About Us
Boardwise is a software-as-a-service company based in Hamburg, Germany. The four founders and two managing directors bring expertise from a wide range of industries and organisations at different stages of growth.The managing directors Sven Rebbert, Dr. Boris Häfele, and Dr. Gisbert Grasses complement each other with their expertise: Rebbert brings more than ten years of experience in HR and workplace digitalization, while Häfele, as founder of the successful coffee company Roastmarket, contributes extensive scale-up experience, and Grasses adds his decades of CFO experience, thereby enabling the company's structural development.
PHAT Consulting, based in Hamburg, developed the first prototype of Boardwise. The solution won Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Award in 2019 and has since evolved into a reliable pillar of the company’s success.
The founding idea of Boardwise was shaped by Johannes Boie, former Editor-in-Chief of Europe’s largest news group BILD and former Editor-in-Chief of WELT am Sonntag, during his time as Chief of Staff at Axel Springer. He continues to support the company’s strategic development.
CTO Alexander Kukovskyi is an experienced technology leader and a successful founder. He joined the company in early 2023.
Today, Boardwise brings together over 50 employees from six different countries. The team shares a common goal: building software that helps organisations run governance processes more efficiently, transparently and securely.
Sven Rebbert
MD & Co-Founder
Dr. Boris Häfele
MD & Co-Founder
Dr. Gisbert Grasses
MD & CFO
"We use the Boardwise solution to organise our group management meetings. Thanks to the introduction, our processes are even more efficient and transparent, ensuring complete documentation of our decision making processes. In dialogue with the Boardwise experts, we are continuously improving all relevant processes. I am a big fan."
Robert Friedmann, Chairman Central Management Board, Würth Group
At Boardwise, we believe that boards of directors, supervisory boards, and works councils spend too much of their valuable time preparing and organising meetings instead of focusing on decisions that move the business forward. More than 30% of DAX companies rely on Boardwise to manage their governance processes.
Formerly, our company was called Gertrud, named after the grandmothers of two of our founders who shared the name. To them, Gertrud represented a strong woman at the centre of the family: someone who held everything together. In many ways, she was the CEO of the family.
As our international customer base grew, we chose a name that communicates our mission more clearly: Boardwise.Boardwise was founded in 2019 in the CEO Office at Axel Springer to address a real internal need.
Today, we support boards, executives and governance teams in planning, organising and running their meetings more efficiently.
Effective board meetings require structure, clarity and precision. Decisions made at the board level shape not only strategy but also company culture and the lives of employees. When governance processes run smoothly, leaders can focus on what matters most: making thoughtful decisions and creating long-term value.
That is why governance deserves the same level of excellence as the decisions it produces.
This is the standard we aim to set at Boardwise.
July 27, 2023
Gertrud Digital hat eine Software-lösung entwickelt, mit der Onlinesitzungen von Vorständen und Aufsichtsräten organisiert und rechtssicher abgehalten werden können. Zu den Kunden zählen nach Angaben des Start-ups unter anderem der Axel-Springer-Verlag, der Energiekonzern Eon, Henkel und Bosch.
August 23, 2023
Düsseldorf. Statistisch gesehen verbringen Topmanager fast drei Viertel ihrer Arbeitszeit in Besprechungen, zeigt eine Harvard-Studie. In vielen Vorstandsetagen bremsen Papierunterlagen und umständliche Routinen die Abläufe – dabei kommen dort die teuersten Beschäftigten einer Firma zusammen.
