Nationality German | Name Susanne Zantop | |
Occupation Chairwomen at CEO Positions AG | ||
Susanne Mueller Zantop (born September 5, 1956 in Essen, Germany) is a former journalist and Gartner technology analyst and a leading communications entrepreneur and commentator, focused on CEOs communication and technology. Mueller Zantop is currently working on building an international community of digital CEOs who shape the future of social CEO communication.
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Life
Mueller Zantop was born in Essen, Germany as the first daughter of Wolfgang Mueller-Zantop, architect in the Essen area and the graphics artist Jutta Mueller-Zantop. Her two younger brothers live in Berlin and Barcelona. She has one son from her marriage to Reinhard Strobel, born in 1990.
After graduating from the University of Regensburg in computer science and linguistics in 1981, Mueller Zantop joined IBM as one of the first female sales representatives for large systems. She left IBM to build a technology analyst company at the age of 24 which she sold 12 years later to Gartner. She joined Siemens AG in 1998 where she initiated the mobile venture “The Leonie Project” which envisioned mobile phone technology for child protection devices. Later, she returned as Head of Investor Relations and Analysts relations and was responsible for key messages of the Mobile Division. In 2004 she moved to Zurich, Switzerland to take up a position as Global EVP Marketing and Communications for Adecco SA. After an Executive MBA degree at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, her current venture, CEO Positions AG, was founded in early 2006 in Zurich.
Publications and business ventures
Mueller Zantop is active at CEO Positions AG, where she serves as chairwoman and main shareholder. CEO Positions AG is a consulting and production company for CEO strategy communication. Customers are global brands in IT and telecommunications, energy and finance. The name indicates that the CEO is the key medium to embody the company strategy.
In 2012, Mueller Zantop founded the CFCC – CEO Future Communications Community - a research initiative that aims to collect and analyze all attainable knowledge about digital leadership and communication to provide members with advice about modern CEO communication practices. In 2012, she developed the „Communicative Identity Survey“, a benchmark for CEO communication which is used to personalize communicative behavior. Later in 2012, she was the first to formulate the „10 Secrets of a Digital CEO“ for the coming years. Mueller Zantop writes a weekly online column for the German daily „DIE WELT“. She publishes a weekly blog called „CEO Positions“ about her ideas and experiences, and she is a regular columnist for the Huffington Post. Her writing revolves around analysis and predictions about the selected CEOs and business leaders.
Climbing
Her main hobbies are skiing and mountaineering. She has climbed Mont Blanc, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus and Aconcagua (to 6‘500 m). In September 2016, at the age of 60, Mueller Zantop successfully climbed mountain Mount Cho Oyu (8'201) in Tibet. She was confirmed as the oldest German woman to ever reach the summit.
Teaching
Susanne Mueller Zantop is a career mentor for a number of female students in technology and business. She moderates and presents internationally about technology and communication, namely the subject of Social and Digital CEO.