Daniel Keller is a technology executive focused on successfully building and transforming global internet products and digitalizing traditional business models.

Over more than 20 years, he has been instrumental in the technology behind internet platforms like AutoScout24, Ciao!, and zanox. As CIO of Axel Springer, he significantly advanced the company’s digital transformation. In the Berlin company builder Hitfox / IONIQ Group, he assisted the next generation of platform startups in their development. During this time, he formed his own view of what distinguishes tech companies from all others and what the success factors for digital transformation are – from understanding platform business models and the appropriate leadership culture to choosing the right transformation approach.

His technological passions lie in the fields of Virtual, Augmented Reality, and Machine Learning. Daniel Keller lives in Berlin, is married, and the father of 3 children aged 18, 23, and 25.

Professional Career:

1995 -2000 While still studying computer science, he developed a start-control system at BMW AG in Regensburg, which he then deployed to BMW’s factories with a team of fellow students he had set up himself. Subsequently, he successfully implemented Virtual Reality solutions to shorten the vehicle development process at BMW Group.

2000 - 2005 Daniel Keller built the development teams and the technology sector of the then-young company AutoScout24 in the Scout24 Group. Concurrently, he completed his Executive MBA at the University of Augsburg with the Katz Business School in Pittsburgh, US, with honors.

2005 - 2010 He took over responsibility for the online review portal Ciao!, turned it into Europe’s largest price comparison portal, founded an offshoot in the USA, and represented it on the Executive Board of its parent company, Greenfield Online, on the US NASDAQ stock exchange. After the sale to Microsoft for $486 million, Daniel Keller worked as a partner for Microsoft in Europe and the USA. Among other things, he received a Microsoft Research Award for developing machine learning procedures for the commerce area of the Bing search engine, in collaboration with Rakesh Agrawal, the inventor of the world’s first data mining solution, and a team of researchers in Mountain View, Silicon Valley.

2010 - 2016 Within the Axel Springer Group, he initially served as CTO of zanox AG (now AWIN) on the board responsible for product and technology. He was then appointed CIO of Axel Springer SE to reorganize the central IT departments and corporate IT, as well as to advance digital transformation and set up digital product development teams. Most recently, he developed the product upday in collaboration with the technology conglomerate Samsung, which is now the largest mobile news app in Europe with 442.9 million users in 16 European countries.

2016 -2018 Als Group CTO des Company Builders Hitfox (now IONIQ) unterstützte Daniel Keller unter anderem den Aufbau von modernen Plattform Startups wie der solarisBank oder Element und gründete weitere Unternehmen im Bereich Virtual und Augmented Reality.

2019 - 2023 As CTO of the Visable Group, he is working to take B2B commerce platforms to the next level and to create the next Alibaba in Europe.

Passion for ‘Flying’

In 2015, Daniel Keller was bitten by the flying bug and obtained the European private pilot’s license. After validation of the license in the US, he also flew in Florida and California, USA. In 2016, he acquired the ICAO/EASA instrument rating for Europe and, in the following year, the FAA instrument rating for the US.

Today, he flies all over Europe in his Cirrus SR22T, which is based in Schönhagen near Berlin. He has also flown on tours in the USA, such as in Florida, California, Nevada, and Arizona.