CIRCULAZE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Executive
- Co - Founder & Executive Partner
- Managing Partner of DEFACTO X GmbH, Board Member of Tribe Global, Partner of CURAZE
Claus Schuster is Co-Founder and Executive Partner of CURAZE. In addition, Claus is the owner of DEFACTO, one of the leading solution providers for customer centricity and an established family entrepreneur. In 2021, the CRM specialist and digitalization enthusiast founded CURAZE with the goal of connecting all players from the innovation ecosystem through various online and offline formats: start- and scale-ups, corporates, enablers, and investors. With CIRCULAZE he aims to provide the Circular Economy more visibility and to give corporates more transparency about relevant start-ups in order to connect them in a curated way, to foster collaboration, and to initiate more Circular Economy projects.
Clothilde is a Ventures Associate as part of Plug and Play's Sustainability team based in Paris, France. At Plug and Play, Clothilde works both on the investment side, investing in early-stage pre-seed and seed-stage European climate tech and sustainability startups, and on the corporate side, helping large corporations accelerate their sustainability innovation efforts. Clothilde has a background in renewable energy engineering with Master's degrees from Stanford University and Imperial College London."
Job Titles:
- Partner at MGT OPEN, Grounded Press and Professor at Shenzhen Technology University ( SZTU )
Dr Gordana Kierans - author and TEDx Speaker - has over 20 years of business experience at the interface between leading Business Schools and companies. During her career, she has worked with entrepreneurs, SMEs, multinationals, governments and NGOs, in Germany and world-wide. She has also worked with top academics in the area of the circular economy which motivated her to create a practical hands-on Udemy programme with focus on entrepreneurship that has inspired over 6,000 participants worldwide. Dr Kierans was born and raised in Croatia, but she has been working and living abroad for 27 years in Italy, Germany, Belgium and, currently, in China. She completed all her studies in Germany, including her Doctorate. In addition, Dr Kierans is also an Alumna of the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education. Today, she is a Partner at MGT OPEN, Grounded Press and a Professor at Shenzhen Technology University (SZTU). She is also the co-founder of EntrepreneurCircle.World, an upcoming membership platform for circular entrepreneurs and investors.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Co - Founder of CIRCULAR REPUBLIC
Co-Founder CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, Director @UnternehmerTUM
Matthias Ballweg is co-founder of CIRCULAR REPUBLIC and an expert in the circular economy. Previously, Matthias was co-responsible for the global Circular Economy Platform at Systemiq for several years. He built coalitions such as the Circular Cars Initiative and co-authored influential studies on the implementation of a European Green Deal. He was Vice President Strategy at MAN Truck & Bus for several years. With a PhD in behavioral psychology, he is a start-up founder, father of 4 children, and board member of the Oberland section of the German Alpine Club - the second largest sports club in Germany. With CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, he has published a circular economy start-up map with over 400 circular economy start-ups and develops circular economy projects in collaboration from start-ups and large companies.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Co - Founder and Coach at PureEdge, Circularity Manager BMW AG
Janine Thies, Co-Founder and Coach at pureEdge and Circularity Manager at BMW Group, is a visionary and enabler in the transition to a Circular Economy for one of the world's largest automotive companies. For her, the path towards a conscious economy and system change is a question of inner capacities. She provides leadership for breakthrough ideas that come from people's personal answers to the questions: Who am I and thus what is my best contribution to this world?
Janine's vision is to help build an economy that is regenerative to nature and preserves the beautiful biodiversity of this planet.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Partner at Planet
- Founding Partner / Planet a Ventures
Lena Thiede is co-founder and partner at Planet A, a venture capital fund investing in European greentech start-ups. She is responsible for scientific impact evaluation at Planet A. Lena Thiede is a political scientist and was government director at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ). She led German development cooperation in Tanzania/East Africa and has also worked in environmental research and policy advice for the OECD, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Ecologic Institute, and the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). She is a member of the EXIST Advisory Board of the German Federal Government.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Lead at Circularity
Marianne Kuhlmann, Co-Founder and Lead at Circularity, is a management and sustainability professional, entrepreneur, and PhD researcher (ETH Zürich) with a passion for the circular economy and net zero. She has broad experience from working with companies, start-ups, public, and social sector organizations.
