Advisory Committee of the Fraunhofer Academy

The Advisory Committee of the Fraunhofer Academy was established in June 2012. Its main function is to advise the Fraunhofer Academy on relevant future-oriented matters.

The committee members are representatives from the educational research sector, industry, education-related professional organizations and educational institutions.

Members of the Advisory Committee:

Prof. Dr. Alexander Kurz

Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Senior Vice President Personnel and Legal Affairs, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Prof. Dr. Alexander Kurz (born 1961) studied law in Tübingen and Regensburg. After the legal professional training of the Federal State of Baden-Wuerttemberg, he completed his law studies with the second state law examination in 1988. He received his PhD in administrative science (Dr. rer. publ.) at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer. From 1989 to 2000, he held various positions at the Research Center of Karlsruhe, where he was most recently Head of the Department of Personnel and Social Affairs. He then moved to the European nuclear research center (CERN) in Geneva.

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Dr. Christoph Anz

Director of Education Policy, BMW Group

Dr. Anz holds a PhD in History, Scandinavian Studies and Political Science. After completing his degree, he joined the Max-Plank-Institute for History in Göttingen, where he undertook research especially on socio-historical subjects and diverse aspects of the history of science. He then moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where he supported the establishment of the Södertörns University. This experience led him to become involved in the education policy field, so that upon his return to Germany, it became the focus of his professional activities.

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Dirk Deuster

Director of Robert Bosch Kolleg and Bosch Training Center
In his function of director of the "corporate university"- Robert Bosch Kolleg- and of the Bosch Training Centers, he is responsible for continuing education at Robert Bosch GmbH. In addition he is responsible for the competence management and management of trainings.

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Prof. Dr. Ada Pellert

President of the Berlin University for Professional Studies

Since January 1, 2009, Prof. Dr. Pellert has been founding President and Professor of Education and Competence Management at the Berlin University for Professional Studies. From 2005 to 2008, Prof. Dr. Pellert was Professor of Continuing Education Research and Educational Management and Vice Rector for Teaching, Continuing Education and Structural Issues at Danube University, Krems. Previoulsy, she was Vice Rector for Teaching, Staff Development and Equal Opportunity at the University of Graz.

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Rudolf Repgen

Managing Director of the IESE Business School - Campus Munich

Rudolf Repgen is Managing Director at the Munich campus of the international IESE Business School. His focus is on executive education for top management. He also supports companies, foundations, and individuals who realize joint programs, partnerships, and research projects with IESE.

As a fully qualified lawyer with additional journalistic training as a scholarship holder of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, he worked for several years in executive positions in the media industry. During this time, he completed the Global Executive MBA at IESE. Since joining IESE Business School in 2002, he was initially responsible for setting up the program offerings at the Munich location.

Today, he is particularly interested in how the humane can win through the use of technology in business. He supports individuals and teams in coaching projects. On behalf of IESE, he is also responsible for the partnership program with the Fraunhofer Academy on the entrepreneurial potential of artificial intelligence.

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Dr. Ingo Rollwagen

Expert for Corporate Foresight, Technology and Education, Deutsche Bank Research

Since 2004, Dr. Rollwagen has been working as expert for Corporate Foresight, Technology and Education for the Deutsche Bank Research and the Alfred-Herrhausen Society, the International Forum of Deutsche Bank. Previously, he had worked for several years for the DaimlerChrysler's Society and Technology Research Group in Berlin.

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Enrico Rühle

Executive Director of Festo Didactic SE

After completing his studies in electrical engineering and technical computer science as well as business administration in Germany, the USA and Asia, he began his professional career in 1998 as a management trainee at TÜV Rheinland in Taiwan. Over the course of the following 16 years, he held various top management positions for TÜV Rheinland in Japan and India, among other places.

In 2011, he acted as Founder and Director of TÜV Rheinland Bangladesh, parallel to this activity he completed a part-time Master of Business Administration course in General Management, Finance, Technology and Innovation Management.

At the end of 2014, Mr. Rühle returned to Germany as Divisional Board Member for Academy and Life Care, and in May 2016 he finally took over the position of Board Member of Festo Didactic SE in Denkendorf. In addition to his activities, he was a board member of the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, co-founder of the European Business Group India and a contributor to the Project Management Institute.

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Jan Veira

Founder and Executive Director of University4Industry

Jan Veira co-founded University4Industry in 2015. The Munich-based startup helps companies prepare their employees for the challenges of the digital future. It offers online training courses that enable many employees to efficiently obtain the right qualifications.

At University4Industry, Jan Veira looks after customers from the high-tech, automotive and automation sectors. His main focus is on the topics of industrial digitalization (Industry 4.0/Industrial IoT/Connectivitiy) and industrial security. He is an expert in digital training formats that work in industrial and corporate contexts and lead to measurable business impact. With his company, he works on the latest innovations in online learning.Prior to founding University4Industry, he was a Junior Partner at McKinsey & Company. He has 10+ years of experience in the high-tech industry, an MBA from the University of California Berkeley and a diploma in physics from TU Berlin.

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Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hermann Schumacher

Managing Director of the SAPS

Hermann Schumacher has been head of the School of Advanced Professional Studies (SAPS), a joint academic institution of the University of Ulm and the Ulm University of Technology, since 2011. SAPS coordinates the activities of both institutions in the field of in-service academic continuing education and offers both in-service master's programs and certificate studies including Certificates of Advanced Studies and Diplomas of Advanced Studies.

During the federal-state competition "Advancement through Education: Open Universities", Professor Schumacher was a member of the competition's circle of university leaders and coordinated this group in recent years. He is currently involved in the HRK's AG Wissenschaftliche Weiterbildung (Working Group on Academic Continuing Education).

Professor Schumacher received his doctorate in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen University in 1986. After four years as a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Communications Research in Red Bank, NJ, he was appointed to the University of Ulm in 1990. He has been involved in scientific education since 1997, when he co-founded the Academy for Science, Business and Technology at the University of Ulm. He was a member of the association's board until the end of 2020.

His research activities cover semiconductor heterostructure devices, especially in the material system silicon/germanium and their circuit applications in the field of millimeter-wave circuit technology.

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