Josef Ackermann, born on February 7, 1948, in the Swiss Canton of St. Gallen, is Chairman of the Management Board and of the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank.

He studied Economics and Social Sciences at the University of St. Gallen, and in 1977 – after obtaining his doctorate – joined Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA). In 1990, Ackermann was appointed to the Executive Board of SKA, becoming its President in 1993.

In 1996, Ackermann joined the Board of Managing Directors of Deutsche Bank, where he was responsible for the investment banking division. Under his leadership, this business unit developed into one of Deutsche Bank's principal revenue sources and entered the top group of global investment banks. In 2002, he became Spokesman of the Board of Managing Directors and Chairman of the Group Executive Committee. He was appointed Chairman of the Management Board on February 1, 2006.

Mr. Ackermann is a member of the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG (second deputy chairman), a non-Executive Member of the Board of Directors of Royal Dutch Shell plc and a member of the International Advisory Council of Zurich Financial Services Group. He also plays an active role in, among other things, the International Monetary Conference (President), the Initiative Finanzstandort Deutschland (Member
of the Initiators’ Group), the Institute of International Finance (Chairman of the Board), the World Economic Forum (CoChairman of the Foundation Board), the St. Gallen Foundation for International Studies (Chairman), the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance (Member of the Honorary Senate) and the Metropolitan Opera New York (Member of the Board of Advisory Directors).
In 2007, Mr. Ackermann accepted an appointment as a Visiting Professor in Finance at the London School of Economics. In July 2008, he was appointed Honorary Professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt.

Peter Amon is the President Continental Europe for ARAMARK, a global leader in professional services, providing catering and facilities management solutions around the world with more than 250.000 employees.

Prior to joining ARAMARK, Peter Amon worked in various leadership roles for Unilever and Kraft Foods in Europe, the US and in Asia. He has a successful 20 year track record of managing global icon brands like Knorr, Lipton, Philadelphia or Lunchables as well as regional brands like Miracoli, Pfanni or Mondamin.

Peter Amon began his career at Unilever in Germany and before joining ARAMARK he led the food businesses in China and in Germany. Within Kraft Foods he held positions with increasing responsibility in the areas of marketing and strategy that included Marketing Director Kraft Germany, Director Commercialization Europe and Director Strategy Cheese, Meals and Enhancer Divisions Kraft North America.

Peter Amon received a MBA from the University of Würzburg, Germany. He is active in various boards of trustees and charitable organizations.

Johannes M. Bauer is a Professor in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University where he is also the Director for Special Programs of the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law.  He is currently the Chairman of the TPRC, the Research Conference for Communications, Information and Internet Policy and serves on the Board of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS), as well as on the International Scientific Advisory Board of LIRNEasia, a think tank in Colombo, Sri Lanka).

After graduate studies in the U.S. and in Europe, Prof. Bauer joined Michigan State University in 1990. He received his doctorate in economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria. Prof. Bauer was affiliated as a visiting professor with the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands (2000-2001), the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China (2002), and the University of Constance, Germany (summer 2010).

Prof. Bauer’s research covers a wide range of issues related to the evolution of communications and information industries, in particular the design and effect of public policies towards next-generation networks and services, the economics of the Internet, and mobile communications. He also addresses issues of business strategy, often from a comparative and international perspective.  Prof. Bauer has served as an advisor to public and private sector organizations in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.

