Thieß Gert Matzke has years of professional experience in legal issues relevant to technology transfer, from structuring and negotiating complex licensing contracts, to research cooperation agreements and university spin-off financing deals. 

Prior to joining Ascenion in 2002, he was a lawyer at Beiten Burkhardt Mittl & Wegener, focussing on intellectual property. 

He has been licensed to practice as a lawyer in Germany since 1998, received a Master of Law in Intellectual Property from the Franklin Pierce Law Center, Concord NH (today part of the University of New Hampshire), in 2002 and was admitted to the bar in New York in 2003.

Elisabeth von Weizsäcker is an experienced entrepreneur who also brings expertise from 16 years in management consultancy to Ascenion. She has accompanied numerous biotech start-ups during their founding and financing, and has advised public sector organizations in strategic, organizational and commercial matters.

Before joining Ascenion, she and a colleague founded the Metropolitan Consulting Group which grew to employ 15 staff. After 10 years they successfully sold the company to a strategic partner.

Elisabeth von Weizsäcker studied at the University of Freiburg and at the California Institute of Technology, subsequently gaining her PhD in molecular biology at the University of  Cologne in the area of developmental biology. She then worked for the management consultancy Bossard Consultants, later moving to Gemini Consulting, from which the Metropolitan Consulting Group was spun out in 1998.