People

Meet the Dynamic Team Behind KuppingerCole Analysts

Analysts & Advisors
Business Team
Martin Kuppinger Principal Analyst & Co-Founder
Martin Kuppinger
Martin Kuppinger is the founder and Principal Analyst responsible for the KuppingerCole research. In his 25 years of IT experience he has already written more than 50 IT-related books and is known as a widely-read columnist and author of technical articles as well as reviews and is also a...
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Alexei Balaganski Lead Analyst & Chief Technology Officer
Alexei Balaganski
Alexei is an analyst with specific focus on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. At KuppingerCole, he covers a broad range of security-related topics: from database, application and API security to security analytics, information protection, and AI-based security automation. Alexei has...
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John Tolbert Director Cybersecurity Research
John Tolbert
John is the Director of Cybersecurity Research and Lead Analyst at KuppingerCole Analysts. John covers multiple cybersecurity and identity management topics, drawing upon his years of experience as a security specialist in both Fortune 500 companies and tech startups. John develops research...
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Matthias Reinwarth IAM Practice Director / Head of Advisory
Matthias Reinwarth
Having worked for his whole professional life in Identity and Access Management, Matthias joined KuppingerCole in 2014. In his role of the Director of the Practice IAM he works on maintaining the leading role of KuppingerCole in all facets of the topic of digital identities and their access to...
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Christopher Schütze Cybersecurity Practice Director & Chief Information Security Officer
Christopher Schütze
With almost 15 years of experience in IAM and Cybersecurity, Christopher is experienced in advising clients on a strategic level with necessary technological background. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and combines both theoretical...
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Mike Neuenschwander VP KuppingerCole US and Global Head of Research Strategy
Mike Neuenschwander
Mike has 25 years of experience in identity, access management, privacy, and security technologies, stemming from his time at Novell (now OpenText) where he introduced some of the first identity and access management (IAM) products and his tenure as VP and Research Director at Burton Group (now...
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Mike Small Senior Analyst
Mike Small
Mike Small is a distinguished analyst at KuppingerCole. He is recognized as an authority on information security and data privacy in the use of cloud services. He has published extensive research into this area as well as provided consulting services. In his previous career he was the architect...
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Paul Fisher Lead Analyst
Paul Fisher
Paul Fisher is a Senior Analyst who researches primarily on cybersecurity and identity and access management (IAM). He also studies trends in AI, IoT and data governance for different industry sectors including automotive. Paul is responsible for managing relevant quantitative research at...
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Warwick Ashford Senior Analyst
Warwick Ashford
Warwick Ashford is a Senior Analyst who researches cybersecurity and identity-related topics, including emerging technologies and trends. He has been writing IT news and analysis as a journalist and editor since 2003, specialising in cybersecurity and privacy since 2012. Warwick has...
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Phillip Messerschmidt Lead Advisor
Phillip Messerschmidt
Dr. Phillip Messerschmidt works at KuppingerCole as a Lead Advisor with a focus on Identity and Access Management (IAM). In his career, Phillip has supported numerous customer projects addressing strategic and operational challenges in IAM. Most of these projects have been in the highly...
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Anne Bailey Research Strategy Director
Anne Bailey
Anne’s experience brings together political and economic knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and close attention to innovative ideas. She has worked with several nonprofit organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa, has been invited to speak at events such as the World Trade Organization Public...
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Kai Boschert Senior Advisor
Kai Boschert
With his dual studies in management and technology, Kai rounded out his academic career starting with a focus on economics and shifting it to business information systems with modern touches. Combining these two areas and building on this expertise while working in consultancy, he joined...
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Darran Rolls Research and Advisory Fellow
Darran Rolls
Darran Rolls has also been a frequent contributor to IAM standards at OASIS, the W3C and the IETF. He frequently speaks at industry events and to customers about IAM technologies and security solutions, offering a unique vendor In/Out perspective on designing, delivering and deploying an...