C. B. Bhattacharya is the E.ON Chair Professor in Corporate Responsibility at ESMT European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, Germany. On September 1, 2010 the president appointed him the associate dean of international relations. Previously he was the Everett W. Lord Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing at the School of Management at Boston University. C. B. received his PhD in Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in 1984. Before joining Boston University, he was on the faculty at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University. Prior to his PhD, he worked for three years as a Product Manager in Reckitt Benckiser plc.
His expertise is in the area of business strategy innovation aimed at increasing both business and social value, specifically how companies can use underleveraged “intangible assets” such as corporate identity and reputation, membership and brand communities, and corporate social responsibility to strengthen stakeholder relationships. He is the Faculty director of the “Stakeholder Marketing Consortium”, an initiative that studies how firms can best consider the welfare of multiple stakeholder groups in their decision making, which he started in 2007 with support from the Aspen Institute. He has served on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Marketing, Corporate Reputation Review and Business Ethics Quarterly and has also served as Editor of special issues of California Management Review, Journal of Business Research and Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. He is co-editor of the book Global Challenges in Responsible Business and co-author of the forthcoming book Leveraging Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Maximizing Business and Soical Value both published by Cambridge University Press. He has published several articles in journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organization Science, and many other journals.  C.B won the William Novelli best paper award at the Social Marketing Conference in 1997 and the 2001 Broderick Prize for Research Excellence at Boston University. He was a finalist for the 2007 Faculty Pioneer Awards given by the Aspen Institute.

On the teaching front, C.B. received the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995, the highest teaching award at Emory University.  He is also part of the select group of faculty that has made it twice on Business Week’s Outstanding Faculty list.  He has conducted research and consulted for many organizations such as AT&T, Eli Lilly, E.ON, General Mills, Green Mountain Coffee, High Museum of Art, Hitachi Corporation, Procter & Gamble Company, Prudential Bank and Timberland. C.B. is often interviewed and quoted in publications such as Business Week, Forbes, Newsweek, The New York Times and The Economist and on TV stations such as CBS, FOX and PBS. He also frequently delivers keynote talks at company and industry conventions.

Thomas Aidan Curran is the Chief Technology Officer for Products and Innovation at the Deutsche Telekom AG, one of Europe's largest telecommunications providers, operating in circa 50 countries.
Previously Thomas was founder and CEO of Telemos AG, Munich Germany. In 2006 he was technology advisor to the chancellor of the New York City Department of Education.

In 2003 Thomas became a founder and director of the Digital Media Project, which created the first open-source DRM system. Thomas serves or has served as an advisor to or board member of several companies involved in digital content distribution technology, including Microsoft, and Wherever.tv.

Prior to this he was CTO at Bertelsmann AG, where he led strategic initiatives in new media and digital content distribution. He was responsible for the conglomerate’s global technology strategy, including a two-year IT reorganization. In 1997, Thomas founded Component Software, which developed the leading e-business integration platform software (BAPI) for customers including SAP, SAS, Baan, IBM, and Siebel. From 1992 to1997, he worked at SAP AG as technology strategist and product manager. Earlier, he founded a software development company that made a code management tool for Windows programming teams.

Thomas has authored numerous books, articles and publications, including “SAP R/3 Business Blueprint: Understanding Enterprise Supply Chain Management” and “SAP R/3 Reporting and eBusiness Intelligence,” and he is the series editor for Prentice Hall’s “Enterprise Software.”

Thomas graduated from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently held teaching and research positions at the Wharton Analysis Center, the International Science Center (Berlin), Berlin University of the Arts, and Technical University Berlin.

Michael Diekmann studied law and philosophy at Göttingen University in Germany. After graduating in 1982, he headed up his own publishing business, Diekmann/Thieme, where he wrote and published a number of books.
In 1988, Diekmann joined Allianz as executive assistant to the manager of the company’s Hamburg office. In 1990, he assumed leadership of the Hamburg-Harburg Sales Office, then became Head of the Hannover office (1991) and Head of Customer Relationships in Munich (1993), as well as Head of Sales for the region of North-Rhine–Westphalia, in 1994.
In 1996, he went to Singapore to manage the Allianz Asia-Pacific business. Two years later, he was appointed to the Allianz AG management board. In Asia-Pacific, he turned loss-making subsidiaries into profitable businesses through acquisitions and the introduction of new infrastructure and new pricing models. In 2002, Mr. Diekmann became the head of the Allianz insurance business in the Americas.
Since April 2003, Mr. Diekmann has been the Chairman of the Board of Management of Allianz AG (which turned into Allianz SE in 2006).
Mr. Diekmann is Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Allianz Deutschland AG and Allianz Global Investors AG. He is also Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Allianz France SA and a member of the Supervisory Board of Allianz S.p.A.  In addition to his responsibilities at Allianz, he is Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Linde AG and BASF SE and Supervisory Board member of Siemens AG.

