Philipp Gneiting began his career at the Mercedes-Benz Research & Advanced Development Center after completing his PhD at ETH Zurich. There, he held several leadership roles in innovation, building open innovation frameworks and establishing collaborations with universities, corporates, customers, and startups.

As Head of Open Innovation at Mercedes-Benz, he founded STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play and led the launch of more than 150 pilot projects with startups. In parallel, he built and ran the company’s ideation and design-thinking studio and was responsible for customer insights within R&D, ensuring early-stage innovations were validated against real market needs.

Today, Dr. Gneiting is Partner and Managing Director at Plug and Play, where he works with corporates and governments to design, build, and scale high-impact innovation platforms. His focus areas include innovation strategy, venture clienting, ecosystem development, and structured startup collaboration, enabling organizations to translate open innovation into measurable business impact.