I was born and raised in Vienna, and have been ambitious my whole life. In fact I was a professional diver at the age of 8!
I started working in marketing at Red Bull, leading the sampling and promotion team, in order to combine my passion for sports with my career. Then I moved to Heineken, where I was responsible for promoting the cider brands in Austria through sponsorships and events.
What I realised from these two roles was that I loved working to build new brands and products up from scratch – hence why Carbomed Medical Solutions GmbH was the perfect next step in my career path.
Tell us more about your current role
I took on the role as CMO so I could share the news about breathe ilo and its benefits with women all around the globe. breathe ilo is the world’s first fertility tracker that uses breath analysis to identify ovulation patterns – whether you want to track your cycle or increase your chance at conceiving.
At breathe ilo, my key responsibility is to lead the entire sales and marketing team while helping spread the word and raise awareness of the product by using various channels such as social media, influencers, PR, trade fairs and events.
Did you ever sit down and plan your career?
Believe it or not, I actually do have a five years career plan and a more detailed one year career plan with small steps and goals. I believe you can only achieve success when you always have it in front of your eyes.
Have you faced any challenges along the way?
I face challenges on almost a weekly basis but I continue to stay positive, focused and never lose my passion. The main challenge at breathe ilo is that we are talking about a “taboo” topic. Word of mouth is not as easy as women who get pregnant easily with breathe ilo don’t want to admit that they initially needed help. Therefore we feel it’s important to go back to the root and speak about the overall topic of fertility and pregnancy in order to break the taboos and make such conversation normal.
What has been your biggest achievement to date?
My biggest achievement has been receiving the testimonials from women since the inception of breathe ilo; this continues to be a huge achievement for the entire team. We are continuously receiving emails from women sharing stories of how they got pregnant now with breathe ilo, after months or years of trying. Reading messages like these gives me all the energy and motivation to try to do my best everyday. As we have just launched into the UK market, I believe that the more people know about the technology, the more people we can help.
What excites you the most about your industry?
The world has been focused on men’s health, and it’s sad to see that the depth in which the health industry has been explored the female body is around 300 years behind. However, I love the femtech industry as we can see that several startups are emerging to change that.
Most of them have one goal: understanding the female body better and empowering women. This is something I also want to stand for and it excites me everyday, as with every new user we get, we are one step closer to filling the void in the gender data gap.
What one thing do you believe has been a major factor in you achieving success?
The support of my friends and family has been a major factor in achieving success. Above all my sister and fiance always believe in me and help me to stay one step ahead. I am very thankful to have them both on my side, discussing ways I can progress in the future, helping me to set goals and working out how I can achieve them.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self what would it be?
I would give myself a lot of advice if I could. Most importantly, however, is to learn to take a more relaxed view of difficulties. You can’t change an issue unless you take one step back and see the bigger picture. Also, another piece of advice I would give myself is that each challenge will ultimately teach you something.
What is your next challenge and what are you hoping to achieve in the future?
My primary challenge now is making breathe ilo a global brand. We want to provide our technology to the whole world, help every woman in need and make fertility tracking as easy as breathing!
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