Claudia Hilker (born 6 March 1965) is a German management consultant, educator, and author specialising in digital marketing, social media, and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) to marketing and business. She is the founder and managing director of Hilker Consulting, operates e-learning programmes and academies for digital marketing and AI, and has published non-fiction works on content marketing and social media.

Early life and education Claudia Hilker was born 6 March 1965 in Minden, Germany. She completed studies in German, literature and media studies, followed by postgraduate studies in business administration, marketing and information technology. She received a DAAD scholarship for a creative writing and e-learning programme at the University of Calgary and was awarded a prize for her master's thesis. In 2016, she earned a doctorate at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava with a dissertation on social media marketing in the insurance sector. In 2025, Hilker completed the executive programme Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy at the MIT Sloan School of Management and MIT CSAIL.

Career

Consulting Hilker founded a consulting firm Hilker Consulting, a consultancy that advises B2B and other organisations on digital marketing, social media, content marketing, digital transformation and use of AI in marketing, sales and HR. It is focused on strategic consulting, implementation, training programs and certified online courses and worked with companies such as IBM, AXA, Salesforce, Alianze Deutsche Telecom, among others. Her company also operates a dedicated “KI-Akademie” (AI Academy) offering state-recognised and subsidisable (ZFU / AZAV-eligible) AI/continuing-education programmes for managers, consultants and practitioners.

In 2020–2021, she served chief marketing officer of a company, specialising in chatbots and digital assistants.

Since 2021, Hilker has expanded the academy’s portfolio to include certified continuing education in AI for business, marketing automation, and AI leadership.

Educational career Claudia Hilker teaches and hold lectures at a number of German higher-education and professional training institutions. She has taught social media–related courses at institutions including Quadriga University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Business Academy Ruhr in Dortmund and Cologne University of Applied Sciences. From 2017 to 2020, Hilker was a professor of marketing at AMD Akademie Mode & Design (part of Hochschule Fresenius).

Research and publications Hilker’s doctoral dissertation, Social Media Marketing Using the Example of the Insurance Industry (Social-Media-Marketing am Beispiel der Versicherungsbranche), examined the strategic and operational use of social media in the insurance industry and proposed models for measurement and a “Social Media Balanced Scorecard”.

She is the author of multiple professional books on online marketing, social media and content marketing, including Content Marketing in der Praxis (2017) and AI Leadership Excellence: KI für Führungskräfte (2025).

Hilker is active as a speaker, author and commentator on digital-marketing and AI topics and conducts research on these subjects.

Publications

Books

AI Leadership Excellence: KI für Führungskräfte. (2025) HMDPublishing. ISBN 978-1835564790 LinkedIn Marketing und Social Selling. (2022) Books on Demand. ISBN 978-3756290703 Digital Marketing Leitfaden. Strategien für Wachstum. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2019, ISBN 978-3-7481-9458-3. Content Marketing in der Praxis: Ein Leitfaden – Strategie, Konzepte und Praxisbeispiele für B2B- und B2C-Unternehmen. Taschenbuch Springer Gabler, 2017, ISBN 978-3-658-13882-0. Eignung von Social-Media-Netzwerken für Unternehmen zur Marketing-Kommunikation mit Kunden. In: Günter Hofbauer, Volker Oppitz: Wissenschaft und Forschung. Berlin University Press, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-944072-34-0. mit Stefan Raake: Web 2.0 in der Finanzbranche. Springer, 2010, ISBN 978-3-658-00556-6. in Stefan Raake, Ralf Pipers (Hrsg.): Versicherer im Internet: Status, Trends und Perspektiven. Verlag Versicherungswirtschaft, 2010, ISBN 978-3-89952-470-3. Erfolgreiche Social-Media-Strategien für die Zukunft: Mehr Profit durch Facebook, Twitter, Xing und Co. Linde international, 2012, ISBN 978-3-7093-0368-9. Social Media für Unternehmer: Wie man Xing, Twitter, Youtube und Co. erfolgreich im Business einsetzt. Linde international, 2010, ISBN 978-3-7093-0322-1. Der Wow-Effekt – kleines Budget und große Wirkung: Besser verkaufen mit kreativen Marketing-Ideen. BusinessVillage, 2009, ISBN 978-3-938358-66-5. Kunden gewinnen und binden: Mehr verkaufen durch innovatives Marketing. Verlag Versicherungswirtschaft, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89952-436-9.

Audio

WOW-Marketing: besser verkaufen mit kreativen Marketingideen. BusinessVillage, 2009, ISBN 978-3-938358-66-5.

Academic publications

Social-Media-Marketing am Beispiel der Versicherungsbranche. Dissertation. Slowakische Technische Universität Bratislava, 2016. Innovations in the insurance marketing through social media. In: The 4th International Conference Innovation Management, Entrepreneurship and Corporate Sustainability. University of Economics, Prague, 2016 Possibilities of business risk reduction in insurances through the systematic use of social media and business intelligence tools. In: Conference on Finance and Risk, Band 17th International Scientific Conference Finance and Risk. Wirtschaftsuniversität Bratislava, 2015

References