Dr. Stefan Wess, PhD, Managing Director and General Manager

In his role as General Manager, Stefan leads the company’s operations in EMEA. He is a recognized high technology industry veteran with multinational front-line technology and scientific leadership experience. Stefan has written and published numerous books and articles in IT journals on Artificial Intelligence and he has organized several international AI conferences. His professional career includes roles as the technical manager of the U.S. CRM software company Inference (acquired by eGain), where he directed international CRM projects for Global 2000 organizations. He was executive board member at tecmath AG and also led Kaiserlautern-based tec:inno as CEO, directing the  knowledgemanagement solutions company’s rapid and profitable growth. After tec:inno’s acquisition by Empolis, Stefan became a member of the Empolis executive board and was appointed as the company’s CEO in 2005. He is fluent in English and German and is conversant in French.

Dr. Peter Tepassé
CFO Europe, Attensity Group

Peter leads our financial management and reporting activities in Europe.  Since 2007, Peter was responsible for financial planning, record keeping, as well as financial reporting for Living-e AG. As member of the board of directors, Peter has a long-standing track-record in financial management and mergers and acquisitions. During his time at Living-e AG, Peter managed the acquisition of Xtramind Technologies GmbH, one of the leading providers of intelligent e-Mail Response Management Systems in Europe. Prior to Living-e, he worked for the SNL Accounting department of the Deutsche Post AG, Medialab AG and was the head of financial accounting for the arf Gesellschaft für Organisationsberatung mbH in Nuremberg.

Peter holds a degree in Business Administration and is a certified accountant and certified controller.

Harald Zapp, Senior Vice President Business Development and Corporate Strategy

As Senior VP Business Development and Corporate Strategy and one of three managing directors, Harald Zapp leads the strategic direction and the expansion of Empolis’ international activities, developing new areas of business and markets as well as aligning the new product portfolio accordingly.

Harald Zapp began his career at WANG Germany in 1985 as product and marketing manager in the network division of the company. In 1992 he moved on to several positions in sales management with Ungermann-Bass and later SynOptics GmbH. From 1994 to 2007 Harald held various management positions at Cisco Systems Germany and was later involved in the European Organization of the company, among others as Head of Service Provider Central Marketing at Cisco Systems Ltd. in London. Before that, he headed up the Cisco Marketing and Channel Sales department in Germany. Prior to joining Empolis, Harald Zapp was Chief Operating Officer at ASC telecom AG and responsible for all national and international sales and marketing activities as well as the strategic development.

Harald has almost 25 years of experience in the IT and telecommunication industries. He enjoys travelling extensively as well as playing tennis, going skiing and riding his motorbike.

Thomas Dreikauss, Vice President Sales

Thomas Dreikauss is responsible for managing the Business Development of Empolis to meet the company’s growth objectives in Germany. He brings more than 16 years of sales management and marketing experience with enterprise software solutions at both, start-up and public companies. He has a demonstrated track record of successfully building teams and helping companies grow their business even under toughest circumstances.  One of the major milestones in Thomas’s career was his position as EMEA Director of Sales and Managing Director at Inxight Software, the leading provider of software solutions for unstructured information discovery. For more than 5 years he was responsible for all sales and marketing activities of the Enterprise, Federal Government and OEM Business. This Xerox PARC spin-off became a wholly owned subsidiary of Business Objects in 2007 and is now owned by SAP. Thomas was then significantly involved in the integration of Inxight in to Business Objects and SAP in Europe. He also has leadership and management experience with technology and media companies including ParcPlace Systems, ObjectShare, Valtech and nexx.tv. Thomas holds a degree as Technical Engineer for Telecommunications from German T-Com.

Dr. Mario Lenz, CTO

Mario is focused on delivering next-generation business applications that generate business value from unstructured data. During his studies, Mario proactively participated in numerous industrial cooperation projects that delivered solutions to large enterprises.  In 1999, Mario became Director of Development at tec:inno, a knowledge management company. After the successful integration of tec:inno into empolis and having served in several management positions leading Product Development Mario was appointed CTO and became a member of the empolis management board in 2006.

Mario earned his PhD in Computer Sciences at Humboldt University in Berlin, majoring in Knowledge Management with a minor in Psychology. He is fluent in English and German and has a penchant for fast BMW motorcycles and alpine skiing.

Martina Tomaschowski, Vice President Marketing

Martina began her career in the Overseas Sales Department at Pfaff, at the time Germany’s number one sewing machine manufacturer. Following that, she moved into the automotive supplier industry and joined the sales team at Keiper Recaro, a well-known international car seat manufacturer. She subsequently worked for the Chairman of the Board as project manager. In 1999, she joined tec:inno, a knowledge management solution company, as Head of Administration & HR and following the merger with Empolis was promoted to Director of Marketing & PR. Martina has 10 years of experience in the software industry and is active in associations such as Bitkom, the German customer service association and others where she is a member of the exhibitions advisory board.

Martina has a Business Administration Degree from VWA Rhein-Neckar and is fluent in German and English and conversant in French. She enjoys travelling, scuba diving and spending time with her daughter.

Stefan Volland, Vice President und Chief Operating Officer

As COO of the highly successful Strategic Accounts Group, Stefan is responsible for delivering high-value consulting, implementation and project management services to Empolis’ enterprise customer base. He started his career as a field engineer at Siemens, where he worked directly with customers in the South East Asian region and led several complex enterprise-class projects, establishing new communication systems for Global 2000 companies including Swire Group and Petronas. He soon assumed the role of key account manager for strategic accounts, and in 1997, he returned to Germany and joined the Swedish Bonnier Group, where he was in charge of German IT operations. In 2000, Empolis acquired the company and Stefan was named Director of Professional Services at Empolis.  In 2006, he became member of the Empolis management and was put in charge of a sales division. In 2007, he was appointed COO of Empolis, also overseeing Empolis’ Professional Services Unit.
 
Stefan received a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University Darmstadt, Germany. He is fluent in German and English and loves to dive and fly airplanes.

Thomas Zanzinger, Vice President International and Partners

Thomas Zanzinger is responsible for driving the international expansion for Empolis. He brings more than 20 years experience in successfully building and driving international business via direct and indirect sales channels. Thomas Zanzinger started his career in 1989 at DELL Computer, implementing its well known direct marketing concept in Germany. In 1992 he joined Novell where he held several position and was finally running their SME division in Germany. He joined Mitsubishi Electric in 1997where he had overall responsibility as Director and General Manager for the PC business unit in Germany. Software AG is another important step in his career where he started in 2000 building the channel business in addition to the direct sales organization. He took on additional responsibility and Vice President and General Manager on restructering business units and driving the business in Belgium and Luxembourg. 2007 he joined datango AG where he was tasked with building the international business from scratch. He achieved significant growth by acquiring a competitor as well as building business incrementally. In all assignments he was tasked with starting up and growing business significantly in short time frames.

Thomas Zanzinger holds a degree in Business Administration from Berufsakademie Stuttgart.