Soumitra Dutta is the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology and the academic director of elab@INSEAD, INSEAD's initiative in building a center of excellence in teaching and research in the digital economy (http://elab.insead.edu).

Prior to joining the faculty of INSEAD in 1989, he was employed with Schlumberger in Japan and General Electric in the USA. Professor Dutta obtained his Ph.D. in computer science and his M.Sc. in business administration from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a visiting Professor at several international universities including the University of California at Berkeley, Oxford and Cambridge.

His current research is on technology strategy and innovation at both corporate and national policy levels. His latest books are “Innovating at the Top” (Palgrave, 2009), “Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom” (Wiley, 2008) and “The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009: Mobility in a Networked World” (World Economic Forum 2009). He has co-authored ten other books including "The Bright Stuff" (Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2002), "Embracing the Net" (Financial Times, 2001) and "Process Reengineering, Organizational Change and Performance Improvement" (Mc-Graw Hill, 1999). He has won several awards for research and pedagogy including awards for the European Case of the Year from the European Case Clearing House in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2002.

He is actively involved in policy development at national and European levels. He is currently a member of the Advisory Committee for ICT for the Government of Qatar and has advised other national governments on ICT policy issues. He is the Chairman of the European Commission's Europe Innova panel on Innovation in the ICT sector and a member of the Steering Committee of eBSN, the European Commission's eBusiness Network initiative for SMEs.

His research has been showcased in the international media such as CNN, CNBC, BBC and international publications. He has taught in and consulted with international corporations across the world. He has directed top management programs for several companies and is a regular contributor to in-house management programs. He is a fellow of the World Economic Forum.

Detlef Eckert is Director "Policy Coordination and Strategy" in the Directorate General “Information Society and Media” (DG INFSO) of the European Commission in Brussels (Belgium). In this function he is responsible for developing and incubating policies, notably with respect to the Digital Agenda, the ICT component of the 7th Framework Programme (FP7), and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP). His Directorate is also responsible for economic and statistical analysis as well as evaluation and monitoring of all planned programmes and actions of DG INFSO.
From 2007 to 2009 he was Senior Advisor to the Director General of DG INFSO.
From 2002 to 2006 he took personal leave to work for Microsoft as Director responsible for the implementation of the Trustworthy Computing (TWC) initiative in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Before 2002, Detlef Eckert was Head of Division responsible for analysis and policy planning in the Directorate General Information Society; he launched a number of key policy initiatives that contributed to the full liberalisation of the European telecommunications markets in 1998. Other activities included the launch of the eEurope2002 and 2005 Action Plan which in the meantime has become the i2010 initiative. He was also responsible for a new network and information security policy at EU level leading inter alia to the foundation of the "European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA)".
Detlef Eckert joined the European Commission in 1988 as officer for State Aids in the agriculture sector. Before, from 1985 until 1988, he worked for the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Federal State of Bremen (Germany) responsible for regional policy and restructuring measures.
Born in Germany, Detlef Eckert graduated from the University of Siegen with a degree in Economics. He also obtained a Doctorate in Economics from the same university where he was assistant professor from 1979 until 1985.

In 1978 Mr Gardel graduated in Political Science. He also holds a doctorate in Business Law and diploma’s in European Law and European Institutions & Strategic Management.

Michel Gardel started his career in the automotive industry in 1980 with Ford France, where he held a number of positions before being appointed to Director Sales Planning & Distribution. In 1987 he joined Jaguar France as General Director.

In 1988 Mr Gardel joined BMW France as General Commercial Director and moved to Rover in 1997 where he was appointed Chairman.
Michel Gardel became Chairman of Fiat Auto in France in 1999.
In 2002 Mr Gardel joined Toyota France as Vice-President & General Director and was promoted to the position of President & COO in 2007.

