Holger von Ellerts

I started where digital advertising is sold: on the sales-house side. Adcloud, NZZ, audienzz — programmatic, native advertising, ad technology. In 2015 the sales operation I was jointly responsible for was named «Best Online Advertising Provider» (d.core); I was twice nominated for «Digital Marketer of the Year».

Then I switched sides. As Head of Digital Media at Coop I ran media planning and data-driven marketing for one of Switzerland's largest retailers. At MediaMarkt I built up tracking, segmentation and media-mix models as an interim manager in 2019/2020. Corporate group, publisher, sales house, my own company — I know every side of the table.

Since 2019 I have worked for my own account — at first alongside the interim mandate: digital nalu advises Swiss brands on data-driven marketing, digital opua builds AI products — from Marketing-Mix-Modeling through RAG systems to Nexbid, an open-source infrastructure for commerce between AI agents. In parallel I have taught at Swiss universities since 2017: what I explain in the lecture hall I have first built, sold or discarded myself.

I live and work in Walchwil on Lake Zug, usually accompanied by Titus, my wire-haired dachshund. German is my native language, English my working language — and Swedish a remnant of my time at Växjö University that I keep up to this day.

Since April 2026 I have been writing a practical handbook for lecturers at Swiss universities of applied sciences and higher vocational schools (working title: «KI in der Lehre» — AI in teaching). It answers the question every faculty asks me: how do you bring AI into the classroom without replacing the pedagogy?

The manuscript is well advanced; a publisher is not yet signed — the target year is 2027. I write it for the same reason I teach: the questions come from practice, and the answers have to find their way back there.