The only way to create great things is with great people who truly enjoy their job. We, as Heroes, are enthusiastic and take pride in doing the best work we can. Recognizing opportunities and achieving our goals together is what connects us all.
Want to find out more about us? Let’s talk!
Meet the team of Speedinvest Heroes
Managing Partners 
Maria Baumgartner
MA., Founder/ Managing Partner
Maria’s diverse and successful professional history has one common denominator: a desire to truly get to know people. This curiosity has driven Maria from her early days as a startup founder and young political activist up until today as general manager of Speedinvest Heroes.
This social skillset, practiced over many years in various leadership positions and professional trainings (such as a Master degree in Mediation) is a crucial asset for Speedinvest Heroes. Building out our network of talents and then quickly matching the potential of a given candidate with the right opportunity in our portfolio, is where Maria excels like no one else.
Maria’s personal working history starts 1992 in the early internet area. As the GM of one of the first big dot.com success stories coming out of Austria (Datenwerk/Blue-C), she saw her company grow to an agency group with more than 200 employees across Europe, including an IPO at the “Neue Markt”. Having sold her stake early enough before the bust, Maria continued her entrepreneurial path that included managing a research think tank on Artificial Intelligence (long before the hype), spending time in Silicon Valley and, eventually, helping to found Speedinvest as the first business angel fund in Austria.
With this sort of CV, Maria does not need to believe all the hype we see today around startups. At the same time, she is highly aware of the massive disruption digitalisation brings to our personal and business live.
Heroes is a natural platform for Maria’s skills, combining her appetite to rethink old business sectors such as HR with her focus on the human element in business. Building healthy companies will always be built on finding exceptional talent. And as we all know, this talent is spread thin and wide, so a true commitment to diversity, low entry barriers and continuous education will be a crucial element of any HR strategy.
For Maria, having gone through many diverse roles and businesses, this approach comes natural. as does her positive attitude towards people in general.
Lukas Rippitsch
MSc., SCPM, Managing Partner
As a managing director, Lukas aims to help his team to constantly outperform stakeholder expectation with a clear focus on making processes more efficient and to guarantee client satisfaction.
While working with data throughout his career - from investment banking (RCB), data analysis (Google) and growth hacking & people management (Improove) - he always followed a simple rule (Winston S. Churchill) - “I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself” - pointing out that working with data can be as creative as painting a portrait.
As he is known for his consistent good mood and his high energy level, he thrives in a fast-paced digital environment as well as in his local climbing gym. Cooking, wine, wine again and lots of sports are the basis of his personal life. You will always find him looking for an excuse to move your regular Jour Fixe outdoor or trying to convince you to go for a quick 10k run with him instead of your weekly 1:1.
People Team
Charlotte Paech
Dipl.-BW, Partner/ Co-Founder
Heroes don’t need capes or spider bites. It’s the combination of head, heart and attitude that unleashes super powers. As a Senior Partner, Charlotte has a trained eye for heroes and a gifted ability to transform them into teams as powerful as the Avengers.
Matching the right people is like solving a puzzle. The edges (skills) need to be appreciated in order for each piece (talent) to fit the gaps (road blocks) in the larger picture (start-ups). During her professional experience Charlotte has found many missing pieces – under the sofa, during stealth mode, in the valley, across the pond, before beta – you name it.
Running a start-up is tough. It takes blood, sweat and luck to get it right. But many teams fail under stress when they don’t treat their start-up as a living organism. Charlotte knows how to get through all the code and business lingo to identify your personal kryptonite.
Charlotte is light-hearted and empathetic; in negotiations determined but fair. She gets excited by the spirit of the teams she mentors and is thankful for the positive change she can achieve with her work. Charlotte loves good food, which is somewhat surprising considering her cooking skills; she’d rather break her fingernails boxing than wrestling in the kitchen.
Benjamin Gorski
MBA., Head of Product
After finishing his business law studies, Ben started his career in Campus Recruiting at UBS and continued his journey at Google. He figured out that technology, digitalization, and change management with an eye for the people is dear to his heart. Ben is a creative problem solver with a growth mindset, which he showed while helping several startups to grow and scale quickly. He always kept his eye on doing more and improving the organization as a whole.