Michel Gardel joined Toyota Motor Europe as Vice-President of External Affairs & Environmental Affairs in 2010. Effective April 1st, 2011, his scope of responsibility has increased, particularly in the area of communication, and he assumes the title of Vice-President Communication, External & Environmental Affairs.

Dr. Francesca Gino is an award-winning researcher and teacher in the Negotiations, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. She is also formally affiliated with the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. She teaches Negotiation in the MBA elective curriculum and in Executive Education programs at the school. She also co-teaches a PhD course on Decision Making and Ethics. In addition to teaching, she advises firms and not-for-profit organizations in the areas of negotiation, decision-making, and organizational behavior.

Her research focuses on interpersonal influences in various areas, including decision making and negotiation, teamwork, ethics, and innovation. Dr. Gino publishes widely in top management, organizational behavior, and psychology journals. Her studies have been featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, and Psychology Today, and her work has been discussed on NPR and CBS radio. She has earned major research awards from the National Science Foundation and the Academy of Management.

Before joining the Harvard Business School faculty, Professor Gino taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and at the Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to her Carnegie Mellon appointment, she spent two years at HBS as a postdoctoral fellow, lecturer, and senior researcher. A native of Italy, Professor Gino holds a Ph.D. in economics and management from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Trento.

Michał Grajek joined the ESMT faculty as an assistant professor in January 2007. In January 2010 he was promoted to associate professor. Previously he worked as a research fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. He received his doctorate degree in economics with honors (summa cum laude) from the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in 2004.
Michał's research focuses on the frontier of industrial organization, where he utilizes advanced econometric methods to address issues related to modern economy. His area of research includes topics such as network effects, compatibility, and standardization with particular emphasis on Information and Communication Technologies. He has also worked on investment and regulation issues in network industries and standardization in international trade.
Michał teaches MBA and EMBA courses on Microeconomics and Competition Policy.

Jürgen Großmann was born on 4 March 1952 in Mülheim an der Ruhr. He graduated in Ferrous Metallurgy in 1977 and received a Doctorate in Metallurgy in 1980. He holds a postgraduate business degree from Purdue University.
Jürgen Großmann has been the sole shareholder of Georgs- marienhütte GmbH since 1997. He was also Managing Director of that company until 2006. The Georgsmarienhütte Group produces steel for a variety of applications and currently comprises some 50 companies. Despite the global financial crisis, the group recorded more than € 2 billion in revenue with about 10,000 employees.
Since 1 October 2007, Jürgen Großmann is Chief Executive Officer of RWE AG in Essen, one of the leading power and gas suppliers in Europe.
He is member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bahn and Volkswagen (until May 2011). He is married with two daughters and one son and enjoys sailing and hunting in his spare time.

The Hungarian-born, former Wharton student, is now based at Madrid's IE Business School. Hamori's insights into careers involve huge amounts of data -- more than 10,000 top managers in one project - but answers some fundamental questions - such as what is the quickest way up the career ladder? The Professor of Human Resource Management has identified five career fallacies, which often hold people back.
At Wharton she worked with Peter Capelli and has published articles in the Harvard Business Review with her mentor most notably "The New Road to the Top". The route to the top is not as long or as winding as might be expected. "If you are a senior executive today, the path to the top is much shorter, because you would probably have had fewer jobs; there are fewer stops on the way. This finding is very consistent with the fact that corporate hierarchies are flatter than they used to be. So you probably spend a little less time in each job that you would have in 1980," says Hamori.
While many commentators advocate a passage to the top via a number of different companies, picking up experience on the way, as the best career strategy today, Hamori's findings appear to contradict this.
Few academics combine Hamori's appetite for "proper" research with such interesting, behaviour-changing conclusions.

