Mr. Heise is a state leader in Innovation Based Economic Development: originating and implementing novel programs and policy initiatives leading to ground breaking change in the state’s economy over short time periods. He has abundant experience in creating strategic initiatives and their implementation: establishing vision and thought-leadership; identifying new opportunities and markets; structuring strategic programs including their subsequent execution and is a global executive and multilingual (fluency in German and daily working proficiency in Mandarin). Karsten is accustomed to has deep curiosity for diverse cultures (US, UK, Europe, East and Southeast Asia) and as such his high aptitude for  bridging cultural differences in business conduct offers high cross-cultural competence.