Florian Mattner
Senior Partner
Florian Mattner is THE man to go to in all matters related to German professional football, having held various roles in the communications and media sector of the German Bundesliga since 2006. As a freelance communications coach and media consultant, Florian has been working with Kessel & Kessel on various projects since 2017.
After completing his studies in German and history at the Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen, Florian started his professional career at VfB Stuttgart, where he spent six years before joining VfL Wolfsburg. He spent several years there as Head of Media and Communications before returning to VfB Stuttgart in 2018 to assume the newly created position of Head of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs. He draws upon the experience gained over many years of media coverage of football matches at both national and international levels. This includes sporting highlights such as winning the German Championship in 2007, the DFB Cup in 2015, and the participation of his clubs in the UEFA Champions League three times.
Florian has an innate understating of the communication demands in highly competitive environments, and thus boasts a vast network within the media and sports industry. A core aspect of these challenges is the communicative control and strategic support of top decision-makers. Just like the football clubs themselves, their protagonists have to consistently function within change situations, and must always be prepared to switch to crisis communication.
Furthermore, digital communication, creating an international media presence, campaigning and communicative branding for companies and top management have become increasingly important in professional football in recent years. After all, even a substitute player of a German soccer league club, who is largely unknown to the general public, has more media contacts and a far greater digital reach per month than a board member of a DAX company has per year.