Patrick Kilian

AI Product Builder | Building @acto

Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

About

Fell in love with tech and building companies alongside great people. Currently building acto—an AI-native SaaS that helps B2B teams make better decisions and automate complex workflows using data + LLMs.

Experience

  • CPO | Founding Team at acto
    Aug 2022 - Present · 3 yrs 11 mos

    Leading product & engineering delivery

  • Teaching Assistant | Entrepreneurship at ESMT Berlin
    Oct 2023 - Present · 2 yrs 9 mos

    Supporting Linus Dahlander in guiding MBA students on innovative entrepreneurship.

  • Founding Team - GTM at Trana
    Sep 2021 - Sep 2022 · 1 yr 1 mo

    Built and pivoted 3 products in the Customer Experience and GTM space in under 12 months. Backed by top investors including Visionaries Club. - Conducted 100+ discovery interviews to validate pain and shape solutions - Collaborated closely with the founder to drive product direction, GTM, and early traction - Supported pre-seed fundraising: managed investor comms, legal, and equity setup - Designed and implemented a forward-thinking VSOP for early team alignment

  • Private Equity at D.U.H. GmbH & Co. KG
    May 2017 - Jul 2021 · 4 yrs 3 mos

    Operating within a private-equity–style family office, I was responsible for value creation across the firm’s portfolio companies. Alongside Dirk Hindrichs, former CEO of Schüco I drove Buy-&-Build execution, and long-term profitability through P&L transformation, working-capital optimization, post-merger integration, and restructuring initiatives.

  • Consultant at P3
    Aug 2016 - Mar 2017 · 8 mos

    Consultant at P3, Detroit. Delivered on projects: Autonomous driving organizational benchmark for an Asian OEM, high-end vehicle connectivity benchmark, and autonomous driving report.