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Roland Bühler Fellow Analyst
Roland Bühler
Roland Bühler is a fellow analyst with KuppingerCole, mainly working on projects related to martech. He has professional experience from working for advertising agencies and IT companies with a focus on marketing technology. Apart from his research as an analyst, he is a project manager and...
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Scott David Fellow Analyst
Scott David
Scott David, J.D., LL.M., is the Executive Director - Information Risk and Synthetic Intelligence Research Initiative (IRSIRI) at the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory and was formerly the Executive Director of the Law, Technology and Arts Group at UW School of Law. Scott...
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Alejandro Leal Research Analyst
Alejandro Leal
Alejandro joined KuppingerCole as a Research Analyst in December 2021. His main areas of expertise include digital transformation in the public and private sector, managing business in today’s geopolitical context, and governance in artificial intelligence and cyberspace.
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Shikha Porwal Advisor
Shikha Porwal
Starting from a technical background in SSO testing, Shikha shifted to the planning design and analysis part of the IAM development life cycle. She joined KuppingerCole in 2021 after completing her master’s in business administration at HHL Leipzig. Using her technical background and...
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Nitish Deshpande Research Analyst
Nitish Deshpande
Nitish joined KuppingerCole Analysts AG in February 2022 as a Research Analyst. His focus area is IAM, IGA and Cybersecurity topics.
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Osman Celik Research Analyst
Osman Celik
Osman joined KuppingerCole Analysts AG as Research Analyst in March 2022. Osman holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Koc University, Turkey, and Master of Management (Track in IT Management) degree from EBS Universität, Germany.
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Marina Iantorno Research Analyst
Marina Iantorno
Marina joined KuppingerCole as a Research Analyst in April 2022. Her main areas of expertise are Business, Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence.
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Charlene Spasic Advisor
Charlene Spasic
Charlene Spasic joined KuppingerCole as an Advisor in July 2023. Prior to this, she was primarily focusing on IAM from a functional perspective aiming to build the bridge between business and IT within organizations. During this time she gained knowledge regarding IAM processes, IGA solutions...
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Yasin Garip Advisor
Yasin Garip
Yasin, holding a Bachelor of Science in Business Informatics from the University of Mannheim, began exploring Identity and Access Management (IAM) while working as a student at a leading payment service provider. His main tasks included role creation with RBAC, analysing data, and IAM-project...
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Olof Olofsen Lead Advisor & Project Manager
Olof Olofsen
Olof Olofsen is Lead Advisor & Project manager at KuppingerCole. Olof is a strategic-level and results-driven Senior IT Security Lead with a wealth of experience having worked with top-tier financial services, banking, public sector & professional organisations. Commercially-aware and...
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Martin Smith Fellow Analyst
Martin Smith
Promoting the future of secure on-line interactions. Specialties: Identity management, cyber-security, program management, information policy
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Paul Simmonds Fellow Analyst
Paul Simmonds
Paul Simmonds is Fellow Analyst at KuppingerCole and also CEO of the Global Identity Foundation; he was previously the Global CISO for AstraZeneca, Global CISO for ICI, Head of Information Security with a high security web hosting provider and Global Information Security Manager at Motorola.
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Graham Williamson Fellow Analyst
Graham Williamson
Graham grew up in the UK, lived for 20 years in Canada and moved to Australia 30 years ago. His background is in information technology and he has worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States, Saudi Arabia, as well as most states in Australia.
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Victor Clever Assistant Advisor
Victor Clever
Victor Clever joined KuppingerCole in October 2023 as a working student and currently holds the position of Assistant Advisor. With a bachelor's degree in economics and engineering from TU Darmstadt, his academic journey culminated in a bachelor’s thesis specializing in Artificial...
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Berthold Kerl CEO
Berthold Kerl
Berthold Kerl, born 1960, studied economics at university of Nürnberg and performs as CEO of KuppingerCole since 1 st July 2020. Before that he had been with Deutsche Bank AG for 17 years. As CIO he was working on major IT Transformation, IT Strategy, Change Management and Governance...
