Tommy Ahlers (born 18 November 1975 in

Haderslev Haderslev (; german: Hadersleben ) is a Danish town in the Region of Southern Denmark with a population of 22,011 (1 January 2022).Folketing The Folketing ( da, Folketinget, ; ), also known as the Parliament of Denmark or the Danish Parliament in English, is the unicameral national legislature (parliament) of the Kingdom of Denmark—Denmark proper together with the Faroe Islands ...

for the Venstre political party from 2015 to 2021. He was the Minister of Science, Technology, Information and Higher Education in the

Lars Løkke Rasmussen III Cabinet The Third Cabinet of Lars Løkke Rasmussen (colloquially, ''VLAK-regeringen'' or ''trekløverregeringen'') took office on 28 November 2016, and succeeded the Second Cabinet of Lars Løkke Rasmussen. It was a minority coalition government consist ...

Biography

Ahlers is best known for the social networking and mobile backup site ZYB, launched in 2005 by two entrepreneurs from Copenhagen, Morten Lund and Ole Kristensen, and sold to Vodafone Europe BV for nearly $50m in May 2008. Before ZYB, where he has held the position of CEO since the company's inception, Ahlers spent six years in strategy and management, partly in the mobile industry. After ZYB, Ahlers invested in and became CEO of

Podio Podio supplies a web-based platform for creating no code solutions and automate workflows. The feature set includes organizing team communication, business processes, data and content in project management workspaces according to project needs. Hi ...

in 2010. Podio was acquired by

Citrix Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. C ...

for $43.6 million in April 2012. ZYB's headquarters were in Denmark, with offices in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, United Kingdom. The company has kept its Copenhagen base in the wake of Vodafone's acquisition, with Vodafone incorporating the firm into its Internet Services Division. Ahlers is a regular on the technology startup conference circuit, speaking at the likes of Mobile 2.0 Europe, DLD, the European Directory Marketplace Conference and TheNextWeb, where he was an award winner in 2007. Ahlers participated in the Danish version of the

Dragons' Den ''Dragons' Den'' is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it is k ...

. On 19 January 2016 he invested in

Astralis Astralis is a Denmark, Danish esports organization. Best known for their ''Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' team, they also have teams representing other games, such as ''FIFA'' and ''League of Legends''. The parent group of Astralis is the A ...

, a top

professional gaming Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

team together with

Nikolaj Nyholm Nikolaj Nyholm (born 13 September 1975) is a Danish serial technology entrepreneur and investor from Copenhagen, Denmark. He has founded four technology startups that have pioneered different domains, is an advisor to Minecraft creator Mojang, wa ...

, who is the CEO of RFRSH Entertainment, which in turn acquired the majority of Astralis in June 2017. On 2 May 2018, Tommy Ahlers was appointed minister for Higher Education and Science in Denmark. He served until 27 June 2019 when the cabinet was dissolved and the

Frederiksen Cabinet Frederiksen Cabinet may refer to the following cabinets of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen: * Frederiksen I Cabinet (2019-Dec 2022) * Frederiksen II Cabinet (Dec 2022-present) {{disambiguation ...

took over.

Personal life

Ahlers came out as

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

in July 2018. Ahlers has two children from a straight marriage which ended in 2012. He said that he exclusively dated men after splitting from his wife, but later began dating a woman.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlers, Tommy 1975 births Living people People from Haderslev Municipality 21st-century Danish businesspeople Danish chief executives Danish company founders Danish LGBT politicians Bisexual men Bisexual politicians LGBT conservatism LGBT legislators Venstre (Denmark) politicians Government ministers of Denmark Danish Ministers of Higher Education and Science Members of the Folketing 2019–2022