Second Foundation’s Innofounder programme is organised around three leaders who each oversee a distinct part of the incubator. Lotus Søs Nellemann leads business mentoring and manages a mentor corps of 30 experienced founders who are matched with startups. Nele Kieseritzky is responsible for business design and guides startups through validating their problem and business model. Amanda Wienberg-Hansen runs operations and programmes, overseeing onboarding, events and collaboration with partners to ensure the flow of about 140 startups through the programme each year.
Across the initiative the team says it has worked with more than 680 startups. Their combined roles—mentoring, business model validation and operational delivery—form the backbone of the incubator’s support for early-stage founders and shape the lessons the programme draws from its cohort work.