Kerstin Hochmüller

Kerstin Hochmüller is CEO and shareholder of Marantec Group GmbH & Co. KG. Her professional focus for many years has been on innovation and change processes in medium-sized industrial companies. In 1999, she co-founded kopfstand GbR and was responsible for marketing strategy and innovation projects for various well-known companies and start-ups until the end of 2014. At the same time, she worked as a trainer for innovation management and supported numerous companies and organizations in their projects.

In 2013, she completed the generational change at the Marantec Group and has been transforming the company into a network organization ever since. She is a pioneer and initiator of cooperative business models in the spirit of the sharing economy and open innovation. She and her team developed the Open Champions methodology for the transformation of the Marantec Group. The goal: to build the future of SMEs with openness and a pioneering spirit of innovation, digitalization and sustainability.

With this in mind, she is a co-initiator of "Frisches Wirtschaften" and a founding member of New Mittelstand. She was recently named one of the top 50 female entrepreneurs in Germany by Handelsblatt.

After studying business administration at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld and further training in the areas of innovation and change management, she completed her MBA at DUW in Berlin, which is now part of Steinbeis University Berlin.