This is us.
Meet the Startup Company team.
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David Madié
Founder and CEO
david@startupcompany.com
David Madié is the creator of the StartupWheel and the founder of Startup Company.
As a serial entrepreneur since the age of 15, he never wrote a business plan for any of the businesses he started and grew in Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia. His pioneer work in creating sustainable IT businesses and transfer of know-how in developing countries earned him in 2002 an inclusion among the top 100 Global Leaders of Tomorrow selected by the World Economic Forum.
Since the launch of Startup Company in 2005, he has advised thousands of entrepreneurs, start-ups and growth businesses, taught 100+ workshops and seminars, trained and certified almost 300 business advisors, professors, and incubator managers, and written 30+ articles in select entrepreneurial magazines.
He is a regular keynote speaker at entrepreneurship conferences and colleges, where he promotes the only way great entrepreneurs start or grow a business: by making decisions and taking action.
Ada Stein
Partnership Relations Manager
ada@startupcompany.com
Ada Stein discovered her love for entrepreneurship while attending a Venture Capital conference in New York City in 2006. After a diverse work history in business development, media, education, tourism and recreation, Ada earned an MBA at Copenhagen Business School, where at the same time she was winning several awards in the 2007 VentureCup Denmark business plan competition. She has built founding teams around three business ideas and experienced the real-life struggles of starting a company with little or no funding.
Ada works as Partnership Relations Manager at Startup Company, using her international experience and her extensive European and US network to build and nurture strong partnerships.
She earned her BA from the University of Pennsylvania in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
Henriette Hosbond
Project Manager
henriette@startupcompany.com
Henriette is the “power woman” at Startup Company. She currently works in the Copenhagen office, where she is in charge of Startup Company’s external communications and day-to-day customer relations. She maintains, updates, and develops products, concepts, and written materials for the StartupWheel.
She is also responsible for the quality management of license deliveries and keeping our customer satisfaction at 100%. She has been with Startup Company since 2008 and was the first Startup Company employee to work from the New York office.
Henriette holds a master in Communication from Roskilde University in Denmark.
Sarah Holm Johansen
Communications
sarah@startupcompany.com
Sarah Holm Johansen manages all web communications and press relations at Startup Company. She is a journalist and copywriter with a bachelor’s degree in Media Studies from University of Copenhagen.
Sarah has previously worked as an intern for “60 Minutes” in New York, written blogs for Danish national e-newspapers, and worked on several Danish TV-productions. Along with informing the public about the StartupWheel and what we are up to, she will later this year publish her second travel guide to her favorite place on the planet: New York.
Ditte Maria Andersen-Hoel
Office Manager
dittemaria@startupcompany.com
Ditte Maria is Startup Company’s office manager. She stays on top of everything from printing materials and accounting to organizing international certification courses and events.
Ditte Maria received her training as a hotel receptionist at Copenhagen Admiral Hotel, and shortly after became the Administration Assistant of Director of Food and Beverage at Copenhagen Marriott Hotel. In recent years she has worked as a marketing coordinator at the publishing house Benjamin Media and as an event coordinator in the famous Danish department store, Magasin Du Nord.
Christina Valdorf
Project Assistant
christina@startupcompany.com
Christina works as a project assistant and is our student at Startup Company. She assists in areas from product development to communications and other day-to-day tasks. When she’s not at the office, she studies Management of Creative Business Processes, a masters degree at Copenhagen Business School.
Sophie Rasmussen
Project Manager
sophie@startupcompany.com
Sophie has worn many different hats at Startup Company since her first project in 2007. A trainer at heart, she has previously trained entrepreneurs at University of Copenhagen, Niels Brock Business School in Denmark, the Knowmads in the Netherlands, KaosPilots International, and various other workshops for Startup Company.
Currently she is engaged in New York in quality assurance of Startup Company’s concept and communication, applying user-driven innovation to the tools based on anthropological studies.
Sophie has a deep passion for personal growth and has since 2006 run her own start-up Holiscope, a training company offering course programs in holistic health for entrepreneurs and corporate employees alike.
She holds an MSc in Social Anthropology from London School of Economics and a BA in anthropology from University of Copenhagen.
Board of Directors
Torsten Hvidt
Besides from his interest and expertise in corporate strategy and management, Torsten has a passion for history, philosophy, politics, literature, music, and sports. After eight remarkable years with international management consulting companies, he co-founded CoCoCo, now Quartz+Co, in 2002.
Torsten has a broad range of competences specializing in strategy development for international retail chains and branded manufacturers, advising private equity funds and integrating carbon and corporate strategy – placing carbon management on the strategic agenda.
At Startup Company, Torsten uses his remarkable track record to help realise the potential of the StartupWheel.
Torsten holds an MSc in Strategy & Leadership from Aarhus School of Business and attended MBA courses at Yonsei University in Seoul in the process.
Jonas Egebart
Jonas Egebart is an experienced entrepreneur who has started several successful businesses on his own, before connecting to Startup Company in 2009.
His previous businesses include Whyse – a consulting agency working in the field of health technology and quality assurance – and an Internet company that ended up having 6 employees before he decided to sell it after 8 years to make room for other business activities.
Jonas is endowed with exceptional analytical skills that make him capable of detecting the potential in various business ideas and business concepts. He also engages himself in the continuous development and optimization of business models. In addition, he possesses great IT and internet know-how and has utilized these tools in the realization of several companies and products.