Nele Weyens
MSc., Team Lead Recruiting
Nele joined Speedinvest Heroes in February 2020 and is happy to help start-ups in their recruiting activities. Previously, she gained work experience in an agency, Randstad Sourceright, covering EMEA and as an Internal Recruiter at Danone for Eastern Europe.
If you want to know more, Nele is always happy to have a chat over a cup of tea!
Milica Spiric
MSc., Team Lead Tech Recruiting
Milica joined SpeedInvest Heroes as an HR consultant in August 2020.
She is passionate about people, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship and is thrilled to be able to help startups grow healthy, by finding the right, bright and talented people for them.
Prior to starting her career journey, she studied Business Administration in Milan and Strategy and Innovation at WU in Vienna.
Roma Jithin
MBA., Team Lead Recruiting
After finishing her Bachelor‘s in Computer Science, she realised she’s more of a people person than computer geek. That‘s when her dream to be HR profession kick started. After, she finished her Master’s in Personnel Management and gained a diploma in marketing management.
She set her foot as HR executive into Telecom industry and then to wellness & beauty industry as HR specialist. Later on, she moved to Dubai where she worked as Recruitment consultant, then for the past few years she has been working as freelance recruiter. Her hobbies are gardeningand cooking.
Jennifer Roth
MSc., Senior HR Consultant
Working as a Senior HR Consultant, Jennifer has been part of Speedinvest Heroes from the very beginning. Her primary tasks involve supporting startups with recruiting by finding suitable team members and advising them about any process related questions.
Studying Psychology was the first important step she took towards developing her future in this direction. In her Master’s studies, she focused on work- and organizational Psychology and subsequently entered the field of HR. In order to achieve a holistic picture of HR Management during her studies, Jennifer worked for various national and international companies offering services for Compensation and Benefits, Human Resources Development, Recruiting and Executive Search.
It was in cooperation with Roland Wadl (QMC), one of the managing partners, which finally enabled her to enter the startup world and brought her to Speedinvest Heroes. Setting up this new HR Company has been an incredible experience for Jennifer. From the start, it has been an absolute pleasure for her to be a part of the founding team and build a unique company that focuses exclusively on the needs of startups.
She says: “Working with startups has given me an entirely new perspective. I am inspired daily by the huge amounts of creativity and commitment involved. At Speedinvest Heroes, we want to find the best possible employees so that the startup founders are relieved of this task and can focus on other key aspects of growing their companies.”
As a Psychologist, it is in Jennifer’s nature to want to work with and get to know different people and to recognize and promote their potential.
Speedinvest Heroes is a brand new and exciting chapter. Let the journey begin…
Joyce Schultz
MSc., HR consultant
After completing her Master’s Degree in International Business in Australia, Joyce moved to Germany and worked for Booking.com and for Paypal as a Talent Acquisition Coordinator for EMEA.
She’s passionate about people, startups and is thrilled to be able to help start-ups scale up while making sure she also provides a good candidate experience.
Tabeen Shah
MBA., HR consultant
Tabeen wakes up in the morning with the excitement of connecting with new talent and help find them great careers. Though technology and innovation have inspired her from school days, her passion lies in indulging in meaningful conversations with people and understanding their lives, backgrounds and career aspirations.
After graduating in Electronics and Communication Engineering, she followed her calling to work in the Human Resources industry. An MBA in Human Resources and Marketing kickstarted her career in Talent Acquisition as a Technical Recruiter with the Publicis Groupe.
Working in a cross-cultural organization has given her the chance to interact with and imbibe learnings from people across diverse backgrounds, cultures, mindsets and geographies. An insatiable level of curiosity pushes her to learn new things every day and she loves exploring new processes and tools that help improve her work.
Chinwendu Kawa
MSc., HR Consultant
Chinwe is currently concluding a double degree Master’s programme in the area of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, and sustainability. During her studies she was enlightened to the fact that these key ideologies begets successful companies when properly channeled through the most important asset of a company, which is people! Her experience in recruitment whilst working with management consulting companies, fueled her decision to continue her career path in recruitment.
Chinwe has varieties of hobbies; including playing card and board games, catching up with friends, listening to good music, trying new recipes and enriching her culinary experience.
