Reinforcements for AI hopefuls: Aleph Alpha brings in head of strategy from Palantir

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Should help Aleph Alpha strategically and communicatively: Ex-Palantir communicator Jan Hiesserich

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When it comes to promotional announcements, Aleph-Alpha boss Jonas Andrulis (42) has already learned a lot from his American colleagues. And when it comes to collecting money, things have also been going smoothly for the former Apple manager and his Heidelberg AI start-up recently. At the beginning of November, the start-up announced a financing round with a total volume of around half a billion US dollars.

At the beginning of the year, the next news with a well-known US tech company in the headline follows: Jan Hiesserich (44), a new head of strategy, who previously worked in a similar position for the US software group Palantir, has been hired by the Heidelberg-based company. Hiesserich, who will join the Heidelberg-based management team as Vice-President of Strategy and Communication on January 15, will play a key role in the upcoming expansion phase, the company announced.

After last year's AI hype, which familiarized many people with the concept and possibilities of AI, it is now a matter of leveraging the potential and developing AI products that actually bring utility value to companies and authorities, Hiesserich told manager magazin.

The ex-Palantir manager is not the first new addition to the Heidelberg-based company from a US tech giant. In addition to Andrulis, who himself worked for Apple between 2016 and 2019, and Hiesserich, former Google manager Ramin Mirza also joined the Heidelberg-based company as VP Revenue in July last year. In addition, the ex-Deloitte manager responsible for the client side Hans-Jörg Schäuble, a son of the recently deceased former Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), works for the Heidelberg-based company.

However, both Mirza and Hiesserich also have experience in German companies. In the early 2020s, both worked for the Walldorf-based software group SAP, which is one of Aleph Alpha's predominantly German investors. In addition to SAP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the venture capital arms of Burda and Bosch, the Schwarz Group and the Heilbronn-based Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI), which is supported by Schwarz, invested heavily in Aleph Alpha in November in what was then the Series B round.