Markus Schumacher

Markus Schumacher is a software security expert and worked many years on the “shifting left” idea, that is as early as possible in the software lifecycle. He pioneered the concept of “Security Patterns” and wrote the first books around this topic. Markus has a PhD in Computer Science and worked with students in a “Hacker Contest” mode teaching them how to attack and defend IT systems. He has organized the first “Hackathon” during the German speaking SAP User Group’s (DSG) technology days event.

Today, Dr. Schumacher teams up with companies that like to grow like SecurityBridge, Turnkey, and Irius Risk. This covers strategical planning, discussion of financing options, helping during the due diligence, the sale itself, and supporting PMI projects. Before that he was General Manager at Onapsis that acquired his company Virtual Forge mid of 2019. As co-founder, CEO, and managing director of Virtual Forge, he was responsible for the go to market, sales, and admin part of the company. He was also the driver for the long- term planning and the sale of the company. Markus initiated the companies change from consulting to products and he kicked off the development of the flagship product CodeProfiler for ABAP and other pioneering security solutions for SAP environments. Before Virtual Forge, he was ambassador of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure IT (SIT) and leader of their department "Security and Embedded Devices". Earlier, he worked as product manager at SAP for the NetWeaver platform and led key projects in the (by that time) new ByD solution development (TCO reduction reporting to the board).