Christian Lindener
Christian Lindener UNIO
Position | CEO |
Location | Munich, Germany |
Business category | Mobility |
Born in Brazil and having studied, worked, and lived in Mexico, the US, Spain, Austria and Germany, Christian Lindener always travelled the globe in search of new ideas to innovate the world of travel and transport: Already a pioneer in his teenage years he launched his first start-up for electric bikes early on. He suffered a hard landing however, “not because of low demand – but for a simple lack of expertise, experience, and earnestness in my younger days”, as Chris openly admits. Yet, strengthened by this learning effect, he turned his second venture into a full success, selling his start-up for virtual reality solutions to the travel platform Booking.com. After serving as Director of TechFounders (a Munich-based accelerator for which he led the growth development of more than 50 high-tech start-ups) and CEO of Wayra Germany (the Corporate Venture Capital daughter of Telefonica), he joined Airbus to lead “Scale” (the innovation entity of the global aerospace giant). Fascinated by the “never ending potential of aerospace to reinvent the way we live and travel on earth”, he helped lay the groundwork for Reflex Aerospace (a New Space Start-up that aims to cut the production time of satellites from several years to just a few months).
Since July 2022, Chris serves as CEO ofUNIO , the new European joint venture that pursues the ambition to set-up Europe´s first constellation of communication satellites in the next years. When pitching the urgent need of connectivity solutions from space, Chris simply reminds his audience of the common experience of losing internet connection while riding with the Deutsche Bahn, adding: “Would you really trust an autonomously driving car running under the same conditions?” For Chris, there is no question: Communication infrastructures in space will be a key enabler for a safe and sustainable transformation of mobility on earth. And, as the experiences in 2022 – from the war in Ukraine to the erratic moods swings of eccentric billionaires – have shown: “In a field that is so critical for our future, in Europe we should better not rely on others – but work together across countries and industries to establish our own solution.”