Christian Herold

Customer Experience, E-Commerce and Innovation | D2C & B2B | Digital Marketing & GenAI | P&L Ownership | Advisor for Gartner Marketing Symposium | Forrester CX Certified | PMP® | TOEIC®

Sulzbach, Hesse, Germany

About

My leadership philosophy is simple: brands grow when customers trust them and teams perform when leaders trust people. I focus on clear direction, strong accountability, and psychological safety as a performance multiplier. I bring 15+ years of international leadership experience building and scaling customer-centric growth engines: from strategy to execution, from vision to measurable impact. My background spans P&L ownership, digital marketing, e-commerce, CX, and GenAI, with a strong track record of turning complexity into clarity and results. Lately, I led Digital, D2C, Martech & GenAI at cosnova, scaling AI adoption, modern commerce platforms, and data-driven customer experiences that materially improved conversion, NPS, efficiency, and revenue. I have built and led cross-functional teams, launched digital ventures, and partnered closely with CEOs and boards to translate growth ambition into operating reality. To further sharpen my perspective, I am pursuing an Executive MBA at Mannheim Business School (Class of 2027), with a strong focus on strategy, finance, leadership, and transformation.

Experience

  • cosnova GmbH (7 yrs 3 mos)
    • Director Digital Martech & Gen AI
      Apr 2025 - Present · 1 yr 3 mos

      Leading P&L and strategic roadmap for Martech, GenAI & Digital Analytics with 25+ experts and €2M+ tech-budget, driving >95% employee GenAI adoption through 200+ custom AI use cases. Achieved >20% cost reduction in tooling while scaling digital experiences across global subsidiaries and establishing governance frameworks for enterprise AI implementation.

    • Director Business Dev. New Venture Hub & GenAI
      Apr 2023 - Apr 2025 · 2 yrs 1 mo

      Developed enterprise GenAI strategy and established strategic OpenAI partnership, launching CosnovaGPT as proprietary LLM with worldwide rollout and upskilling programs. Created KENNA, the first AI-powered beauty agent, winning Lovie Awards and generating hundreds of thousands of customer interactions while bringing D2C skincare brands INAO & FLF to national retail listings. As Director of the New Venture Hub at cosnova, I established a greenfield innovation hub in Berlin and built a cross-functional venture team from scratch. Within nine months, we launched three digital-first skincare brands – each achieving omnichannel presence across key European retailers. By designing a composable Martech stack and scalable launch playbooks, I created a repeatable model for rapid brand incubation and market expansion. This role combined entrepreneurial execution with enterprise discipline, accelerating cosnova’s D2C growth and innovation capability.

    • Director Consumer Experience & Engagement
      Apr 2019 - Mar 2023 · 4 yrs

      Hired and Led 30-person cross-functional CX, e-commerce and innovation team, creating company-wide Customer & Brand Experience strategy and continuous UX optimization processes. Delivered headless e-commerce platform transformation achieving +207% conversion rate uplift, NPS improvement from 11 to 66, and +30% average order value through data-driven customer journey optimization.

  • Advisory Board Member at PURISH GmbH
    Jan 2021 - Apr 2025 · 4 yrs 4 mos

    First Advisory Role at Purish: Helped the team to built continuous improvement processes and capabilities. Supported current vision & mission to establish Purish as "guardian of brands", distributor and content powerhouse.

  • Division Manager Customer Experience at Cyber Solutions GmbH (Hubert Burda Media)
    Jun 2018 - Apr 2019 · 11 mos

    Designed and launched new experience platform and martech stack. Optimized omni-channel customer journeys across digital touchpoints, delivering +40% conversion rate uplift and improved retention rates that restored business model profitability. Built dedicated CX and UX team while implementing Martech stack for continuous optimization processes across product, sales, and communication functions.

  • Division Manager Customer Experience at Cyberport
    Jun 2016 - Jun 2018 · 2 yrs 1 mo

    Architected the holistic evolution of Cyberport’s customer journeys, mapping behavioural nuances—goals, motivations, and emotional triggers—across all physical and digital touchpoints. Designed and deployed a contemporary experience platform and MarTech ecosystem, refining the omnichannel journey to deliver a 40% uplift in conversion and restore commercial resilience. In parallel, built dedicated CX and UX capabilities and established Burda Digital’s inaugural Centres of Excellence, fostering a culture of knowledge exchange and continuous refinement across the organisation.

  • Head of Team Product Development & Devices at empiriecom KG
    Mar 2015 - May 2016 · 1 yr 3 mos

    As Head of Digital Product Development & Devices at empiriecom, introduced PMI methodologies across the organisation and led key e-commerce and mobile-commerce initiatives for the BAUR Group. Developed and implemented the Group’s D2C strategy and advanced UX optimisation across all digital touchpoints, achieving triple-digit growth in core metrics including conversion, average order value, and customer retention.