Who are you?
My Name is Andreas Frank Hoffmann. I was born in the late 70’s and grown up in a small town near the Baltic Sea in the eastern part of Germany. Now I am living with my wonderful wife in Germany’s capital city Berlin.
With over two decades of experience at the intersection of technology and business, I specialize in crafting innovative solutions that transform data into strategic assets. My professional narrative is defined by the development and leadership of initiatives that not only push the envelope in AI and data analytics but also deliver tangible business outcomes.
What interesting projects did you realize over the years?
- Developing a cutting-edge AI framework in 2022 that revolutionized evolutionary time series prediction, enhancing decision-making processes.
- Architecting a robust data-warehouse in 2021 tailored to the volatile cryptocurrency market, enabling real-time insights for trading.
- In 2020, creating an unsupervised machine learning-powered product search engine prototype, which significantly improved product discovery experiences.
- Merging machine learning with vendor API data in 2019 to conceive a social-media monitoring tool prototype, offering brands a new lens to understand customer sentiment.
- Strategizing automated cryptocurrency trading systems in 2018, which maximized ROI through creative algorithmic approaches.
- Top performer in the Numerai stock market prediction competition in 2017, thanks to my evolutionary AI framework, demonstrating its predictive prowess.
- As the Director of Demand Generation for a SaaS startup in 2016, I spearheaded growth hacking and programmatic advertising, accelerating user acquisition and market penetration.
- Laying the groundwork for a comprehensive traffic data-warehouse in 2015 as Head of Traffic, which became instrumental for one of Germany’s leading price comparison portals.
What does a Consultant for Digital Transformation do?
- Strategic IT Consulting: Provides comprehensive consulting services to assist businesses in integrating and optimizing new technologies into their business strategies. This includes analyzing current IT landscapes, identifying potential technology trends, and developing tailored roadmaps for digital transformation.
- AI and Technology Workshops: Organizes and leads hands-on workshops focused on the practical application of modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. These workshops aim to impart expertise to optimize business processes and foster a culture of technological innovation.
- Data Governance: Develops strategies to optimize data management and security. This involves implementing best practices for data integrity, privacy, and compliance adherence, ensuring a robust and secure data infrastructure.
- Proof of Concept Development: Assists in creating and evaluating prototypes for new technology projects. This process includes conceptualization, design, and implementation of Proof of Concepts to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of innovative solutions.
- Tech Stack Evaluation: Conducts in-depth analyses of existing IT infrastructure to provide recommendations for enhancing technology readiness. These assessments help identify gaps in the current technology landscape and develop plans for necessary upgrades or adjustments.
- Ethics & Compliance: Offers specialized consultancy to ensure that technology use adheres to ethical guidelines and legal requirements. This includes developing frameworks that embed ethical principles in digital practices.
- Organizational Development: Advises companies on employing data-driven approaches to increase organizational efficiency. This involves using data analytics to identify areas for optimization and supporting the implementation of change processes to promote an agile and adaptable business environment.
What are the milestones of your professional journey?
Because of my interest in web design and data mining I came early in contact with technical online marketing and especially search engine optimization for Google (SEO).
- 09/2017 – I’m currently working as Freelance Senior Consultant for Digital Transformation in projects in B2B consulting, change management, AI, IT strategy, data intelligence, growth marketing, and the crypto economy.
- 09/2018 – I’m currently working as CEO and Founder of DIgital-Tree GmbH, an innovative startup focused on creating software for automated, API-driven trading on cryptocurrency exchanges. Responsible for business development, data integration, and the formulation of trading strategies using proprietary machine learning algorithms.
- 09/2016 – 08/2018: I was working as Director of Demand Generation for Contentful, one of the fastest growing German tech startups in the SaaS / content-microservice domain
- 01/2015 – 08/2016: I was working as part of the management team, in the role of the Head of Traffic, for one of Germany’s biggest consumer portals, Testberichte.de
- 03/2006 – 12/2014: I was running the SearchLab GmbH, a highly specialized consulting agency for technical SEO as CEO and Senior SEO
- 07/2004 – 02/2006: I was working as Inhouse SEO for Testberichte.de
- 05/2001: I started developing my first SEO-tools and was working as Inhouse SEO / SEO Consultant for some German price comparison websites
- 01/1996: I started my career as a web developer in the design studio of my father, while was still going to school and later university
What does “theafh” stand for?
This is my internet pseudonym I am using for many years. It is a compound of “the” and my initials “A.F.H”.
After using it for such a long time it became part of my online identity and it was the next logical step to register it as a domain name and start my new blogging project with this name.
What is your favorite quote?
“Specialization is for insects“ – It is part of a much longer quote from the novel “Time Enough for Love” from Robert A. Heinlein:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, con a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects
I stumbled upon this quote and thought “this nails down how I feel about myself”. I found it always hard to do only one thing. My interests include diverse topics ranging from Data-Mining to Evolutionary-Computing, Political-Philosophy, Futurology, Digital Photography and Sculpting. Some of this topics will be subjects of further posts.