Marcus Körner

Managing Director

Managing director and sole shareholder of the IWD Group, he acquired professional experience in the areas of neurobiology, marketing, media production and technology before founding the IWD market research Institute in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1998.

Born in 1971, in Magdeburg, he completed a medical-technical education in 1988 and 1989 at the Institute for Neurobiology and Brain Research Magdeburg. There, he was mainly involved in the technical measurement of brain functioning. After further studies in the area of radio technology and IT electronics in Wuppertal from 1990 to 1993, he studied marketing in Leipzig until 1998.

In the final year, he founded the media agency Körner & Partner, which is specialized in the European radio market. He assumed the role of chief editor of the radio station Radio Europe based in Daun/Eifel from 1998 to 2001. He founded the IWD market research Institute in 1998.

In 2004, together with a partner, Körner founded Medialysis GmbH, a company that is specialized in telemetric measurement of radio usage.

For that reason, he was chosen among the „30 people of Magdeburg’s future“ in 2007. In the following year the IWD market research Institute was nominated for the German Market Research Award for its Medialysis System; and in 2009, it was honoured as the most family-friendly company in Magdeburg with the „Work-Life-Balance Award“.

Sandra Baethge

Managing Director

Sandra has been supporting our national and international retail clients as a Business Development Manager for 15 years in the implementation of their projects. With a lot of passion and curiosity, she is always looking for new challenges and individual solutions.

Sandra has been part of the management team since June 1st, 2021.

Furthermore, Sandra teaches “Quantitative Market Research” at the Dual Cooperative State University Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) in Heilbronn for the dual courses consumer goods retailing, fashion management and digital retail.

Kordula Later

Senior Project Manager / Authorized Officer

As senior project manager for the German clients, Kordula mainly coordinates CATI & CAPI studies in Germany and in Europe.

During her studies, she actively participated in various projects within the scope of an internship, and was able to acquire many experiences and insights in market research. Since her graduation in 2001, she has been working in Project Management at IWD market research GmbH. She is responsible for the planning, organization and managing of different projects. Her main task is to coordinate F2F, CAPI and mystery shopping projects.

As an authorized signatory, Kordula also collaborates with the management since June 2021.

„I was born, grew up and wanted to grow old in Magdeburg. I love traveling through the big wide world, going to concerts and to the theater. My job constantly provides me with new challenges and exciting demands of my clients. That keeps it always interesting.”

Kristin Wesemann

Project Manager Germany / Austria / Switzerland

Kristin Wesemann began working as project manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland after completing her studies in sociology and pedagogy in March 2012.

She started working at IWD market research GmbH in August 2004 as an interviewer and continued in this field till 2008. In consequence of the experience and insights acquired in a multitude of various projects, Kristin assumed the position of Supervisor and Field Lead in Germany. Nowadays she is project manager for Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

„To balance out my often turbulent workdays, I relax during reading a book, going to the cinema or to the theatre.“

Alina Kahl

Project Manager International

Alina has been part of the IWD team since 2012. Her studies brought Alina to Magdeburg in 2008. At the University of Magdeburg, she completed her bachelor‘s degree in International Management and spent an exciting semester abroad in Riga. Through an internship during her subsequent master’s studies, she came to IWD in 2012, and started working in the area of data preparation. After finishing her master studies she started working as project manager in 2013.

What Alina especially likes about her job are the new and exciting challenges, which every single project brings along.

In her free time she enjoys spending time with her dog during long walks in the park.

Maria Wyss

Head of Accounting / Office

Maria has been working at IWD market research GmbH since 2006. During the first three years, she successfully completed training as a management assistant in office communication. Beforehand, she already received an applied degree in Economics. Today, Maria is head of accounting, HR management and administration. She is the very soul of the IWD market research GmbH.

Maria finds balance to her work in her family, her house, and her hobbies. She is an enthusiastic football and ice hockey fan!

Van Hoang

Head of Business Intelligence

Van comes from Vietnam and has lived in Magdeburg with her family for years. During her studies in Business Economic she was doing an internship at the IWD market research. She took place in several interesting projects. Thereby Van got to know the diversity of market research.