Dietmar Harhoff is Professor of Business Administration at the Ludwig-Maximilian University (LMU) Munich and currently Visiting Professor at Stanford University. He is the Director of the Institute of Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (INNO-tec, www.inno-tec.de) and Director of the LMU Entrepreneurship Center. After graduating with a Diploma degree in mechanical engineering, Dietmar Harhoff began his professional career as a research engineer in Great Britain and Germany. From 1985 to 1987, he was a McCloy Scholar at Harvard University (M.P.A 1987). In his MIT doctoral thesis (Ph.D. 1991) he analyzed research incentives and voluntary information disclosure.
After joining the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, he became its Associate Scientific Director in 1995. In 1998 he assumed his current position at LMU where he was a co-founder of LMU's Entrepreneurship Center in 2000.
Dietmar Harhoff’s research focuses on issues in innovation and entrepreneurship, intellectual property and industrial economics. His research results have been published in a large number of book and journal articles. Besides advising several public and private organizations, he is the Chairmain of the Expert Commission Research and Innovation (EFI) of the German Federal government and an elected member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (ACATECH) and of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Prof. Kagermann is President of acatech (the National Academy of Science and Engineering) and chairman of the National Platform Electromobility (NPE).  Prior to joining acatech, Prof. Kagermann was CEO of SAP AG. He joined SAP in 1982 and was initially responsible for product development in the areas of cost accounting and controlling.
Professor Kagermann holds a doctorate in theoretical physics from the Technical University Braunschweig. Before joining SAP AG, he taught physics and computer science at both the Technical University Braunschweig and the University of Mannheim.
Prof. Kagermann is currently a member of the supervisory boards of Deutsche Bank AG, Munich Re and Deutsche Post AG as well as a member of the board of directors of Nokia Corporation and Wipro Technologies. He is also a member of the Honorary Senate of the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners.

Ralf Koeppe is Vice President Research & Development of KUKA Laboratories.

Before joining KUKA in 2002, Ralf Koeppe was with the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) where he worked on intelligent sensory robot control, human robot skill transfer and telepresence systems.

Ralf Koeppe received the "Master of Science" degree in Mechanical Engineering from Portland State University, Oregon (1989),
the Diplom Ingenieur degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Stuttgart (1992), and the doctorate degree in Technical Sciences from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zürich (2002).

Since 2005, he holds a lecture position at the University of Stuttgart in the field of robotics.

KUKA Laboratories GmbH is the service robotic company of KUKA. It has been established with the object of placing greater emphasis on development in this field. This new company will also serve as a source of technological innovation for the KUKA Group as a whole.

Konstantin Korotov joined ESMT European School of Management and Technology in August 2005 as an assistant professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in August 2008. He is also Director of  ESMT's Center for Leadership Development Research. Konstantin is also an executive coach and a research fellow with the INSEAD Global Leadership Center in Fontainebleau, France, where he also received his PhD in Management (Organizational Behavior). In addition to his academic work, he has over 15 years of practical Leadership Development experience in the US, Russia, UK, France, Portugal, Spain, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Hong Kong, Brazil, and Argentina.

 
Konstantin's dissertation was about the dynamics of executives’ identity change and conditions supporting personal transformation. He currently conducts research on leadership development, leadership coaching, and executive education. His recent work is reflected in The Coaching Kaleidoscope: Insights from the Inside, a new book co-edited with Manfred Kets de Vries, Laura Guillen, and Elizabeth Florent-Treacy (Palgrave, 2010) that is a sequel to Coach and Couch: The Psychology of Making Better Leaders (with Kets de Vries and Florent-Treacy, Palgrave, 2007), as well as in book chapters and academic and practitioner articles on leadership development, and teaching materials for participants in executive educationprograms. Konstantin is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies.