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Bettina Buthmann Member of Board
Bettina Buthmann
Bettina Buthmann is the second member of the KuppingerCole Board of Management. She joined KuppingerCole in 2007 as a Project Manager for the European Identity and Cloud Conference. In the meanwhile she has headed the events department and is responsible for selecting new excellent team member...
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Joerg Resch Co-Founder
Joerg Resch
Joerg Resch, born in 1959, looks back on over 15 years of experience in Identity Management projects and their implementation in both SMEs and large corporations. For a number of years he owned different leadership positions in software product development and published many technical articles...
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Rainer Knorpp Director Account Management & Business Development
Rainer Knorpp
Rainer joined KuppingerCole in March 2019 and is globally responsible for Business Development. In his prior role at Devoteam, he was acquiring, planning and implementing Cybersecurity and Identity & Access Management projects for more than 15 years. One of his priorities is the transfer of...
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Michael Neumayr Director Advisory Sales
Michael Neumayr
Michael Neumayr has been with KuppingerCole since May 2023 and is responsible for Advisory Sales. He has over 2 decades of experience in CyberSecurity, more than 12 years of which have been focused on digital identities. A true Cybersecurity & Digital Identity enthusiast.
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John Tolbert Director Cybersecurity Research
John Tolbert
John is the Director of Cybersecurity Research and Lead Analyst at KuppingerCole Analysts. John covers multiple cybersecurity and identity management topics, drawing upon his years of experience as a security specialist in both Fortune 500 companies and tech startups. John develops research...
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Sandra Augat Chief Financial Officer
Sandra Augat
Sandra Augat joined KuppingerCole in January 2021 as Financial Controller. Her area of responsibility includes all finance areas internationally and process optimization in cross-financial areas. She has many years of expertise in HR, finance and controlling. Since January 2023,...
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Alexei Balaganski Lead Analyst & Chief Technology Officer
Alexei Balaganski
Alexei is an analyst with specific focus on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. At KuppingerCole, he covers a broad range of security-related topics: from database, application and API security to security analytics, information protection, and AI-based security automation. Alexei has...
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Christopher Schütze Cybersecurity Practice Director & Chief Information Security Officer
Christopher Schütze
With almost 15 years of experience in IAM and Cybersecurity, Christopher is experienced in advising clients on a strategic level with necessary technological background. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and combines both theoretical...
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Jennifer Stähler Head of Events
Jennifer Stähler
Jennifer joined KuppingerCole in 2015. As  Head of Events, she is responsible for the Events team that organizes live-, hybrid- and virtual Conferences worldwide, focusing on IT Security and Digital Transformation. Furthermore, she is Project Lead for the Salesforce implementation....
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Wendy Wissink Account Manager
Wendy Wissink
Wendy joined KuppingerCole in July 2018 as account manager. She spent 14 years working in the wireless telecommunications industry in the US in various management positions. In her current role, she supports all customer interactions with a focus on KuppingerCole’s event sponsoring...
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Elisabeth Dürrbeck Account Manager
Elisabeth Dürrbeck
Elisabeth Dürrbeck is part of the account management team and joined KuppingerCole in October 2019. Prior to joining KuppingerCole, Elisabeth held positions within other international top services and IT firms. With more than 15 years of working experience under her belt, she makes her...
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Qin Zheng Account Manager
Qin Zheng
Qin joined KuppingerCole’s account management team in October 2021, she is responsible for coordination and realization of agreed services and supports all customer interactions. Qin holds an MBA degree from European Business School, prior to that, she spent 6 years in merchandising and...
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Roland Büchi Sales Partner Switzerland
Roland Büchi
During his more than 20-year IT career in various roles, primarily as Sales Manager and Business Unit Director, Roland - born in 1959 - gained valuable experience of the swiss market in the areas of consulting, system integration, managed services and outsourcing coupled with excellent know-how...
