About the founders

Prof. Dr. Florian Feltes could be many things today, for example a teacher, as his first academic station was a teacher education program. Or a program manager in Copenhagen. But nothing came of it – and at the same time, zortify was born: one of Luxembourg’s most innovative HR tech companies that wants to revolutionize the HR industry. 

Florian knows the world of HR and management development from his own experience. Among other things, this led him to the research project “Influence of social media on the leadership behavior of Generation Y” at the University of Luxembourg. Eventually, as he says himself, he “suddenly became a professor”. His enthusiasm for research earned him the “Leader of Tomorrow” award at the St. Gallen Symposium two years in a row. 

Long before ChatGPT became mainstream, he began working on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing (NLP). For a job application as a program manager for leadership development in Denmark, he used NLP to analyze similarities and differences between his personality and that of company leaders. Florian thought it was a brilliant idea – the bosses saw it differently and rejected him. All the more reason for him to ask himself: how much information about a person can be extracted from a written text? 

Together with his former neighbor and project partner from management consulting, Marcus Heidbrink, he deepened his research and recognized the potential of AI-based text analysis for HR and companies. The idea for zortify was born. Since 2018, the 25-strong team around Florian and Marcus has been exploring the limits of what is technically feasible in order to drive companies and people forward with intelligent diagnostics and open up a new world of employee insights. In 2022, zortify was named “Rising HR Tech of the Year” and is now officially recognized as a research institute. 

In addition to his work at zortify, Florian is Professor of Digital Leadership and HR at the XU Exponential University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam. 

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From the intensive care unit to AI diagnostics for companies: Instead of becoming a doctor, as originally planned, Marcus studied psychology. He spent 19 years researching leadership, corporate culture and personality development and advised companies and investors on filling top positions. He has experienced over 10,000 managers in assessment centers, management audits, recruiting interviews and training sessions. Zortify is already his 7th company.  

At the age of 23, Marcus founded his first company – a wine and spirits retailer. Perhaps it was no coincidence that he got the decisive impulse to found Zortify over a glass of wine with his then project partner in management consulting and current co-CEO Prof. Dr. Florian Feltes. Florian’s unsuccessful application to a company and the following Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based investigation of the reasons for it led both of them to the question of how much information could be extracted from text responses with the help of AI. After some successful experiments with NLP technology, the founding idea for zortify was born.  

Since 2018, Marcus and Florian have built up a 25-strong team of experts in data science, psychology, NLP and people analytics. What drives him: The moments when, as a team, they manage to make all their expertise work together perfectly. Because then, according to Marcus, something magical happens. For example, the clustering of text data at the touch of a button, which would take months of work without the zortify technology. For this and other innovative solutions, zortify was awarded “Rising HR Tech of the Year” in 2022. The company is also officially accredited as a research institute. In addition to his role as Co-CEO, Marcus is the father of five children, works as an author and coach for self-leadership and is committed to preserving biodiversity on Earth. 

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