Julia Schmalenberg

Sparking, facilitating and accelerating innovation has been the driver for Julia Schmalenberg ever since the beginning of her university studies. During her career, she has had the opportunity to look at innovation from different angles and perspectives - from start-up to corporate, from research to industry, from local to international, and from theory to practice. It is her conviction that innovation flourishes most at the intersection of domains, sectors and functions, and that collaboration among the different societal stakeholders is the key enabler.

Since January 2021, Julia has been working as Director of European R&I Ecosystems at Huawei and facilitates Huawei’s contribution to Europe’s twin transition. Her goal is to implement Huawei’s “In Europe, for Europe” paradigm by fostering open innovation for win-win benefits in thriving ecosystems and by making ICT the enabler of sustainable industrial transformation.

As senior policy advisor for Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in its Brussels office and Munich headquarters, Julia was leading Fraunhofer’s European activities in technology transfer, innovation and digital transformation of industry. Prior to her engagement in the policy sector, she was part of Fraunhofer’s Business Model Development in HQ. Additionally, Julia was working in EIT Digital, a pan-European innovation ecosystem funded by the EU, leading the German chapter of Business Developers and representing the German node of EIT Digital.

Her career started at the Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship as New Venture Manager where she guided innovative, technology-oriented teams to economically viable business models and was a lecturer on innovation management and entrepreneurship.

She holds a degree with distinction both in Legal Studies (Dipl.-Jur.) with a focus on IPR and competition law from the University of Passau and Cardiff and in Technology Management (Dipl.-Ing.) from the University of Stuttgart.