About Us

15 years of experience in Open Innovation

We empower our customers to shape breakthrough solutions and ecosystems of thriving innovation. Our ultimate goal is to contribute to meaningful change!

What We Do

We change the system

Founded in 2006 as one of the first open innovation expert organizations in Europe, winnovation plays a major role in establishing diverse and agile innovation ecosystems. These form the base for a better future, from early childhood education to CO2-neutral mobility.

We work in a multidisciplinary set-up

You think that technology, business, science and design do not go together? Our multidisciplinary winnovation team demonstrates just the opposite: Spanning distances is the future and a clear strength of winnovation.

We offer profound expertise

Solving wicked innovation problems is not a trivial thing. We lead projects to success by developing a deep understanding of our clients’ needs, dipping into our strong toolbox and applying unconventional thinking.

What Is Open Innovation?

“…a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries …”

— Henry Chesbrough, 2006

Open Innovation is..

In a rapidly changing world, innovators are urged to connect diverse actors, data, and perspectives to develop truly novel products, services and business models. Open innovation does not automatically require the disclosure or sharing of all information. However, it requires strategic openness and fairness with people outside the daily routines to bring the required knowledge into the innovation processes.

Provided that suitable methods are selected, open innovation brings enormous advantages to the innovation process:

solutions with higher user and customer acceptance,
lower failure rates in innovation development and
shorter development times

We invite you to benefit from our strong open innovation toolbox and our profound methodological expertise for solving your specific innovation challenge.

Learn more about our methods in detail

The Team

Dr. Gertraud Leimüller, MPA
Founder and CEO

Gertraud Leimüller is founder and CEO of winnovation, one of the first open innovation management consultancies in Europe. As a leading open innovation expert, she has been successfully transforming organizations for more than 15 years. Gertraud has been working with leading companies across sectors such as Philips, Fujitsu, voestalpine and Schindler Escalators. Furthermore, she is passionate about developing completely new solutions in the public sector. As an alumnus of the Harvard University, she has strong networks around the globe. Gertraud serves as an evaluator in national and European innovation programs and shares her knowledge as a book author, columnist for a daily newspaper, and university lecturer. In 2018 Gertraud was appointed member to the Board of Trustees (Stiftungsrat) at Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg.

Lena Müller-Kress combines human centricity with analytical skills, fueled by her background in design. She combines customer needs with future technological developments to create holistic solutions. Her specialties are strategic thinking, digital business models and artificial intelligence.

Elisabeth Gumpenberger is a well-structured thinker and passionate about discovering promising areas for innovation in clients’ markets. She has a strong track record in designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder workshops. With her interdisciplinary approach, Elisabeth knows how to create cross-industry solutions.

Margit Hurich is the right-hand-woman to the management and is responsible for office organization and human resources. As an experienced communicator and negotiator, she acts as an interface within the company as well as to external partners. Margit studied Romance language and literature.

Lene Kunze thrives on developing novel tools using highly trained associative thinking patterns. Backed up with experience in science both in hands-on lab work and project management, her naturally logical thinking and talent for building structures and processes help to find efficiency-increasing, tailor-made solutions.

Brigitte Ömer-Rieder is a skilled expert in international technology search as well as in applying the lead user method. She is very passionate about systematically identifying solution holders across industry boundaries. She has strong expertise in technology, sustainability, and creative industries.

Johanna Rohrhofer is a proficient innovation broker, linking multiple stakeholders in business and science. Johanna loves to dig deep into challenges that require fresh thinking – that is why she is excellent in developing strategies and new innovation policies. She did her studies in marketing and innovation management.

Katrin Roseneder is a strong solution oriented analytic thinker and develops novel approaches by cross-linking ideas from various industries. She has extensive experience in public sector services and the creative industries. With her empathy and outgoing personality, she is able to unlock the potential for innovation in individuals and teams.

Nikolas Magele is an open-minded and strong thinker and joined the winnovation team with his passion for innovation topics. His focus is on natural science topics but with his professional experience already spans the arc to sustainability and retail topics. Nikolas holds a bachelor’s degree in business and economics and is currently doing his master’s degree in innovation management.

Passionate Innovator? See our career section for open positions

Get in touch

A Glimpse of Our History

Creative Transformation for SME

Realising co-creation workshops to enhance the creative transformation potential for the restart of SMEs in multiple industries for the Kreativwirtschaft Austria
Strategic start-up development

Supporting the strategy development of SanusX, a corporate start-up of UNIQA Insurance Group
Fair Artificial Intelligence

Leading the “fAIr by design” consortium creating new tools for developing & testing non-discriminatory AI
New urban mass mobility

Conducting an international Areas for Innovation analysis on urban mass mobility including 135 interviews for Schindler Fahrtreppen
Regulatory Sandboxes for businesses

Carrying out a study to showcase how regulatory sandboxes could improve business framework conditions for Business Europe
Open Innovation Strategy

Developing the Open Innovation Strategy for the Austrian Government, who adopts an national strategy as one of the first counrtries in the world
Play Futures

Designing the PlayFutures Co-Creation Communitiy for the Danish LEGO Foundation
Founding of winnovation consulting

Inspired by innovation studies at Harvard University: Founding of winnovation as one of Europe’s first open innovation expert organizations
Future work

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