She has been employed by IWD in 2006 and is responsible for the preparation of studies and design. The reasons why Van became a part of the IWD are the variety, the freedom for being creative and the visible results of her job.

She likes to spend her spare time with her family. Furthermore Van loves cooking. „It is not a hard job to prepare a meal it is more fun.“ A meal in company with her Family is very important to her. It shows gregariousness and is part of her daily routine.

Madeline Primus

Senior Data Analyst

In September 2007, Madeline Primus became a part of the IWD team. Her tasks include the processing of survey data received by IWD Market Research GmbH. This includes, along with data control and preparation, analysis of all the data. Her job includes also the administration of the Blackberry and Samsung devices technology.

She began her career in 2004, with school training as a design assistant with a focus on media/communication. This was followed by a successful completion of a one-year technical school training course in design. After that, she continued a two-year double study program to become a communication specialist. During this time, she did an internship at IWD market research GmbH. Having already started her professional career, she began the last stage of her professional training by obtaining an IHK certification for marketing communication assistant, while continuing to work.

In her personal life, she is often creative in her free time and likes to design projects for her family and for herself, which she then gladly implements.

She is also a passionate acrylic painter and is slowly building her own studio.

Malena Lüdemann

Project Manager Germany / Austria / Switzerland

Malena grew up in a village near Hamburg. After graduating from high school, she trained as a paralegal - a bit too dry for Malena's taste, which is why she started further training as a specialist in office and project organisation on the side. Well, if that doesn't suit us perfectly! A Magdeburg girl of choice who came to our beautiful city because of love and an inquisitive personality with a passion for planning and organising. Welcome, Malena, to Project Management DACH. We are happy to have you at our side since January 2022 and look forward to working with you on exciting projects in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Malena is an absolute family person. And when she's not visiting family and friends in her old home country, she has many other cities on her agenda. Otherwise, sports, cooking and reading are Malena's way of relaxing.

Simon Meinecke

Assistant Accounting / Office

Simon and Maria are together the very soul of IWD. Since he finished school in 2004, Simon went straight away to the University. At the Otto-von-Guericke-University he was studying cultural science from 2005 to 2008. Subsequently after his academic career he started the professional one. Simon did an apprenticeship as office administrator in 2008. Once he finished it successfully he was employed. In March 2014 he started working for the field of administrative accounting at IWD.

Simon loves to listen to music for that reason he became a passionate collector of sound recording mediums. He is also a fan of American Football. If he wants to calm down after a hard day of work, he watches one of his favorite series.

Sören Grunenberg

Working Student Business Intelligence

Sören is a native of Brandenburg. Before he came to us in beautiful Magdeburg to study Business Economics, he had already completed his Bachelor's degree in Economics and English Studies in Halle (Saale). As part of his thesis, he analysed a data set using statistical methods, which eventually sparked his interest in market research. Then he found a job with us where he could explore his interest even more and gain practical experience in a field that would fit his future career path. Study creation, text coding and transcription of audio recordings are some of the tasks Sören has been gaming on as a working student in our Business Intelligence department since November 2021

Going to concerts and festivals are among his favourite leisure activities. But he also follows football and American football matches with enthusiasm.

Stefan Neumann

Project Assistant Germany / Austria / Switzerland

Stefan did his A level in 2000 and afterwards joined the basic military service for one year. He was born and raised in the Altmark and wanted to stay close to home, so he decided to study electrical engineering in Magdeburg at the local college. During his studies, Stefan began to work for IWD as a part-time job. First, he was doing CATI-Interviews in 2010, but soon conducted Face-to-Face surveys and became a supervisor in 2013. Stefan’s scope of activities changed to recruiting, training instructor and support in 2016. After many years and many practical experiences gained in the field, he now supports project management Germany / Austria / Switzerland as project assistant.

In Stefan’s spare time, he is enthusiastic about NFL, Fitness and certain TV series. Moreover, he likes reading books that go over the boundaries of human being, space and the universe.

