Bernhard Niesner

I am originally from Vienna, Austria. After graduating from university and a brief period of travel, I became a consultant at Roland Berger. In the years that followed, I realized I wanted to oversee my own destiny and run my own business, so I studied an MBA at IE Business School.

During my MBA, I met my co-founder of Busuu, Adrian Hilti. We teamed up in the last six months of our MBA and launched Busuu not long after we graduated. Since that point in 2008, I’ve been the co-founder and CEO of the company, and we’ve been a world-leading pioneer in the EdTech industry, growing to more than 100 million users from over 190 countries.

Naturally, as a founder of a language learning company, I’m a big believer in the power of education and the ability it has to change our futures for the better. I’m also an advocate of bringing people together to learn, share and to understand each other, which is ever more important in the world today.

Establishing a company that has been a pioneer in EdTech is definitely one of my greatest achievements. Busuu has paved the way for innovation in digital language learning—from our use of Artificial Intelligence to the thriving peer-to-peer learning community that our product is now home to. But what’s most important is the impact that Busuu has enabled over the last 12 years. It’s been great to hear firsthand from so many learners who’ve made their dreams, both personal and professional, a reality by learning with Busuu.