For those who don’t know you yet, who are you?
I am the former president of CES for the year 2025/2026 and studied Entrepreneurship and Business Design at Chalmers.
You have a background in mechatronics and worked as a development engineer at Porsche. What first sparked your interest in entrepreneurship?
Exactly that! I was surrounded by so many very talented engineers who had innovative ideas and were able to technically build it, but lacked the knowledge or ability to sell it to the management or convince those around. To bring something to life you need both. Entrepreneurship is exactly that combination. I wanted to build a bridge between technology and the market.
You chose to move to another country for your Master’s. What did you learn from that experience, and would you recommend other students to do the same?
I would always choose the same way and recommend everybody to go somewhere else. Can be another city in the same country but also another country directly. I met so many inspiring and great people during my time in Sweden, I would never want to miss that time.Additionally, you take so much for granted: standards, communication types, opinions or common rules. Moving abroad, everything is suddenly questioned. This helped me to get a different perspective, to ask more, to listen more and eventually to get to know myself a bit better.
What did working with real venture projects teach you that you couldn’t have learned in a traditional classroom?
If there is only one thing I can answer, it would be the importance of teamwork. As a team you can achieve so much more, you complement each other in ways you could not imagine. At the same time I learned how hard we need to work to make good teamwork happen, this is something I am taking to everything I am doing in the future. Take care about the people around you, listen, support and suddenly a lot is happening.
You’ve experienced both Germany and Sweden, what’s one cultural difference that still makes you laugh, and what do you think Swedes could learn from Germans?
I am still smiling about my first attempts to argue with Sweds. You could definitely deserve some more conflict skills and enjoyment about them. I am a classic problem-solver lover. You need to open a conflict in order to solve it. Sounds easy right? It can be!
You’ve been involved in CES as both a board member and President. What do you think makes CES worth being part of?
Having no limits. It’s entrepreneurship, so everything is possible. I always tried to spread this mindset around to encourage other to think big and just get going. One board member had the idea to do a hackathon with Lovable. So lets do it! If you have any idea or dream, where others might say thats so risky or too big. Don’t listen and join CES. This is where ideas turn into reality.
What have you learned from entrepreneurship that you now use in your personal life?
That’s definitely seeing opportunities. Look around and think about what could be, this can be applied to anything. Its sunny and a park nearby? Ask some friends to hangout. A job application that sounds interesting? Apply! Sometimes a No is a Hello.
What would you tell a student who is interested in entrepreneurship but doesn’t have a business idea yet?
Join CES to meet other people. Creativity and ideas are often generated by talking or working with others. I think it’s the best form of inspiration. If you meet the right people the idea will come to you.
If you could give your first-year-at-Chalmers self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Be curious about everybody and everything around you. You can learn something from everybody, so engage, listen and repeat!