Thomas Wagner (entrepreneur)

Thomas Wagner (born May 30, 1978 in Dessau , Halle district , GDR ; † July 14, 2016 near Ajdovščina , Slovenia ) was a German entrepreneur . He became known as the founder of the Unister company .

Life

Thomas Wagner was born in Dessau as the son of an engineer and a teacher. After graduating from high school and two years of military service, he began studying business administration in Leipzig in 1999 .

Thomas Wagner died on July 14, 2016 at the age of 38, together with Unister co-founder Oliver Schilling and another inmate as well as the pilot in a plane crash of a single-engine Piper PA-32R near the Slovenian community Ajdovščina . A few days after the crash, there was evidence that Wagner and Schilling had been victims of prepayment fraud . A public memorial service for the two of them did not take place until the beginning of September 2016 in the Leipzig Congress Hall , after they had already been buried in close family circles in early August 2016. In October 2016, the Slovenian Ministry of Aviation reported indications of a possible external influence ( elevator ) that could have led to the Piper's crash.

Companies

Together with his fellow student Mathias Krasselt, he founded the Unister web portal on July 10, 2001 , where students could swap exam topics or study places. In the following years the number of Unister websites increased to over 40, partly through start-ups and partly through acquisitions. The company is primarily active in the travel, finance, automotive, media, real estate and social media businesses.

In 2008 he founded Unister Media GmbH , which specialized in the marketing of online portals. The market research company UMA Unister Market Research & Analysis followed later . At the beginning of 2013, Wagner took over the position of Director for Product Development and Strategy. He later became the company's managing director again.

The companies founded by Wagner have been criticized on various occasions because of their business model. In 2012 employees of the company were investigated for tax evasion and unauthorized distribution of insurance. Wagner was briefly imprisoned in the course of this investigation.

Unister filed for bankruptcy four days after Wagner's death.

literature

• Steffen Höhne: Thomas Wagner († 38), child prodigy and imprisonment: The career of the boss of “off on vacation” , Mitteldeutsche Zeitung Halle (Saale), July 16, 2016
• Jan Emendörfer, Guido Schäfer: On the steep rise and tragic end of Internet millionaire Thomas Wagner , Leipziger Volkszeitung , July 16, 2016, page 5 (full-page article)

Web links

• Short CV Thomas Wagner at unister.de
• After a plane crash: Unister co-founder mourns the crashed boss . at Spiegel Online , July 15, 2016
• Mysterious trip to Venice: Unister shareholder speaks of possible money laundering at Spiegel Online, July 20, 2016
• Pri Ajdovščini strmoglavilo letalo, štirje mrtvi . Žurnal24, July 14, 2016 (Slovenian)
• "Talked to the Mafia" - new details in the fraud against Unister at LVZ, March 9, 2017
• Unister ten years old: Success story of Thomas Wagner and his 1,500 employee company - netz-trends.de from June 16, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Book of condolences. In: unister.de. Archived from the original on July 16, 2016 ; accessed on July 16, 2016 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Experiment and try . Internet World Business 4/2008, accessed July 15, 2016.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} flight from Venice to Leipzig: Unister boss dies in plane crash . n-tv.de , July 14, 2016, accessed on July 15, 2016.
4. ↑ Playback of Private owner flight / N710CC. Flightradar24 , July 14, 2016, accessed on July 18, 2016 (English, flight route from Venice to Slovenia).  
5. ↑ manager-magazin.de August 13, 2016: Unister: First suspect is in custody
6. ↑ Funeral service for former bosses Other Unister daughters are broke , n-tv, September 1, 2016
7. ↑ After a plane crash in Slovenia: Unister shareholders buried ( memento of the original from December 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , mdr.de, August 10, 2016 
8. ^ Chemnitzer Verlag und Druck GmbH & Co. KG: Unister crash: missing part of the wreck found. In: Freiepresse.de. Retrieved November 23, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Crash of the Unister boss: Was the elevator manipulated? | STERN.de . In: stern.de . October 20, 2016 ( stern.de [accessed November 23, 2016]).
10. ^ After the death of founder Thomas Wagner: Unister files for bankruptcy. In: Economy. Spiegel Online , July 18, 2016, accessed July 18, 2016 .  
11. ↑ Timo Kotowski: What remains of Unister. After bankruptcy. In: Economy. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 27, 2016, accessed on August 13, 2016 .