Kai Schmidhuber

Kai Schmidhuber

• Economic futurist, visionary, renowned keynote speaker and a corporate digital transformation specialist
• Chief Digital Officer in Germany for LOréal the world’s leader in beauty products
• Digitalized the Frankfurt Airport customer experience
• Logistics innovator, communications expert, entrepreneur, and branding expert

Kai Schmidhuber serves as Chief Digital Officer (CDO) in Germany for the worlds undisputed market leader in beauty, LOréal, being responsible for the overall digital transformation of the company (more than 1bn turnover in Germany, more than 26bn worldwide), especially transforming the fields of data science, personalization, precision advertising, CRM, innovation and incubation, upskilling and e-commerce across four business divisions. Kai Schmidhuber is a worldwide requested keynote speaker.

His USP: Kai digitized four “Fortune-500”-corporations on top executive positions. He knows what he is talking about first-hand hand experience.

He is a multiple founder and top executive in four “Fortune-500”-companies within the last 13 years, is a renowned keynote speaker and a corporate digital transformation specialist. He has solid experience in people transformation, business development, innovation, marketing, internet technology and e-commerce, especially in the fields of logistics, transport, tourism, aviation, travel retail and FMCG.

Kai’s work experience has seen him fulfill roles as CDO at LOréal the world’s leading beauty company, Senior Vice President responsible for digitization strategy, UX, e-commerce, CRM, mobile applications, and the duty-free and travel retail business at Frankfort airport, one of Europe’s busiest international airports.

Starting out as an industrial business management assistant, Kai, while completing his economics degree (with the focus on management and marketing), founded an international internet venture which operates one of the most successful online shops in Germany. After his studies, he joined multinational consumer-goods producer Henkel, where he was responsible for their international corporate brand strategy and communications.

From there, he went on to work for Deutsche Post,  a leading mail and logistics corporation where he held a number of positions. In 2013, Kai switched to DHL as Vice President Product Development. This role saw him develop new business areas, which includes same-day deliveries and parcel services using delivery drones.

When it came to Frankfort Airport, Kai focusses on three key components:

• Personalised communication, shopping initiatives and rewards, and the shopping experience.
• Integration by establishing integrated information and interaction channels at all points of customer contact.
• Marketing, taking an integrated online and offline marketing strategy into consideration.

Digitalisation, Kai believes, enables airport environments, and this is exactly what he did with Frankfurt Airport.

“But at its heart this revolution is about consumer behaviour, business opportunity and about technology. You have to shape your organisation to be ready for this revolution but really it’s about how you implement digitalisation.” – Kai Schmidhuber

When it comes to business and business practices, Kai Schmidhuber is a futurist and visionary.

Kai Schmidhuber – Speaker

Kai presents a hard-hitting, prophetic speech involving a broad array of digital perspectives. He entertains his audiences by describing future customer experiences and expectations, focusing on monetisation, ROI, and creating customer experiences.

His keynote focusses on how digital disruption puts major players under pressure, disrupt yourself or get disrupted.  As the world is entering the third phase of digitization where artificial intelligence will raise the bar in terms of customer experience. Customer experience is evolving from a mobile-first to an AI-first business. For customers this is the start of the most exciting phase ever. They will enjoy benefits like hyper-personalization, faster than real-time customer service and the most user-friendly interfaces ever seen.

Kai will describe how to invest in the customer experience of the day after tomorrow, especially with focus on monetization, ROI and creating unique consumer experiences. He includes best practices from his previous jobs with a variety of real-life cases and new management models.

Speaking Keynotes by Kai Schmidhuber

Multi­Sector Appeal – Recent Keynotes Delivered 2019

General

• Behind the scenes of the BIG PLAYERS: Transformation in logistics, retail, transport, tourism and FMCG – A FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE
• THE END OF DIGITAL – is the bubble bursting? How to bring reason into digitization mania.
• The world is entering the third phase of digitization where artificial intelligence will raise the bar in terms of customer experience.
• Aviation Disruption – the second wave of digitization in the aviation and travel industry is here

Most Requested

• Demystify everything! An insider explains the most significant digital buzzwords of our time with simple words and examples. An entertaining and interactive learning experience

IT

• CIO & CDO – best practices and ugly fails of collaboration in the quest to transform traditional corporate structures and business models

Agility

• What agile development really is – and what it is not.

HR

• How much digital can an organisation and corporate culture handle?
• How to align business transformation with people transformation – worst cases and best practices from an insider.

Data, Robotics, AI & Innovation

• Data Science and Machine Learning – what it can do for you and what your company needs to do first.
• How to revive brick & mortar retail stores by breeding data science with startup spirit and robotics.
• From digital leadership to tech leadership – with the customer in the heart and the ROI  in mind. A case study.

ProMotivate comment:

Kai`s secret weapon and his expertise as a Speaker is:
“His personal mission is to demystify digital. Kai speaks plain and simple language, allowing everyone to join the discussion. Kai does not serve PowerPoint ­karaoke and buzzword­ bingo – he presents personal fails and experiences with pureness and authenticity – something very rare nowadays in the speaker`s industry where everything is focused on best practices, making digital transformation a secret science. Kai and his style of speaking and interaction is the opposite of that.”