Kalina Sempf

Project Manager International

Kalina has Bulgarian roots. She was born and grew up in Sofia. After graduating high school, she obtained a Master’s degree in Industrial Management from Technical University in Sofia. Then she felt the urge to travel.

Before she made Magdeburg her home, she gained experience from various places around the world. Starting at Deggendorf University of Applied Sciences in Bavaria, where she earned her Bachelor´s degree in International Management. Afterwards she participated in the “Work and Travel in the U.S.” program and also spent a semester in Chennai, India. Now Magdeburg is her dream home and she lives here with her small family.

In order to get a cool head again and to think about nothing, she often dives into the water to swim a few laps.

Aurela Gjoni

Project Manager

Her home country is Albania. There she has a degree in economics and a master's degree in finance and accounting.

In 2020, Aurela moved to Germany (Magdeburg) and since January 2022 she has been working for us as a project manager, organizing mainly international projects.

Her hobbies are swimming, hiking in nature and painting.

Bhavya B. Chovatta V.

Working Student Developer Team

Bhavya has been studying for a Master's degree in Data & Knowledge Engineering at the University of Magdeburg since October 2022. She joined our developer team in January 2023 and supports our colleagues as a working student in the design and implementation of an internal project controlling tool, in the further development of existing check tools for project management and in the operation of a customer-oriented data crawling of websites and apps.

She is very interested in Data Science and Machine Learning.

Julian Gromadka

Dual Student „Media Design“

We are very happy to welcome our first dual student. Julian studies Media Design (BA) and will support us for the next 3 years with his studies at the virtual campus of the International University of Applied Sciences in all creative designs, from graphics to web to cross-media.

Julian is not only a creative mind and graphically very talented, he is also very sporty and plays handball with heart and soul in a club for over 16 years.

Sally Schneider

Project Manager

Sally moved to Magdeburg at an early age. She graduated from high school here and then studied cultural engineering. She spent one semester in Thailand - an experience she wouldn't want to miss.

During her studies, she was able to gain practical experience in many small projects, which she can now draw on when working in our project management since June 2022. Thanks to her open and creative nature, she also enjoys taking on new tasks and challenges. She really appreciates working in a team.

In her private life, she is a bit of a series junkie, loves the one or other Bachelor gossip and also loves to travel the world, finding new cultures exciting and enjoys being inspired by them. Sally enjoys life with humor and lightness, which we appreciate very much about her.

Sinan Üstün

Data & Insights Analyst

Sinan is originally from Schleswig-Holstein and moved to Magdeburg in 2013 to study. After completing his bachelor's degree in "international management", he went on to earn a master's degree in business administration. With a faible for datasets and empirical research, Sinan is right at home with us and has been supporting us as a Data & Insights Analyst since February 2022.

Outside of work, he likes to practice playing the piano, listen to a lot of music and can really switch off with a video game or two. Otherwise, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends or going to the gym for a change.

Sven Meienberg

Working Student Developer Team

We welcome the first physicist in retail market research at IWD. Since June 2022, Sven supports our Developer-Team as a working student.

Through his bachelor's degree in particle physics he has a lot to do with programming and can apply this knowledge in practice with us now. Together with the team, he accompanies the digital transformation of business processes and develops creative solutions for the integration of visualizations into our internal project controlling tool and for external services.

In his private life, besides skating and boxing, he is also involved in the local skateboarding scene as club chairman and regularly organizes public events in our beautiful Magdeburg.

Anja Müller

HR Manager

Born and raised in the Börde district, Anja set out in 2004 and began an apprenticeship in Hanover. Further education and training in retail followed, and so it came to many assignments as a department manager´s assistant in various cities in Germany. After seven years, she realized that "home" is the nicest place to be, so Anja returned home. Professionally, she then took a closer look at retail from the other side in product management/purchasing. After her parental leave, Anja initially found her way to IWD market research GmbH as an office assistant in 2017. Since 2020, she has been taking care of all HR matters as HR Manager with us.

She likes it most spending her free time with her little family or playing games with friends. In winter, she is passionate about skiing and in summer she is often out and riding her bike. She also loves to bake and, of course, to eat the baked goods : )