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Vanessa Schweihofer Chief Customer Officer
Vanessa Schweihofer
Vanessa joined KuppingerCole's client management team in April 2022. She and her team are responsible for the coordination and implementation of agreed services as well as individual customer care to ensure and optimize customer satisfaction. As an integral part of the account management team...
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Thomas Steinmayer Sales Partner International
Thomas Steinmayer
Thomas Steinmayer, born in 1967, is working for almost 20 years in different areas of IT sales. In the past 13 years, Identity & Access Management and Information Security have been the main topics he has been working on. He’s a Sales Partner at KuppingerCole and owns an agency,...
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Andrea Beskers Senior Project Manager Events
Andrea Beskers
Andrea Beskers joined KuppingerCole’s Events Team as Project Manager in June 2021, with a focus on Content and Agenda. In March 2022 she was promoted to Senior Project Manager in Event Organisation.  She holds a Masters in Digital Humanities from the Johannes...
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Michel Liebscher Chief Marketing Officer
Michel Liebscher
Michel Liebscher joined KuppingerCole in April 2018. Michel has a marketing background dealing with direct marketing campaigns and Public Relations, and is experienced with Social Media strategies. Outside the box, he studied sports science at the University of Mainz focussing on trends and...
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Nadine Russo Senior Communication Designer
Nadine Russo
Nadine Russo has joined KuppingerCole in 2017 as a Media Designer. She absolved her training in an agency located close to Frankfurt. Afterwards she gained more experiences in designing printed marketing materials for further five years before she started working for KuppingerCole.
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Anja Gerloff Marketing Assistant
Anja Gerloff
Anja Gerloff joined KuppingerCole in 2014 as Marketing Assistant. She was born in the Ukraine where she also has finished her studies in the field of Marketing before she came to Germany in 2004.
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Marina Shoughary Senior Marketing and Social Media Manager
Marina Shoughary
Before joining KuppingerCole as a Social Media Manager in March 2022, Marina received her master’s degree in International Management with a Marketing specialization from the EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht. Prior to her master’s studies, she held junior positions...
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Oscar Hernandez Data Protection Officer
Oscar Hernandez
Oscar Hernandez joined KuppingerCole in 2004 as Database Administrator and supports not only the Marketing Department as well as the Research Area. Oscar was born in Caracas (Venezuela) and since 1992 he lives in Germany. He has worked for different companies as Graphic Designer and was CEO of a...
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Andrey Makarov Senior Technical Officer
Andrey Makarov
Andrey Makarov joined KuppingerCole in 2016 as the Senior Technical Officer. He studied in Russia and Germany and has a Diploma in Math. Andrey is responsible for development and care of internal software projects at KuppingerCole.
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Olga Martynova HR Manager
Olga Martynova
Olga Martynova joined KuppingerCole in 2019. She studied German studies as well as Human Resources. As HR manager at KuppingerCole she is responsible for recruiting, administrative tasks and preparations for the payroll. She also supports HR related requests and research.
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Heather Thurman Research Manager
Heather Thurman
Heather Thurman is responsible for the management of KuppingerCole’s research, especially with English-speaking clients. She works closely with our analysts, as well as client managers and the sales team regarding the research agenda.  Her background in process and plant engineering,...
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Susanna Dück Audio Visual Media Designer
Susanna Dück
Susanna joined KuppingerCole in April 2019 as Student Assistant. Since February 2022 she is Audio Visual Media Designer. She takes care of everything around videos at KuppingerCole, for instance, management of our YouTube channel and post-production of videos. Susanna received her...
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Cindy Cerny Project Manager Events
Cindy Cerny
Cindy joined KuppingerCole as a Project Manager Events in May 2022. She is part of the events team that organizes live, hybrid, and virtual conferences worldwide. Cindy is a trained sales woman specialised in the automobile industry who graduated with a bachelor‘s degree in...
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Susanne Deuster Account Manager
Susanne Deuster
Susanne joined KuppingerCole in June 2022 as an account manager. Together with the Account Management team she is responsible for coordination and realization of agreed services and support to ensure and optimize customer satisfaction. Susanne received her master`s degree in General Management...
