# Alexander Rinke

> Alexander 'Alex' Rinke is a German technology entrepreneur, mathematician, investor, and co-founder and co-CEO of Celonis. He helped turn a Technical University of Munich student-consulting project into an enterprise software company centered on process mining and process intelligence, bootstrapping it for its first five years before expanding globally. His career combines product strategy, customer-led enterprise sales, and a current focus on giving AI agents the operational context they need to work inside complex businesses.

- **Role:** Co-founder and Co-CEO at Celonis
- **Organizations:** Celonis, SNV Berlin GbR, Academy Consult e.V., Munich Re, KK Invest GmbH, Inter Hannover, Testbirds, Talentry
- **From:** Munich, Germany
- **Nationality:** German
- **Education:** BSc in Mathematics, Technical University of Munich, Exchange semester in mathematics, École Polytechnique
- **Known for:** Co-founded Celonis in 2011 and helped bootstrap the business for its first five years., Helped establish process mining as an enterprise-software category and expand Celonis from a university project into a global company., Received the Technical University of Munich Presidential Entrepreneurship Award with the Celonis team in 2015.

## Career timeline

- **2005-2007** — Founded and managed SNV Berlin GbR, a tutoring agency for students in Berlin.
- **2007** — Completed a portfolio-management internship at Inter Hannover in Bracknell, United Kingdom.
- **2007-2010** — Studied mathematics at the Technical University of Munich and helped lead Academy Consult's Strategy and Structure task force.
- **2008-2009** — Worked on the development and support of algorithmic trading systems at KK Invest in Munich.
- **2008-2011** — Held roles and internships with Munich Re in Munich and Hong Kong, including work related to China and Southeast Asia.
- **2009-2010** — Spent an exchange semester at École Polytechnique in Paris.
- **2011** — Co-founded Celonis with Bastian Nominacher and Martin Klenk after a TUM student-consulting project exposed the potential of process mining.
- **2011-2016** — Bootstrapped Celonis with his co-founders, winning early enterprise customers and operating for five years without outside financing.
- **2016** — Expanded Celonis toward the US market, raised the company's first institutional financing, and was featured in Forbes Europe's 30 Under 30.
- **2019** — Received the Deutscher Zukunftspreis with co-founders Bastian Nominacher and Martin Klenk for their process-mining innovation.
- **2021-2022** — Led Celonis through a $1 billion Series D and a later Series D extension as the company expanded its process-mining platform.
- **2023** — Helped articulate Celonis' move from process mining toward a Process Intelligence Graph designed to connect multiple business processes.
- **2026** — Presented the Celonis Context Model and the planned acquisition of Ikigai Labs as part of the company's strategy for industrializing enterprise AI.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Celonis in 2011 and helped bootstrap the business for its first five years.
- Helped establish process mining as an enterprise-software category and expand Celonis from a university project into a global company.
- Received the Technical University of Munich Presidential Entrepreneurship Award with the Celonis team in 2015.
- Named to Forbes Europe's 30 Under 30 and later recognized as an All-Star Alumnus.
- Won the 2019 Deutscher Zukunftspreis with Bastian Nominacher and Martin Klenk.
- Helped found or support enterprise-software startups including Testbirds and Talentry as an early-stage technology investor.
- Led Celonis' global business and product strategy, including expansion in the United States and Latin America.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — Celonis reported that customers using its platform had collectively realized more than $11.3 billion in value and highlighted its Context Model and Agent Toolkit as core pieces of its enterprise-AI strategy.
- **2026-05** — Rinke introduced the Celonis Context Model at Web Summit Vancouver as the operational context layer for enterprise AI; Celonis also announced an agreement to acquire Ikigai Labs.
- **2026-05** — In a Deep View interview, Rinke recounted Celonis' bootstrapped beginnings and called the AI transition a refounding moment for the company.
- **2025-02** — Rinke argued that AI agents need process awareness when Celonis released survey findings showing that 89% of business leaders considered business-process context crucial for AI results.
- **2024** — At Celonis Day Bay Area, Rinke emphasized that enterprise AI needs process context and that companies must decide where human judgment belongs in increasingly automated workflows.

## Links

- Website: https://www.celonis.com/insights/authors/alexander-rinke
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-rinke-10733061
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/alexanderrinke

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/alexander-rinke
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-10