One of the first alumni to graduate from our program, Hui Zhang, began his talk by fondly remembering the admission interview he had with our Business School’s International Department Head Jochen Ebert 20 years ago. Having moved to Pforzheim from Beijing, a city of 24 million-odd residents, Hui initially had a cultural shock since the two cities were culturally and demographically poles apart. But with time, he realised the ideal location of Pforzheim in the state of Baden-Württemberg and the exposure to the industry the students and professors were able to get because of this. According to Hui, the MBA program comprises a perfect combination of theory, application and access to the industry. He highlighted an exciting marketing project of the first-generation Porsche Cayenne that some of his friends were working on at that time. Today, Hui serves as the Group VP responsible for all European operations at NIO, a China-based Global Start-Up with over 7000 Employee and worldwide food-prints in China, Europe, Silicon Valley- US, designing, engineering, manufacturing premium electric vehicles. “Designed in Germany, Made in China” as all 4 vehicles launched are designed by the international talented team in Munich.  NIO is gearing up for a market launch in the tough European market in the second half of 2021 and Hui is one of the key persons responsible to make the project a success.

When asked what he remembers most about the MBA programme, internationality of the batches and strong friendships were Reha’s first two responses. He continued that the programme allows for exploration in different fields and that it helps students to learn new topics in order to maximize their experience in the MBA. Reha manages two teams at the consulting company bridgingIT on respective topics of digital products and digital lean processes. His personal focus is on mobility and smart city. He also is involved in an exciting newly launched project in Stuttgart Region that is all about autonomously driving busses. Upon his conclusion, Reha did not miss the chance to remind our students about the opportunities the programme offers along with the importance of the German language classes.

Swetha is one of the students who successfully converted their company project into a thesis opportunity and then into a full time at Francotyp. She joined as a project manager and has now moved to the Product Owner role. She gave the students a glimpse into her daily tasks such as talking to customers to understand their needs, then going into development. She emphasized how she still applies the learnings from her innovation management and consulting courses. “Each course is so hands-on, with so many projects to work on”, she asserted.

Our final alumnus described the growing Start-Up that is Novilio Consulting. Focused on sustainable optimization of business processes for largely blue chip companies, Tim Ortmann shared how the MBA programme led to the successes of Novilio today. He appreciates the large entrepreneurial spirit of the MBA along with informative lectures and passionate lecturers, who usually come from an industry background. Finally, a common theme amongst our alumni, Tim shared the internationality of the students prepares you for the multicultural teamwork in industry.