Thorsten Heilig is a passionate tech entrepreneur who believes that technology can solve complex and real-world problems on a broader scale. He is always striving to find new methods that can be leveraged by everyone. With a focus on organizational and product growth, he has co-founded companies, served as COO of Mercedes Benz owned moovel Group, worked as a management coach, and has most recently co-founded paretos, an organization that enables companies to turn their data into Insights, Predictions and Scenarios via a No Code Data Science automation platform. Thorsten motivates democratizing AI-based technology to make better strategic decisions.

Over the past 15 years, he has worked in various roles with many organizations to make innovative technologies and products available for a broader application in order to drive digital and agile transformation. A staunch believer that AI and Data Science are essential for solving highly dynamic and complex problems, Thorsten believes that in practice, AI solutions are still reserved for very few organizations. He intends to change this status quo and provide these technologies to a broader audience through paretos. Excerpts from an interview with Thorsten:

Conception of paretos

In order to make business-relevant decisions, it is extremely important not to simplify complexity, but to embrace it and approach it with the right technology so that you can make data-driven decisions, opines Thorsten. “To achieve this goal, a solution must be easy to integrate and capable to support organizational learning through iterations-  so called learning loops. We want to ease the fear of deep-tech topics within inexperienced organizations, and we believe that a smooth integration into existing systems as well as an appealing, intuitive visualization (UI) is key – AI and Data Science can be fun” reiterates Thorsten.

The Flagship Solution

The company’s AI-based software as a service tool, comes with low integration costs and provides insights about the relevance and quality of the customers’ data. It also provides insights about internal interdependencies, while forecasting on KPIs. “Under the hood, we use a groundbreaking AI approach and optimization method. It helps the user to make strategically targeted business decisions fully automated and without prior knowledge, especially in application areas such as dynamic pricing, recommendation engines or warehouse optimization. Our customers are growing SMEs and start-ups as well as large corporations such as Accenture and one of Europe’s largest parcel delivery services.”

Pareto’s end-to-end Data Science Platform automates the entire data process chain and can therefore be used without prior knowledge by any business expert. The unique and patented approach selects the optimal models and optimizations for every individual scenario.

AI- Challenges Galore

Linear tools and organizations won’t stand a chance in comparison to new iterative methods, according to this tech enthusiast. “AI-supported solutions offer exactly the explorative and self-learning approaches that are needed in every company. At the same time, as with all new, fundamental technologies, the risks must be addressed with caution and dialogue. I am a big fan of human–machine-interaction, i.e., human in the loop models for business decisions.”

Leadership Traits

An extremely value-driven professional, Thorsten believes that if you can create a common value base and a common alignment on a mutual goal, you can allow a lot of freedom and self-organization. “I have seen people develop and grow the most by taking on challenges and responsibilities. That drives me tremendously. A lot of people always say, “this won’t work,” or “this won’t work so quickly!”. I love to see how individuals and teams grow beyond themselves and start moving great things. Together with my co-founder Fabian Rang and our great colleagues, this is what we are aiming for at paretos – building a team culture on the principles of Gung Ho!”

The entrepreneur also says that he likes the idea of antifragility – that is, creating your system in such a way that it emerges stronger from change and takes it as a tailwind.

Words of Success

“Since I have already experienced two buzzword trends with digital transformation and agility, my highest mantra – at least outside of pure science – is: AI is not an end in itself! Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to focus on the problem to be solved and not only on the technological answers and innovations.” The techie observes that this isn’t not just a technological question, but always a psychological one as well. “Because with new, innovative solutions you also always change processes or human routines in organizations. In the end, this is quite often the most difficult challenge of all…”

Success Mantras

“In addition to my favourite Mike Tyson quote “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in their face” that always reminds me of the fact, that plans are important but that you must always be open to (even radical) adjustments, the following principle is a key learning for me: “Bold to the outside – honest to the inside”: In my eyes, it is extremely important, especially in a fast-growing or rapidly changing environment, to challenge yourself internally over and over again, and to discuss weaknesses, mistakes or risks very openly.”