Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Florian is Executive Director for "Social Finance & Impact Investment" at the ERSTE Foundation, an organisation dedicated to creating social, economic and cultural infrastructure and innovation for a changing Europe. He currently serves as a supervisory board member in "BCR Social-Finance" (a Romanian microfinance institute, supporting small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs) and “Zweite Sparkasse” (an Austrian bank dedicated to providing vital banking services and guidance to those who might otherwise be excluded from the traditional financial system). Prior to his role at the ERSTE Foundation, Florian has worked for more than 13 years in the NGO & Social Entrepreneurship sector. He was Deputy Director at "REEEP - the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership", an international multilateral NGO that works to accelerate market-based deployment of renewable energy and energy efficient systems in developing countries and Managing Director & COO of the Impact Hub Vienna. From 2020-2023, Florian established strategic alliances with key partners and helped to create innovative solutions in the area of semantic technologies at the Semantic Web Company (SWC), a leading IT Company in the field of semantic AI. Florian obtained a Masters Degree in IT-Management and a Bachelors Degree in Software Engineering from the Vienna University of Technology and co-authored the "Climate Knowledge Brokers" Manifesto which sets out seven key principles for how climate knowledge brokers can have greater impact through collaboration and the use of open data and is a call for joint action to meet the massive climate knowledge challenges ahead.