Skills & Experience


In 2017, I founded Media Glocalizer in order to help media companies expand globally.

At my previous job, I helped build up Handelsblatt Global Edition, the first English-language digital daily ever published by a leading German publishing house. Handelsblatt is the leading business newspaper in Germany, roughly equivalent to the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times. As Head of Distribution and Subscriptions, my role was to grow global readership with a focus on Europe, North America, and East Asia. In this strategic role, I organized a 10-day roadshow (including setting up panel discussions on political and economic issues) to promote our innovative digital product on the U.S. East Coast. In addition, I was the Product Manager with budget responsibility for the development of a new print magazine under the same brand, sold at select newsstands in 13 countries.

Born into an entrepreneurial family, I started selling my first magazines at age 10. As a teenager, I founded and anchored Germany´s first high-school “television” magazine, sold on VHS video tapes to students and teachers at my school. After my military service, I joined NBC’s Dateline program in New York as one of the only foreign interns who have ever worked at the network. During university studies, I founded a non-profit, private radio station when the merger of two state-owned stations freed up new FM frequencies. At the start of the digital age in the 1990s, I pioneered a service-oriented online student magazine that served three colleges in the same area.

In 2003, I graduated with a business degree (“Diplom-Kaufmann,” roughly equivalent to an MBA) from Mannheim University’s renowned business school. In my thesis, I analyzed the impact of banking regulation on credit ratings for businesses. To gain international and intercultural experience, I spent several years working in China and the U.S. in various sales, marketing and M&A-related positions, including as the president of a German company’s subsidiary in the U.S. I later joined the consulting firm Simon, Kucher & Partners, the global leader in pricing strategies.

My experience with the media ranges from writing for Germany’s leading tabloid BILD, working as the executive assistant to the CEO of Westdeutsche Zeitung (a major regional daily), to developing a weekly children’s newspaper. I have also held a position as a lecturer at Mannheim University, where I developed and ran a daily newspaper along with 54 students during the semester break. I found enough sponsors to fully finance the paper and distribute it in town.

I speak fluent German, English and French, conversational Chinese and basic Spanish. My mission is to spread smart, investigative journalism around the globe and adapt it to the local market to be effective and successful. I live and breathe intercultural values: While my mind is definitely German, I practice American work ethics, enjoy British humor, and savor a daily Chinese dinner with my bilingual (Chinese and German) kids.

Sebastian Gehr