As an expert on leadership and management in Russia and post-Soviet economies, Konstantin also conducts research on leadership styles of business elite and emerging leaders in the region. With Manfred Kets de Vries and associates he co-authored The New Global Russian Business Leaders book (Edward Elgar, 2004), co-edited a special issue of Organizational Dynamics on Russian Leadership (September 2008), and published academic and practitioner-oriented articles on leadership, leadership development, and careers in Russia. He has also written a number of case studies on leadership challenges. His case-study on Mikhail Khodorkovsky and YUKOS: Chelovek s rublyom [Man with a Ruble] (with Kets de Vries, Florent, and Shekshnia, 2004) won the European Foundation for Management Development case study competition. Konstantin is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies.
Konstantin is the program director for ESMT’s Leading People and Teams executive program. He also teaches Organizational Behavior and Integrative Leadership courses in the ESMT MBA and EMBA programs. In 2009 and 2010 he received the Executive MBA Best Teacher Award. His executive education portfolio includes programs for, among others, Deutsche Telekom, RWE, KPMG, Elster Group, Deloitte, McDonald’s, BAT, B/S/H, B.Braun, Almirall, Ernst & Young, XEROX, E.ON, Deutsche Bank, Postbank, EBC, and Pernod-Ricard.
Konstantin consults companies worldwide on issues of leadership development, executive coaching, and mentoring. He is also a practicing leadership coach.
Additionally, Konstantin has held positions of Director of Professional Development for Ernst & Young (CIS), consultant for the Center for Business Skills Development (CBSD), and researcher at New York University.

Alexander Landia graduated from Tbilisi State University with an honors degree in mathematics, and earned his Ph.D. in the Minsk Institute of Mathematics. In 1993 he joined Dresdner Bank in Frankfurt, Germany and left in 2001 as first vice president of oil and gas global debt. During this period, he led or worked on major infrastructure projects around the world from Canada to Hong Kong. In 1996 he began working with major Russian companies, most notably on arranging of project financings in excess of more than US$6bn for OAO Gazprom in 1997 and the purchase by Ruhrgas AG of shares in OAO Gazprom in 1999.
From 2001 until joining OAO SUEK, Mr. Landia was a partner of Accenture. He was general director of Accenture Russia until 2004 and thereafter became Global Gas Lead Partner. The geography of his various projects ranged from Russia, Germany, the UK, Austria, Italy, Slovakia, and the US to Qatar, Nigeria, and South Korea.
Mr. Landia is Chairman of the Board of Directors of SUEK since 2006. He was elected Chairman of Year 2007 by the Association of Independent Directors of Russia. Mr. Landia serves since 2006 on the Board of Directors of Lambert Energy Advisory Ltd. in London – an oil & gas M&A merchant bank. He is further a member of the Advisory Board EMBA Utility Management of Jacobs University, Bremen.

Zhike Lei joined ESMT as an assistant professor in January, 2009. Previously she was a professor at George Mason University's School of Management. She received her PhD in Organizational Behavior from Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Zhike also holds a MBA degree in Marketing and Management from Illinois State University and Bachelor of Arts degree in Advertising from Beijing Institute of Business, China.
Zhike’s research interests broadly center on understanding how individuals, teams and organizations build safety and reliability in organizations by systematically managing and learning from error and failure. Her research on error identification and medical errors has received major awards from the Juran Center for Leadership in Quality at University of Minnesota and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Her work on seeking help in face of uncertainty and ambiguity has appeared in Journal of Applied Psychology, a leading journal in the field.
Zhike also worked as a communication and marketing specialist for leading advertising and marketing firms including Dentsu Inc. and ACNielsen in Beijing, China, as well as startup companies in Chicago, USA. She has served on the patient safety committee for major health information organizations in China and USA such as NOVARHIO and INOVA Healthcare System. Zhike has also conducted executive programs and consulting projects for a variety of companies and organizations including Allianz, Cathay Pacific Airways, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Post, E.ON, Lufthansa, Siemens, Standard Chartered Bank, and ThyssenKrupp.
For the calendar years of 2010 and 2011, Zhike is the coordinator of the Faculty Research Seminar (FRS) together with Sumitro Banerjee.