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Oksana Schinas Senior Event Manager
Oksana Schinas
Oksana Schinas joined KuppingerCole’s Events Team as Senior Event Manager in October 2022, with a focus on EIC and other major events. She holds a Masters degree in German philology and Politics from the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Prior to that, she was a PR and Event...
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Christie Pugh Product Manager
Christie Pugh
Christie joined KuppingerCole in December 2022 as the Digital Products Manager. She is passionate about setting her colleagues, partners, and customers up for success by providing them with the tools necessary to define, execute and achieve their goals. Located in Berlin, she came to...
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Noel Schwabenland Assistant Website Development
Noel Schwabenland
Noel Schwabenland joined KuppingerCole in October 2021 as a working student software developer and is supporting the software team. Next to his job, he is doing his bachelor's degree of science in physics at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg.
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Mehtap Citaci Office Manager
Mehtap Citaci
Mehtap Citaci joined KuppingerCole in October 2022 with a focus on Office Management.  She studied Economics at the University of Siegen / Germany and is responsible for smooth office processes.
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Nadine Nichols Research Manager
Nadine Nichols
Nadine has previously worked as a Research Manager for KuppingerCole and has decided to re-join the research team in October 2022. She works closely with our analysts, as well as client managers and the sales team to ensure publication of research content. She has over 8 years’ experience...
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Markus Wolf Support Engineer
Markus Wolf
Markus joined KuppingerCole in May 2022 as a Support Engineer. Prior to joining KuppingerCole, Markus worked in the IT department for a chemicals / life-science and for a pharmaceutical company.
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Employee Feedback
Anne Bailey
Research Strategy Director
Being an analyst with KuppingerCole means staying one step ahead. We in the research department dive in deep to the most relevant identity and access management (IAM) and cybersecurity topics, be it the cutting edge technology that is being developed, the most pressing issues on CISOs’ minds, or the ways that markets are shifting. We conduct research to write reports like the Leadership Compass, but also present our findings at events, support advisory projects with the most up-to-date view of the market, and much more! Working with KuppingerCole means working with an engaging team to discuss new technology, new projects, and new ideas.
Employee Feedback
Kai Boschert
Advisor
When I started at KC, I had a lot of expectations in terms of learning and developing myself in the management advisory field. I grew into a supportive team that provided everything I needed to meet my expectations and got the perfect amount of support and demand. Setting my own priorities and receiving confidence in my performance allowed me to work not only in Advisory, but also in Events and Research, and to compete in the industry.
Employee Feedback
Marina Shoughary
Marketing and Social Media Manager
Being part of the Marketing team, for me means working alongside people that inspire me and those I can professionally grow with and learn from everyday. As a team, we’re a balanced blend of business oriented, creative, communicative, and fun people. Here, everyone’s individual skills and abilities are valued & we’re able to draw inspiration from each others’ ideas into fruition as a team – something that I find extremely rewarding!
Employee Feedback
Vanessa Schweihofer
Account Manager
I have been working at KuppingerCole as Client Manager for almost a year now. Our team is responsible for the implementation and delivery of services booked by vendors. What makes it so much fun, besides the interaction to other departments like Research, Advisory, Sales, Events, and Marketing, is the diverse and close collaboration with vendors around the globe. I love working in the Client Management team! It never gets boring, and my colleagues are super nice and we always stand up for each other. The atmosphere at KuppingerCole is characterized by friendly and understanding cooperation. Even though we are sometimes quite scattered, all flexible and in some cases even work 100% remotely, the joy is even greater when we see each other live at parties or events. Either way, the humour is not neglected!
Employee Feedback
Cindy Cerny
Project Manager Events
KuppingerCole is a great employer because it's not just the job and work that are important, but also personal life. With a work-from-anywhere attitude, real value is placed on the work-life balance. In addition, the colleagues are just great and you always meet an open ear and support.