Who is Thomas

Thomas was born 1964 and grew up in Munich/Germany. His family's roots are in Germany while parts of the family also is located in Virginia/USA as US citizens. While studying business administration in Munich Thomas was parallel working for leading consultancies and several technology enterprises in the field of business strategies, marketing, artificial intelligence, expert systems and decision making.

After passing his studies with distinction he began to work with UBM Consulting Group (now Mercer Management Group) where he focused on research & development and technology strategies for firms like Hewlett Packard, Philips, BMW and others.

 

1996 he specialized on mid cap companies and since that time - facing their needs and weaknesses as also their strengths and opportunities every day - he knows from hundreds of cases what the sticking points in mid cap companies are. The Jenoptik AG in Jena has been a client in the field of strategy development together with dozens of worldwide well known technology research institutes (such as Fraunhofer Institut and Max-Planck-Institut) as well as many other great names. Another project has been to develop turnaround concepts for the thuringia bone china industry of 14 companies which got mixed up and turned into a heavy crises after the eastern german change of economic system in 1990/1991.

At the same time Thomas also has been a visiting lecturer for marketing and distribution strategies at the Jena university of applied sciences and initiated the foundation of a regional Marketing Club and a regional branch of Junior Chamber International.

Additional projects for german federal state of Thuringia, ordered by the Minister-President's Office, personally commanded by Minister-President Dr. Bernhard Vogel, followed. A regional development plan to increase employment in future industries was created as well as a marketing strategy for thuringian organic food branch for thuringian ministry of agriculture was developed.

In 1999/2000 he was team leader when working out a study on the deeper causes of corporate crises and detailed trends based on detailed data of hundreds of cases. Never before there where worked out such detailed results on a topic of high impact for economic development. The presented results were carefully attended among experts of turnaround management and assignees in bankruptcy. Orders from several public authorities followed.

Further challenging projects have been turnaround management for the well known Katzenberger group, concrete industry in Austria, Italy and Germany, where complex decisions on overall corporate strategies had to be made. For another client a majority-owned subsidiary had to be sold in a quite big deal to french Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, building materials industry, with turnover of 32 billion EUR one of the worlds oldest and also leading industry trusts, under very difficult circumstances. Additionally negotiators from Compagnie de Saint Gobain of course demonstrated high skills and knowledge what had to be equated by own measures and activities. Finally, a quite great price could be signed.

Since 2000 Thomas is self-employed and first built up an integrated consultancy of business consultants, m&a specialists, lawyers and tax consultants with 11 employees and consultants which after several spectacular results in cases of turnaround management was recommended by well know entrepreneurs and leading business organizations and banks. Thomas hence was appointed to various boards of directors.

Among clients also have been technology companies such as R+S solutions AG (around 1000 employees) where a strategic readjustment project was managed to enable and ensure further growth. Finally, fresh capital from two private equity firms was procured and various new and promising strategic business units were launched. Another important project has been turnaround management work in a leading position for the world market leader of tyre protection chains (3000 employees). Measures have been outsourcing of huge parts of chain production to romania, a successful management buy out for a human medical devices business unit and a strictly focused business strategy on the company's core business units. Unusual successes also have been several complicated mergers between medium-sized companies from old economy industries. Results have been sound efficiency improvements, stronger cash flow and the security and strategic vigor of re-shaped, modern business models.

Before leaving that partnership in 2005, he designed a new and powerful system of technology and know how transfer between the Munich university of applied sciences, it's round about 1.000 professors and lecturers, 200 laboratories and the mid cap companies far around the south of germany.

In 2005 Thomas, as a serial entrepreneur, finally founded TSSF and assembled a small network of experts around the business strategy and business development issue and as a incubator for ventures. Read more about TSSF's mission and core philosophy on the bridges for ventures page. Visit the key team expertise page for further information about TSSF's skills and capabilities. TSSF focuses on the TIME sector (TIME: telecom, internet, media, entertainment) as well as on attractive business models from the realm of industry and services in the old economy.

TSSF so far has been involved in numerous business from the realm of TV channels and content exploitation, IP TV businesses, web 2.0 communities and other internet businesses, strategic alliances in the field of IT and BPO outsourcing, 3D animation, Open Source software business models and renewable energy businesses.