Tarek Besold

Tarek is a Founding Partner at Trust Tech Ventures. With 10+ years of experience in Responsible AI across academia, corporates, and startups, he built the thesis from the inside: as Chief Science Officer at Telefónica Alpha's health moonshot (now Koa Health) he set up Europe's first dedicated trustworthy-AI industry lab; as interim CTO of AI-testing startup neurocat he drove a ~10M EUR raise; and as Head of Strategic AI at DEKRA he architected the Certif.AI joint venture with PwC Germany. He co-authored DIN SPEC 92001, Europe's first AI quality standards, chaired Germany's DIN/DKE AI standards committee, and advises AI governance startups including Calvin Risk. He most recently led Sony AI's Barcelona office and teaches AI entrepreneurship as an Adjunct Professor at ESADE. He was an Assistant Professor in Data Science at City, University of London, with a PhD in Cognitive Science (summa cum laude, Osnabrück/DE) and a Diplom in Mathematics (Erlangen-Nürnberg/DE).