Anna Überbacher
HR Consultant
Anna joined Speedinvest Heroes as a working student in August 2020. She’s excited to put her previously acquired knowledge from her business studies to use by supporting our recruiting team. She enjoys the comprehensive challenges of HR, is always eager to connect people with their next opportunities to grow and to thrive in their new work environment.
Era Zeneli
BA., HR Assistant
Era is currently studying international management and her past experiences include recruiting and sales. She always enjoyed being and working with people, however her passion for HR she discovered during her last HR internship where she decided this was a career path she wanted to take. Tech recruiting is something she hasn’t done before and a challenge she is really excited to take on.
She is a nerd at heart, her favourite thing to do on quiet days is to curl up with a good book. She has been singing and playing the piano since she was 6. On particularly challenging days, Era likes to go swimming and it helps her clear her head.
Julia Seiwald
BSc., Junior HR Consultant
Julia joined Speedinvest Heroes in June 2021 and supports the tech recruiting team as a working student. In the past she has gained professional experience in Finance and Recruiting. She is interested in all things HR and likes to put her study focus of International Business and Personnel Management into practice.
In addition to studying and working, Julia enjoys climbing, having a drink and can be found most often in Vienna’s Stadtpark.
Paula Prie
MIB., Junior HR Consultant
Paula completed her International Business studies in Cluj-Napoca, where she also found her passion for HR while working as a team assistant in the Human Resources department at Bosch. She moved to Vienna in September 2020 in search for a new challenge and growth opportunities as her curious nature called the shots. A year later, she joined the Speedinvest Heroes team as an HR intern.
Paula‘s favourite activities vary a lot depending on her mood, some days she likes being in her own presence with a good book and her cat, other days she decides to take up motorcycle lessons and go at it. Winter used to be her season until snow became a scarcity but despite this, she promised herself that she’ll never give her snowboard up.
Carolin Kobierski
BA., Junior HR Consultant
After finishing her Bachelor‘s degree in International Management in Graz and Chile in June 2020, Caro spend the past year diving into the world of HR as an intern at Peek & Cloppenburg. Passionate about people and supporting in finding the right fit, she joined the Recruiting team as a Working Student in fall 2021, at the same time as starting her Master’s degree in Management at WU.
Due to lots of international experience and her open and solution-oriented mindset, her specialty lies in connecting with people with different backgrounds and she is more than eager to put those qualities into practice in the dynamic startup environment.
Caro draws her energy from social interaction and outdoor activities. On weekends you will find her 99% of the time out and about, either out with friends, on weekend trips or in the mountains. As a super active person that can never stays put and enjoys nature and music, it doesn‘t really matter whether its hiking, biking, tennis or bar crawls. Caro is that kind of person you can either go on fancy city trips or adventurous backpacking trips with - as long as there’s something new to discover, good company and good music she’ll always be the one to call!
Valerie-Claire Fora
HR Working Student
Valerie is currently studying Psychology and joined Speedinvest Heroes in October 2021. She supports the tech recruiting team as a working student. In the past she has gained professional experience as a Scientific Associate with a focus on Psychology where she had multiple opportunities to gain insight into HR, Project management and even got the chance to witness a developer build an online tool based on a project concept she wrote herself.
She took her interest in HR and Technology with her and is now more than excited to build on her experience and help people realize their full potential in their careers. Being an absolute ambivert, Valerie’s hobbies are on both sides of the spectrum. Whether it be curling up on the couch with a book after lighting one of her many scented candles, walking through the streets of Vienna in the early morning hours, watching the ongoings in a busy Viennese cafe or dancing at a festival with hundreds of people, she always likes to feel a sense of peace, contentment and connection.
Franziska Stierstorfer
BA., HR Working Student
After several years of working in communications, consulting and creative conception, Fanziska has decided to pursue her dream Master’s Degree. Her people skills have always been the most important asset along the way, connecting with people and supporting them in putting their talents forward gives her a lot of joy. This is exactly why she wanted to join Speedinvest Heroes and turn her passion for people into a job that she’s passionate about.
Franziska is a very social and creative person who loves being out and about and active. She enjoys spending time with her favorite people, preferably in warm weather since she’s a total summer person.
wecanbeheroes.io Team
Federica Viviani
MSc., Head of wecanbeheroes.io
Federica joined Speedinvest Heroes in June 2020 to support the marketing team. She acquired in-depth marketing knowledge during her MSc at WU Vienna and she gained practical experience in different working environments. With commitment and enthusiasm, she is ready to rise to any challenge!
