Thomas was born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1957. After finishing school, he decided to study Mathematics and Biology at University Karlsruhe. Upon completing his degree, he went on to teach for two years at Biberach, a small town in the Southern part of Germany.

In 1985, Thomas joined the Boehringer Ingelheim team as a sales rep in hospitals. He progressed to trainer for sales reps in specialty care, to area manager in specialty care, to product manager and later a team leader in Marketing for HIV medication in Germany. In 2004, Thomas joined the corporate marketing team in different positions in HIV, Parkinson’s disease, myocardial infarction and stroke.

Getting more and more experience in stroke treatment with projects like QUICK, Arabic Health and ESO EAST, Thomas developed together with Jan the concept of the Angels Initiative. After the launch of the Angels Initiative 5 years ago it developed to a community of 45.000 doctors and nurses from 4.500 hospitals in 122 countries. Just recently the Angels Initiative has been showcased as “best practice” example for capacity building in Low and Middle Income Countries in the Access to Medicine Index Report Best practices - Access to Medicine Index (accesstomedicinefoundation.org). Angels has now been included as a lighthouse project of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Sustainable Development, with the target that 5.000.0000 stroke patients will be treated in Angels hospitals by 2030.

Thomas has a passion for the Angels Initiative and has dedicated his time to being a part of the team that does whatever it takes to give patients a second chance to life.