Endowed professorships
Providing Perspectives: Endowed professorships as a link between business and science
Business and academia mutually benefit from an endowed professorship: The additional professorship can be used to develop new, promising topics that might otherwise not be supported by public funding. The sponsor is given the opportunity to make an important contribution to the further development of research in areas close to their heart. In addition, he can specifically promote the education of highly qualified young researchers and attract young talent at an early stage. He can contribute his ideas to the design of the professorship, participate in the naming of the professorship and thus anchor the topics that he considers important at the university. With his support, he enables Business School Pforzheim to set new accents in teaching and research, to significantly deepen its fields of expertise or even to develop new ones, and thus to further sharpen its national and international profile. This creates a win-win situation for both partners.
The independence of research and teaching means that endowed professorships are not bound to contract research. The endowed professor is selected by the university, not by the sponsor. However, he or she sets specific accents in teaching and research in accordance with the profile of the professorship - theory-based and practice-oriented.
By establishing an endowed professorship, companies intensify their commitment to Business School Pforzheim. Application-oriented research and teaching offer excellent points of contact for endowed professorships. At the same time, it opens up additional potential for knowledge transfer to corporate practice.
If you would like to use the potential of Business School Pforzheim and generate innovations, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. We will gladly discuss the opportunities and possibilities that an endowed professorship has to offer.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Bertagnolli
Endowed Chair of Lean Management and Resource Efficiency
The endowed professorship is sponsored by psd Bank Karlsruhe-Neustadt eG.
Prof. Dr. Fernando Fastoso
Endowed professorship Brand Management esp. Luxury and High-Class Brands
The endowed professorship is sponsered by a consortium of sponsors, including Wellendorff, Chopard, Binder, Staib, Bauer-Walser, egf Eduard G. Fidel, Sparkasse Pforzheim Calw and the Bundesverband Schmuck und Uhren.
Prof. Dr. Hartmut Winkler
Endowed Professorship Tax and Auditing
The endowed professorship is sponsored by EY Germany.
New endowed professorship: Fernando Fastoso explores all aspects of luxury
Business School Pforzheim has a new endowed professor for luxury. This is how one could describe the endowed professorship for high class and luxury brands, which Professor Dr. Fernando Fastoso has held since the winter semester of 2022. A consortium of sponsors, led by the Pforzheim-based jewelry manufacturer Wellendorff, makes this unique professorship possible.
The new professorship will contribute to both the Business Administration Bachelor's programs and the Master's program in Creative Communication and Brand Management. It forms an interface between business administration, design and technology – all in compliance with the concept of the interdisciplinary approach of our school. The core content of the research and work field is the topic of luxury. The endowed professorship is designed to run for three years, after which it will become a permanent university professorship.
Professor Dr. Fastoso gained experience as a university lecturer in Marketing at the Universities of York and Bradford in England for the last 15 years. Before, he had worked in account management and strategic planning for the DDB network in Germany for ten years. During his work there he managed international accounts for well-known brands such as KPM Berlin, Henkel, Bahlsen, Metro and Deutsche Bank Leasing.
Fernando Fastoso studied Business Administration in Düsseldorf and Newcastle (UK) and subsequently completed a part-time doctorate on international advertising standardization at the University of Bradford (UK).
As of the winter semester 2015, two new additions strengthen the sustainability team at INEC. Professor Ingela Tietze is moving from Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences to her old home in Baden to teach and conduct research on sustainable energy management at Business School Pforzheim. She successfully gained an engineering degree at the Technical University of Munich followed by a PhD at the Technical University of Karlsruhe under Prof. Otto Rentz (who, by the way, held the professorship at Pforzheim University in the 1970s to which Professors Stehfest and Schmidt were later appointed).
The industrial engineer Frank Bertagnolli also studied in Karlsruhe. After receiving his doctorate, he worked in business - his special topic being "Lean Management". He takes over the newly created endowed professorship "Lean Management and Resource Efficiency" of the psd-Bank Karlsruhe-Neustadt.
Thus, the team of professors around the two study programs Resource Efficiency Management (B.Sc.) and Life Cycle & Sustainability (M.Sc.) is complete. The professors Hendrik Lambrecht (Industrial Ecology), Nikolaus Thißen (Sustainable Systems Process Engineering), Tobias Viere (Energy and Material Flow Analyses) and Claus Lang-Koetz (Sustainable Technology and Innovation Management) have joined the team in recent years. An important link to the faculty of engineering is also Prof. Jörg Woidasky, who supervises the topic "Sustainable Product Development". Prof. Mario Schmidt (Ecological Business Management) heads the Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC). In addition, there are several scientific staff members who have decisively supported INEC with their expertise for many years.
With 8 "sustainable" professors, a strong cluster has emerged at the Pforzheim site, which builds bridges into business practice and into the scientific community of sustainability science through teaching, but above all through its application-oriented research.
Bernhard Slavetinsky, Chairman of the Board of PSD Bank, signed the cooperation agreement on Tuesday for an endowed professorship that the Resource Efficiency Management program will receive in addition to the "normal" professorships funded by the state. "Our ambition is to help shape a sustainable future and generate long-term value together. We are very proud of our partnership with the renowned Business School Pforzheim and see our commitment as an investment in what is probably the most valuable resource of all - the education of young people," explained Bernhard Slavetinsky.
The study program "strikes a chord" with companies and students - this is how Professor Dr. Martin Erhardt, President of Business School Pforzheim, characterizes the Bachelor's degree program. The university is therefore very grateful for the bank's commitment. The professorship will make it possible to develop an even stronger profile. The professorship is intended to help build bridges to practice in companies and to link topics such as lean management and raw materials management with sustainability issues.
PSD Bank has already supported the course in recent months. Holger Morlock, Head of Marketing, explained that PSD Bank also supports a series of lectures on resource efficiency, provides scholarships for students and plans a sponsorship award.