Is responsible for representing Microsoft Corporation and engaging with governments, large corporations, key partners and academic elites both cross Europe and on a global level.  His goal is to ensure that Microsoft continues to act as a relevant, trusted and valuable partner that listens and contributes to enabling long-term growth, local economic competitiveness, job creation and innovation both in public and private sectors.
Jan Muehlfeit is a Vice-Chairman of the European Academy of Business in Society (EABiS) and board member of the Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Europe (JAYE). He is also a Co-Chairman of the European Industry Leadership Board on e-Skills and a member of the Board of AIESEC, world's largest student-run organization and an international platform for young people to discover and develop their potential. Jan Muehlfeit has been serving in different advisory boards of several European governments in the field of ICT, national competitiveness and education.  He also represents Microsoft on the TABD, the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and is involved as advisor in different projects of European Policy Center (EPC). Jan Muehlfeit is member of executive advisory board of Ovum, part of the Datamonitor Group. He is a board member of Czech National museum.

Dr. Henrik Mueller, born 1965, is the deputy editor-in-chief of manager magazin, Germany's leading business weekly. He studied economics at the University of Kiel and the University of the Armed Forces Hamburg and journalism at Deutsche Journalisten-Schule in Munich. He has specialized in monetary and international aspects of economics and wrote several books in this field. Before joining manager magazin in 2000, he worked for the magazine Stern.

Charles A. O’Reilly III is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Management at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford. He began his education in 1965 at the University of El Paso Texas where he received his BS in Chemistry. In 1971 he received his MBA in Information Systems, from the University of California, Berkeley where he also received his PhD in Organizational Behavior in 1975. He began his teaching career as an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1976-80. He later became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1980-92. In 1993 he joined Stanford University where he has been since, and has received many awards, including the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award in 2002. He was also the Henry Ford Carroll Professor at the Harvard Business School in 1999-2000.

Professor O’Reilly’s research interests are studies of leadership, organizational culture and demography, the management of human resources, and the impact of change and innovation on firms. His previous books include: Winning through Innovation: a Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal with Mike Tushman (Harvard Business School Press, 2002) and Hidden Value: Getting Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People with Jeff Pfeffer (Harvard Business School Press, 2000). This book shows how successful firms are able to win the war for talent – and why their competitors find it so difficult to replicate their success. He has authored more than 100 papers and is writing his next book, with Mike Tushman, Ambidextrous Organizations: Resolving the Innovator’s Dilemma which explores how managers can design organizations that can generate streams of innovation and deal with disruptive technological change.

Professor O’Reilly has consulted for a variety of public and private firms in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Asia. He also has developed, directed, and taught in executive programs for senior managers in innovation, technology, leadership, change, and human resources.

Craig L. Pearce is the Clifton Chair in Leadership and Director of Institute for Innovative Leadership at University of Nebraska. He holds a PhD in Management and Organizations from the University of Maryland - Robert H. Smith School of Business, holds an MBA from University of Wisconsin-Madison - School of Business and a BSc. in Management and Psychology from Penn State University.

Olaf Plötner is a member of ESMT's faculty and the managing director of ESMT Customized Solutions. As of January 2010 Olaf was appointed by the president to the position of associate dean of Executive Education at ESMT. He is a visiting professor at Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, USA and a regular guest lecturer at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Department of Marketing at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, ESCP (l’Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris), and the Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

He brings with him experience as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group and director at Siemens AG.
His publications focus on competitive strategy and marketing management in technology-based B2B markets.

Mario Rese has been with ESMT European School of Management and Technology since its foundation, when he was a visiting professor till 2006. From 2007 to 2010 he held an affiliate professor position before he was promoted to a full professor in October 2010. Previously Mario was a professor of Marketing at Ruhr-Universität Bochum from 2003 to 2010 and held a chair in Business Administration at the Universität Paderborn from 1999 to 2003. He received his Habilitation from the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in 1998 and his Doctorate in Economics from the Freie Universität Berlin in 1993.
He has numerous publications on topics such as competitive strategy, customer analysis and marketing controlling and more than 15 years experience in management training and consulting projects.

Jörg Rocholl has been the acting president of ESMT since July 2011. He joined ESMT in July of 2007 as an associate professor. In July 2010 he was promoted to full professor and awarded the first Ernst & Young Chair in Governance and Compliance. In September 2010 he was named as the associate dean of faculty and in April 2011, dean of faculty. Jörg holds both his PhD in Finance and Economics and his MPhil from Columbia Business School and received his “Diplom-Ökonom mit Auszeichnung” (Economics degree with distinction) from the Universität Witten/Herdecke in Germany.

