Carsten Thoma

Carsten Thoma is President of Celonis, a global leader in Process Intelligence. Celonis makes processes work for people, companies and the planet, enabling companies to realize the true potential of Enterprise AI. 

Carsten has been a highly committed supporter of Celonis since its early days. He was the first external investor and has been a board member and advisor since 2016. Carsten joined Celonis in 2022 in an operative capacity, after acting as a mentor to the company for several years. 

As president, Carsten is responsible for shaping Celonis’ corporate strategy and development, marketing, platform ecosystem, people and culture, as well as Celonis Labs to foster innovation. With more than 25 years of industry experience, Thoma brings a set of experiences that are critical for founder-led, hyper-growth companies that are creating new technologies and categories. 

In 1997 Thoma co-founded Hybris GmbH, which pioneered and shaped the modern ecommerce platform. Hybris is renowned for being the first company to solve the complexity of B2B omni-channel ecommerce and inventory management. Hybris became the first centaur and unicorn out of Europe and its success laid the foundation for the enterprise tech startup scene in Germany. 

He led Hybris through all phases — from the first set of employees, to introducing the industry’s first cloud ecommerce platform, to a highly profitable business. After SAP acquired Hybris in 2013, Carsten served as global president and member of the Global Executive Team at SAP until 2018. Under his leadership SAP hybris evolved into the fastest growing business and led SAP’s shift to the cloud. 

Carsten has spent many years as an LP, angel investor and mentor of several emerging start-ups, Celonis included.