In 2012, I joined my family's company and until 2015, I was managing director of the e-commerce start-up Collins within the Otto Group, which gave rise to the fashion and technology company About You in 2014.
Since 2015, I have been a Constitutive Shareholder in the Otto Group. In this role, I am Deputy Chairman of the Shareholders' Council and the Michael Otto Foundation, which is the majority owner of the Otto Group. I am also a member of the Supervisory Board.
In spring 2026, I will take over the helm of the Otto Group from my father by becoming Chairman of the Foundation and Shareholders' Council. The latter will be responsible for formulating and monitoring the strategic goals of the group in the future.
Over the past 75 years, the company has evolved from a catalog mail order business into an internationally active digital retail and services group with 36,300 employees and a large number of key companies, brands, and holdings in over thirty countries, primarily in Germany, the rest of Europe, and North America. As the largest online retailer of European origin, it is shaping the digital commerce and digital services of the future with its strength, market significance, and values.
Since the early 2000s, I have founded and successfully built up several companies, including in the fields of trade, electrical engineering, fashion and project development.
In the recent past, I have particularly combined entrepreneurship with philanthropy and, through the Holistic Foundation together with my wife, founded companies that have a positive impact on society.
As a co-initiator and anchor investor, I am involved in several projects in the start-up and venture capital sector.
It is important to me to invest sustainably in organizations that promise solutions to the challenges of our time, such as the impact tech fund Revent, which I helped to initiate
With Impossible Founders, we specifically promote innovative spin-offs from science in the field of deep tech, with a focus on green technologies and the development of new materials in connection with AI and data science. We want to bring the best ideas from science to life - turning them into marketable, growth-oriented, and responsibly managed companies.
I support the Social Entrepreneurship City Hamburg. It connects, educates, encourages, provides clarity, and serves as a hub for all stakeholders from business, administration, science, politics, and civil society.
The goal is a future in which economic activity is geared toward the common good. Together, we are committed to making Hamburg a livable city.
I support the concept of responsible ownership. Essentially, this amounts to an expansion of the understanding of family businesses. The difference is that long-term independence and corporate responsibility are no longer tied to an owner family, but primarily to a “kinship of skills and values” – in short, to responsible owners.