Kristina Toender
BSc., Social Media Manager
As the perfect start to 2021, Kristina joins Speedinvest Heroes. Before taking on the exciting opportunity to support the Marketing team as their social media manager, Kristina graduated with a bachelor’s in Marketing and Management in 2019. During and after her studies, she gained relevant knowledge and work experiences in different parts of the world. She recently worked in Norway where she had a wide variety of tasks such as content creation on socials, launching a website, and admin tasks.
Kristina has a passion for digital marketing and loves to use her creativity to promote meaningful services. She finds happiness through creative channels such as photography, painting, and loves a spontaneous hike or traveling.
Christoph Deinbacher
BA., Sales Manager
After a semi professionell motocross career, Chris started to work at one of the biggest event companies of Austria (DocLX). Started there from the bottom, he got soon promoted as the sales manager of X-Jam Vienna - the biggest graduation trip for young adults in Europe. After he built his own unit as a Content Marketer as well, he did the new concept for X-Jam. For him the most important thing is to built up a sustainable product on 3 characteristics: authentic, relevant and to differentiate according to the Brand Purpose.
Beside Sponsoring and Cooperations, he was always leading a big sales group, which does make him passionate about people and their needs to keep them motivated. When Covid hit, he decided to start finishing his BA degree in Marketing and Sales and also made experience in a health tech startup, called Doctify Ltd.
Since his entire life was about sports, he’s still into it. Beside from that he REALLY loves good food as well as he like to travel. Friends are also a big part in his life and reading books keeps him calm. He enjoys good old classy films as well and a little party never killed nobody.
Lisa Breiteneder
BA., Communications Specialist
Lisa has graduated with a bachelors in intercultural Management and communications in 2020. She gained experience in social-media marketing in a startup company, where she could live out her creativity while being involved in many projects.
In her free time, it fulfills her to be creative and doing activities such as drawing or handicrafts. She also loves to be in nature, whether on a bike or on a hike.
Fabio Pedevilla
BSc.,Marketing Assistant
Fabio finished his Bachelor‘s degree in International Business Administration at WU Vienna and HEC Montréal in early 2021 and followed up with an internship in project management. While he started his Master’s degree in marketing in fall 2021, he also joined the Speedinvest Heroes team. He is now a working student, assisting in the platform marketing team. He is particularly interested in digital- and data-driven marketing.
Whenever Fabio is not working or studying, he enjoys spending time in nature, either in his home region of Vorarlberg or around Vienna. He is also very passionate about movies, going to the cinema almost every week. Moreover, he loves to cook for his family and friends and loves traveling.
Kimmy Ignacio
MSc., Product Development Intern
After working for a Startup Accelerator and a leading consulting firm, Kimmy completed her Master‘s Degree in Small Business & Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. She’s especially curious about startups, innovation and human connection. She’s an optimist and a constant learner.
If Kimmy isn‘t working, you’ll find her in the woods with her dogs, volunteering for a non-profit organisation, going for a night run, reading a book while listening to her favourite songs, or simply helping her mum with gardening.
Development and Data Team
Stefan Schacherl
MSc., CTO
When you want to disrupt the market you have to be able to create an innovative and highly qualitative software and be able to outpace your competitors. This is the reason why Stefan joined the Heroes with his expertise in engineering and leadership!
In more recent history, Stefan proved his talent for building and leading teams. He always had a "people first" mindset, concentrating on leading the direction towards the goal but always leaving enough room for each individual to grow.
In his spare time, he describes himself as a tech nerd that always wants to know what is the latest development in the technology market and wants to try all the new tools and gadgets that are available.
José Pedro
MSc., Full-Stack Software Developer
José has a background in the Banking Area, but he always had been passionate about technology. In 2018 he decided to shift his career and started studying programming by himself.
What he likes the most about engineering is the constant challenge and the rewarding feeling of creating something from nothing. He‘s excited to join Heroes, where he’ll have the opportunity to create new technologies that will help people to change their careers, and take control of their lives.
