESG and innovation agendas. Clients will be guided through understanding their corporate carbon footprint, prioritizing action areas and developing new business opportunities- in other words: “Innovation, with purpose”.
Sophia Kuther

Sophia Kuther

Senior Innovation Consultant

Sophia is a Senior Innovation Consultant at Pioneers. Having worked for both a strategy consulting firm and a corporate venture builder, she combines methods from top management consulting and operational experience in launching and building startups.
Team pic

Sophie Rab

Innovation Manager

Sophie is an Innovation Manager at Pioneers with a focus on innovation strategy work. She has more than 5 years of experience in developing digital strategies and in planning and managing digital transformation projects, both as a consultant and in the corporate world.
Picture of Thomas Gabriel

Thomas Gabriel

Managing Partner

Thomas is Managing Partner at Pioneers. He recently joined the team after a career in strategy consulting at Contrast and EY Parthenon.Thomas has a strong track record in strategically transforming organizations in several industries – strategy, organization, performance management. Innovation from thought to finish is driving his work – digitalization and sustainability are the main levers.He is a strategist, innovator and entrepreneur, making strategy and innovation happen.

Alumni Advisors

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Annabelle Bockwoldt

VP R&D at ITAB

Annabelle is exploring the boundaries of IoT and innovation at the NASDAQ-listed retail solution provider ITAB, where she serves as the Vice President R&D.Before her time at ITAB, Annabelle was part of the management team at Pioneers, where she led and developed a team of consultants and conducted various innovation projects for both, SMEs as well as blue chip companies.Besides being experienced in setting up international, multi-corporate accelerator programs from scratch, she has also worked in Venture Capital for a Silicon Valley investor and co-founded a fintech startup and one data ethics think tank in Munich. In her free time, Annabelle loves to pay it forward through mentoring young entrepreneurs and by contributing to the Pioneers Expert Board.
potrait of Harald Federspiel

Harald Federspiel

Head of Global Programs at Seedstars

Harald is Manager and team lead at Pioneers and has run more than 30 innovation consulting projects for a variety of clients in different industries across the world. His passion is to work with innovative people on new products and services. He has extensive know-how in the field of intrapreneurship, startup-corporate collaboration and venture building where he delivers significant value to his clients by creating successful outcomes. He joined Pioneers Consulting services in the early days and helped building up the business unit.
potrait of markus lang

Markus Lang

Associate Partner at Speedinvest

Former tech entrepreneur now seasoned venture capitalist, Markus is a partner in Speedinvest’s sector-agnostic seed team. He is passionate about B2B software companies (led Impala, Upvest, Shapr3D) and consumer ventures (led SecondNature, Refurbed) that tackle under-digitised markets. Previously in charge of the fund’s pre-seed activities, he built a transverse portfolio of 40+ companies all across Europe.Earlier in his career, he co-founded an investor-backed logistics tech startup, advised multiple companies on their path to scale and ran his own venture. He has a background in Business Administration and Law.Globetrotter but Austrian at heart, Markus is a very active contributor to the local ecosystem. He lectures at the Vienna Technical University, runs initiatives to increase diversity in business leadership and holds board or advisory roles in several nonprofits and public institutions. In 2018, he was included in Forbes Magazine’s annual 30 under 30 list.
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Tamara Stix

Product Expert @TBF Startup

Partners

The Pioneers History

2022

Full Management Buyout

In 2022, the remaining startup300 shares were bought back by Pioneers to lay the ground for a further scaling phase of the Corporate Innovation and Venture Building services.

Launch of Pioneer.Climate and Pioneers.Peak

To increase our focus on sustainable innovation and our environmental and social impact, we launched Pioneers.Climate. A Pioneers “special force”, where we focus on helping clients measure their CO2 footprint and develop ESG strategies to get closer to Net Zero. At the same time, we started our own multi-corporate venture building hub – Pioneers.Peak. There, we work with first partners such as OMV, Porsche and fasthub BOSCH on validating internal ideas in a collaborative and creative environment.

2021

Roll-Out of Innovation Strategy and Setup Services

At Pioneers we want to contribute to a better future of society solving the big challenges of this planet. In 2021, we thus launched our Pioneers Innovation Framework that connects the larger corporate strategy to innovation execution. With a strong strategic anchor, we increase the chance of innovation success and thus the impact of any of our corporate innovation projects.

2020

Spin-off

Foundation of the Pioneers Innovation GmbH focusing on working hand in hand with corporates to build innovative solutions through venture activities.

2019

zero21 is launched

The network for corporates, founders, investors and entrepreneurs, enabling us to harness our services to benefit our community.

2018

Pioneers joins startup300

To grow our network and offer a scope of financial support, space and consultancy services, as well as networking and corporate collaboration.

2016

Pioneers Ventures

is created to further support our network of entrepreneurs, offering early-stage startups with funding from EUR 50 -100K.

2014

Innovation Consulting

is introduced in response to partners asking for our startup expertise and support with innovation activities.

2011

Pioneers Festival

is launched to expand our reach and engage a global network, offering unique access to European tech leaders.

2009

StartEurope is Founded

creating a network for startups, entrepreneurs and investors to drive innovation where it’s needed most.

 

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