Mr. Green Africa is a recycling company that sells pre-processed recycling materials with a traceable social and environmental impact. The company integrates informal waste collectors into the value chain by applying fair trade principles. Founder/s: Keiran Smith & Karim Debabe Based In: Nairobi, Kenya Website: www.mrgreenafrica.com Close
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and Executive Partner at CURAZE, Has 20 Years of Experience in Journalism ( Condé Nast, Funke Mediengruppe ) before Starting Her Own Platform Fe
Natascha Zeljko, Co-Founder and Executive Partner at CURAZE, has 20 years of experience in journalism (Condé Nast, Funke Mediengruppe) before starting her own platform Fe:maleOneZero in 2018. In 2021, together with Claus Schuster, she started CURAZE and co-initiated CIRCULAZE.
Job Titles:
- Head of Global Sustainability / Circular Economy
- Head of Global Sustainability Enel X, Circular Economy Manager
Nicola Tagliafierro, Head of Global Sustainability/Circular Economy Manager Enel X, has 20+ years of experience in multinationals' top organizations and launched a digital platform on sustainable gamification mechanisms. Most recently, he published "The Circular Economy Manager" (currently in Italian).
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Partner SYSTEMIQ, Prof. for Resource - Strategy and Management University of Innsbruck
- Founder of the "the Landbanking Group
Prof. Dr. Martin R. Stuchtey is founder of the "The Landbanking Group" - a company that aspires to shift landuse patterns globally and regenerate nature. Martin is also founder of SYSTEMIQ Ltd., a system change company created to drive the attainment of the Paris climate agreement. He is member of many boards, incl. the Alfred-Herrhausen Society, Senckenberg and Forum Alpbach. He spent 20 years with McKinsey & Co., finally as Director of the Centre for Business & Environment and managing partner Munich. Before he was exploration geologist in Africa and officer in the German Alpine military forces. He holds a chair for Circular Economy industrial systems at the University of Innsbruck. He is author of many papers, reports, newspaper and television contributions and the book "A Good Disruption - Redefining Growth in the Twenty-first Century". He holds degrees from the Rhodes University, the WHU Coblence, Lancaster, Dresden and Innsbruck University. He is married to book author and entrepreneur Dr. Sonja Stuchtey (with whom he co-leads The Landbanking Group), father of six, organic farmer in the Austrian Alps and an avid Alpinist.
Job Titles:
- Professor at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Founder and Scientific Director Braungart EPEA - Internationale Umweltforschung Hamburg
- Professor at the Leuphana University Lüneburg
Prof. Michael Braungart is professor at the Leuphana University Lüneburg and founder of EPEA, Environmental Protection and Encouragement Agency in Hamburg (Germany), ‘The cradle of Cradle to Cradle'. He is also co-founder of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) in Charlottesville, Virginia and founder of the Hamburger Environmental Institute (HUI). For decades, Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart has pioneered the Cradle to Cradle design concept. He has worked with a number of organizations and companies across a range of industries, and has developed tools for designing eco-effective products, business systems and intelligent materials pooling. In 2019 Michael Braungart was awarded the Goldene Blume von Rheydt (Golden Flower of Rheydt), the oldest environmental protection award in Germany, for his work.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder at Turntoo, Circular Economy Expert, Author of Material Matters
Sabine Rau-Oberhuber is one of the early pioneers of the circular economy. In 2010 she co-founded Turntoo, one of the first companies worldwide focusing on achieving a circular economy. She developed some of the first business models and circularity strategies and contributed to shaping the thinking around the circular economy transition. She is one of the initiators of Madaster, the cadaster for materials which provides material passports for the built environment. In 2016 she co-authored the best-seller Material Matters, which presents a coherent view on the transition to the circular economy. Close
Job Titles:
- Founder & MD of Better Ventures Group
Founding Partner 4P Capital, Purpose VC Investor and Experience Economy Expert
"Purpose and profit are correlating results of sustainable, impactful investment," is Xavier Sarras's core belief and one of the reasons that led him to join the initiative. He is dedicating the larger part of his professional life to maximizing positive social and environmental impact by backing highly scalable, purposeful start-ups. Being on the mission to increase the quality of experiences in life, he has grown to become an Experience Economy Expert. Entrepreneurially trained by founding companies since the age of 17, he has a background of close to 30 years in scaling and exiting digitally driven marketing agencies and 10 years of angel investing. He has helped to shape the experiences of global brands as well as disruptive tech start-ups across a multitude of industries. For him, purpose and profit go hand-in-hand, and Xavier believes the decade of purpose has just begun. Close