Carina Pölzl
BA., Team Lead Data Science
Carina has a background in Sociology and Statistics and her experience ranges from working in research institutes, at a university, in corporate companies in finance and in a scale-up. She is particularly interested in developing and shaping data products together with people from different backgrounds while having a lot of flexibility.
Karin Levy
MA., Technical Marketing & Product Manager
Karin is part of Speedinvest Heroes since 2020 February. Her journey took her from a digital marketing internship to the technical side, being fully responsible for content, SEO & website development. These areas made her realize, that product management is her passion. Ever since, she‘s taking on product owner as well as product manager responsibilities.
She loves numbers and finished her Master‘s in International Trade and Export Management. On the fun side, she is a person of many interests. 100+ plants in the flat? Sciency documentaries about the universe? Writing own poems? You name it! She’s also a very energetic person, always happy to bike around the city or have a boxing class.
Simon Neugebauer
MSc., Product Manager
With a background in Psychology and a Masters in Behavioral Economics from Maastricht University, he aims to combine academic rigor with practical solutions. With experiences in consulting, innovation and start up experience, he thrives on bringing ideas to life.
Beyond research, charts and JF, Simon finds real meaning in helping young talents find their path and succeed. For that purpose, he joined in November 2021 as Product Manager.
Theresa Sporn
BSc., Junior Data Scientist
Theresa joined Speedinvest Heroes as a Junior Data Scientist in January 2021 after completing her Bachelor studies in London followed by a Data Science Boot Camp in Berlin. She is passionate about exploiting the potential of data analytics to boost business success through a company’s most valuable asset: its people.
David Toth
BSc., Freelance Brand Designer
David has always been interested in design, and how it influences every-day lives & decisions, which is why he started learning more about branding, especially brand design and its effects on businesses’ perceptions.
Operations Team
Bernhard Rigler
Junior Operations Manager
After an internship in summer 2019, Bernhard joined Speedinvest Heroes as a working student in October 2020. The world of startups has always fascinated him and he is thrilled to be directly involved.
Elma Musa
Internal HR
Before Elma joined Speedinvest Heroes she worked in an advertising company as an office manager but since she has an energetic personality and isn’t always able to sit at one place, she decided to take an office break to pursue her passion - Sports. Therefore she led various sport courses such as HIIT or problem-zone trainings.
“Speedinvest Heroes has given me a new direction and the opportunity to develop myself in many ways. What I enjoy the most is working with such an ambitious and diverse team”
To keep herself fit she occasionally goes out for a run, what doesn’t really excites her, therefore she finds her drive playing volleyball.
Elma adores eating, sleeping and drinking beer and if possible all of that at the same time ;)
Kristin Ende
Team Assistant & Office Manager
After graduating as a paralegal, she worked in Groupon‘s Research & Analysis team. Since moving to Vienna, she had been working as an office manager / assistant. She’s a very attentive person and takes initiative in her work.
Kristin spends her free time outside, reads scandinavian thrillers and likes to go to concerts with friends. She also enjoys eating, whether in a restaurant or cooking herself.
Alexander Waldner
MSc., Founders Associate
Alexander finished his MSc in Innovation & Entrepreneurship and his CEMS Master in Barcelona and joined Speedinvest Heroes as a Founders Associate in fall 2021. After multiple years in the luxury hospitality industry, he discovered his passion for human-centred innovation and the startup world.
Throughout his career the people aspect was always at the center which is reflected in his professional as well as private endeavours and makes him a great fit for our team. He loves creative tasks and problem-solving. Something he can perfectly put to use as helping hand to Maria, Lukas and the wider team. Outside the office, Alexander is a passionate cook who loves to host dinner parties, prefers to spend his Sundays hiking up mountains with friends and going to the theater.
Lucia Etlinger
Mag., Accountant
Before Lucia joined Speedinvest Heroes to take care of accounting tasks in March 2021, she held various positions in corporate marketing, where she was responsible for marketing planning & controlling, budgeting, brand management and strategic marketing. Her passion for numbers, accounting and controlling results from her experience at a tax consultancy before studying at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Outside of her job, she expresses her creativity through photography. She has a passion for traveling. Through that she was able to strengthen her ability to react flexibly to any situation. In addition to the new impressions, she gets on every trip, the new people she meets, she loves the food that she can try anywhere.