Definiens Management Team

Chief Executive Officer
Chairman of the Executive Board


Thomas P. Heydler, Chief Executive Officer of Definiens AG, joined Definiens in 2004. He brings more than 20 years of entrepreneurial expertise and in-depth knowledge of global software business to Definiens.

Mr. Heydler was President and CEO at Barcelona Design Inc. based in San Jose, USA. Before joining Barcelona, Mr. Heydler served as President and CEO for InterPro Business Solutions, Inc., USA. He was Vice President and Executive Officer at Documentum Inc., a  leading software and solutions  provider with specific focus on the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry.

He built and drove Documentum’s European operations and assumed worldwide responsibility for Marketing and Documentum’s Application Business subsequently. Prior to this engagement, he served as Vice President and General Manager Europe for Cadence Design Systems and held senior leadership positions at Siemens AG.

Mr. Heydler holds a Diplom-Ingenieur degree in Electric Engineering and Computer Science from the Technical University in Munich.

Chief Financial Officer
Member of the Executive Board


Dr. Markus Rinecker, Chief Financial Officer, joined Definiens in July 2009. He brings more than 10 years of entrepreneurial and finance experience as well as in-depth clinical expertise to the company.

Prior to joining Definiens, Dr. Rinecker served as Managing Director at one of the leading surgery hospitals in Munich. He managed 350 employees, had full P&L responsibility, established a new department for open heart surgery and streamlined organizational processes to increase the organization’s profitability.

Furthermore, he evaluated potential acquisition targets and participated in share deal transactions for the hospital chain Humaine Kliniken GmbH. He was also actively involved in the start-up venture ProHealth AG which opened Europe’s first full clinical proton radiation centre for cancer therapy in March 2009.

Dr. Rinecker holds a Doctoral Degree in Medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich as well as a Masters Degree in Business Administration of INSEAD, France and Singapore.

Founder and Head of Research

In 1986 Prof. Binnig, along with his colleague Prof. Heinrich Rohrer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in scanning tunneling microscopy. Prof. Binnig and Prof. Rohrer were recognized for developing the powerful microscopy technique, which can form an image of individual atoms on a metal or semiconductor surface by scanning the tip of a needle over the surface at a height of only a few atomic diameters.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Prof. Binnig studied at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1973 and his doctorate degree in 1978.

That year he joined a physics research group at IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory. Prof. Binnig was assigned to IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. from 1985 to 1986, and was a visiting professor at Stanford University from 1987 to 1988.

Executive Vice President and General Manager North America & Asian Pacific

Dr. Martin Stuart is one of the most influential leaders in the Digital Pathology industry and joined Definiens in 2012. He has more than 25 years of experience in international sales and marketing, specializing in the introduction of new and disruptive technologies.

Dr. Stuart received his BSc. in Physics and Mathematics from London and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University College of North Wales. Dr. Stuart joined Tripos Inc. and held numerous positions including Vice President of Sales and Marketing and finally Vice President and General Manager of the Accelerated Discovery Products Group, a high-end contract services business. Dr. Stuart then spent 3 years as Vice President of Life Sciences at Entropia a San Diego based grid computing company.

During his almost 8 year tenure with Aperio he led the commercial growth of the company, establishing Aperio as the clear global market leader.

Vice President, Marketing

Dr. Martin Baatz joined Definiens in 1996 and has held several positions in R&D, services and business development, and served as general manager of the life sciences business unit. For many years he was responsible for the R&D of the image analysis technology at Definiens. He was strongly involved in building up Definiens’ IP portfolio, directed the development of many life sciences solutions and presented technology and applications in numerous publications and at events.

Dr. Baatz is responsible for all aspects of marketing at Definiens including strategy, corporate, industry, channel, field, community and technical marketing.

Dr. Baatz studied biology in Darmstadt and Vienna and undertook his PhD research with a Konrad Lorenz stipend at Yale University in Connecticut. He also holds an undergraduate degree in economics and engineering from the Technical University Darmstadt.

Vice President, Sales North America

Thomas Colarusso joined Definiens in 2006. He brings more than 11 years of analytical software sales and business development experience in the life sciences industry. Mr. Colarusso is responsible for building and managing the U.S. sales organization to support the diverse technical and business requirements of the pharmaceutical and medical research industry.

Prior to his work with Definiens, Mr. Colarusso was Director of Strategic Pharmaceutical Accounts for Tripos, a leading provider of cheminformatics software solutions and consulting services based in St. Louis, MO.

Previous positions include Regional Sales Account Manager for Nonlinear Dynamics Inc in Durham, NC, a provider of analytical proteomics and genomics imaging-based software solutions for life sciences research, where he developed the company’s Eastern U.S. business. Mr. Colarusso has co-authored several medical journal articles.

Mr. Colarusso holds a BS in Microbiology from the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.

Vice President, Sales Europe

Oliver Lehner joined Definiens in 2009. In his role as Vice President Sales Europe, Mr. Lehner is responsible for building and managing the European sales organization. Mr. Lehner is recognized as an expert in the global Healthcare IT sector with experience as Marketing Director for the global PACS division of Siemens Healthcare and in marketing with Carestream Health, where he focused on the European market. Prior to joining Definiens, Mr. Lehner worked for more than five years at Visage Imaging as Senior Director of Sales and Business Development, where he implemented growth strategies for the company’s EMEA region and oversaw its key accounts.

Before that, he served for several years as Managing Director of Radin, a subsidiary of Visage Imaging. Mr. Lehner holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Esslingen University of Applied Sciences and a post-graduate degree from London Business School’s Senior Executive Program.

Chief Architect

Arno Schaepe joined Definiens in 1998. He now has more than 10 years of experience building software products around Definiens Cognition Network Technology.

Mr. Schaepe built the initial version of the Definiens Product Suite, eCongition 1.0, and from there continuously managed the company’s product and technology development around the Definiens Enterprise Image Intelligence Suite and Definiens XD product lines. He led the Definiens Platform Development Team for more than 9 years before switching to the role of Chief Architect.

Driving the continuous development of Definiens software solutions and the underlying technology, he is author and co-author of several patents regarding the Definiens Cognition Network Technology and CNL language. Mr. Schaepe holds a Diplom degree in Mathematics from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

Director, Product and Intellectual Property Management

Dr. Guenter Schmidt joined Definiens AG in 1995. Working as part of Prof. Dr. Gerd Binnig’s research team, he contributed substantially to the invention and market adoption of Definiens Cognition Network Technology and its implementation in new text and image understanding software. Dr. Schmidt was also Product Manager of Proteomweaver gel-electrophoresis image analysis software.

Today, Dr. Schmidt heads a team of product managers to define the Definiens product strategy and roadmap. Beyond contributing many inventions to the Definiens patent portfolio, Dr. Schmidt actively manages the intellectual property of Definiens.

He has an academic background in computational nuclear physics with a doctorate degree from the Eberhard-Karls University of Tuebingen.