Helmut Hoffer von Ankershoffen

Helmut Hoffer von Ankershoffen was born 30. September 1973 in Weinheim, Germany as Helmut Oertel. After his marriage with Sandra Hoffer von Ankershoffen in 2005 he changed his name.

He completed his studies in Mathematics and Computer Science at the Berlin Institute of Technology, in 1997.

He gained his first professional experience working as a student assistant and later as an academic assistant in the research group “Formal models, logic and programming / artificial intelligence in understanding text” at the Berlin Institute of Technology. He also cooperated in research projects funded by the European Union and Germany’s largest telecommunications provider, Deutsche Telekom, focusing on semantic networks and Internet-based information services.

As a software engineer, he developed Germany’s first commercial Internet search engine, FIREBALL, commissioned by Gruner+Jahr; in the year of its launch, 1997, the website received more hits than any other website in Germany.

In 1998, he co-founded Neofonie GmbH, and has filled the position of Managing Director until 2010 and spokesman from 2008 to 2010.

As CEO, he was responsible for the software development and technical operations in all projects run by Neofonie. In addition, he is the registered inventor for several patents, including: a relevance weighting procedure for indexing hypertext documents using a search engine, a method for the shared editing of a quantity of data, and a network and communications system designed for applying the method, which was developed in cooperation with colleagues from Deutsche Telekom AG and ComBOTS AG.

In 2004, he also worked externally as Product Manager for web.de in the Search area and was Project Manager of web.de Smartsearch, which was voted Germany’s best Internet search engine in 2005.

From December 2007, he has been Chairman of the Board at WeFind AG and, from April 2010, Managing Director and spokesman for WeTab GmbH. The WeFind AG has been merged with Neofonie GmbH in April 2012.

On October 4, 2010, he resigned the positions as spokesman after being exposed for faking reviews on Amazon, including using a pseudonym Peter Glaser, a well known member of Chaos Computer Club. A few days later, on October 8, 2010, he also resigned his positions at Neofonie GmbH.

On March 17, 2011, the DRPR (German Council for Public Relations) rebuked Ankershoffen for infringement of their directive concerning transparency in customer communication, and violation of the Code de Lisbonne (European Code of Professional Conduct in Public Relations), article 4.