Previously he was at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he  taught EMBA, MBA, and BSBA courses in Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurial Finance, and International Finance.

Jörg’s research interests are in the areas of Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance, and Financial Intermediation. Currently, he is researching the impact of political connections on firm value, the functioning of the interbank lending market, and the raising of funds in capital markets through initial public offerings (IPOs). His research has been accepted for publication in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies.

Jörg also worked with Boston Consulting Group in Frankfurt and London and Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and New York. Furthermore, he has been a visiting researcher at the Bundesbank’s Economic Research Center in Frankfurt. Jörg received the Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award and was awarded with the Lamfalussy Fellowship from the European Central Bank; several research grants from Columbia Business School, Kenan-Flagler Business School, and the FDIC; the Weatherspoon Teaching Award at Kenan-Flagler Business School; and a grant from the Westphal Foundation to conduct research in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.

Jörg's research has been portrayed in leading international media such as New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Börsen-Zeitung, Deutsche Welle TV, and ARD.

Lars-Hendrik Röller is the Chief Economic Policy Advisor to Chancellor Merkel and the Director General of the Economic and Financial Policy Division at the German Federal Chancellery.
He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Master of Arts in economics, a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence both from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.
From 2006 to 2011 Lars-Hendrik Röller was the President of ESMT European School of Management and Technology. In 2003 Lars-Hendrik Röller was appointed Europe’s first Chief Competition Economist of the European Commission, a position he held until 2006.
Previously he was a Director and a Research Professor (until December 2011) at the Wissen-schaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Europe’s largest social science research center, a Professor at Humboldt University, a Professor at INSEAD, an international Affiliate at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., a Director and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London, a Senior Fellow and Board Member of the think tank BRUEGEL in Brussels, as well as a visiting scholar at Stanford and New York University. He is the President of the German Economic Association and has been the President of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE). Lars-Hendrik Röller is a Fellow of the European Economic Association and a member of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. In 2002 he was awarded the Gossen Prize (to honor a German economist whose work has gained international reputation). Lars-Hendrik Röller has consulted with numerous international companies, governments and international organizations on issues of competition, strategy and regulation.

Guler Sabanci is Chairman and Managing Director of Sabancı Holding, the parent company of the Sabanci Group, Turkey’s leading industrial and financial conglomerate.  

A graduate of Bogazici University, Faculty of Business Administration,Guler Sabancı started her career at LASSA, Sabanci group’s tire production company, in 1978.  In 1985, she was appointed General Manager of KORDSA, the group’s tire cord production company.  In 1997, she assumed the office of President of Sabanci Holding’s Tire and Tire Reinforcement Materials Group.  Guler Sabanci was elected to her current post in May 2004.  

Guler Sabanci is the Founding President of Sabanci University and has been presiding over the Board of Trustees of Sabanci University since its establishment in 1996.  She also acts as Chairman of Sakip Sabanci Museum.

Guler Sabanci is the President of the Board of Trustees of Hacı Omer Sabanci Foundation, charitable contributions of which have amounted to over USD 1.5 billion since it was founded in 1974.  

Guler Sabanci is the first female member of TUSIAD, Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association as well as the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT). She sits on the board of the International Crisis Group and the Atlantic Council and is also a member of the International Business Council of WEF.

In 2010, Guler Sabanci was named 3rd on the Financial Times’ list of the Top 50 Women in World Business.

Guler Sabanci is recipient of numerous awards, including, among others, the Spanish Order of Civil Merit and France’s Legion d’Honneur.

Felix Scheffler has been Head of Corporate top+ (Business Excellence Program of Siemens) & Corporate Quality Management (CQM) at Siemens AG since March 2009. As a leading global company in electronics and electrical engineering with some 400.000 employees worldwide, Siemens operates in the industry, energy and healthcare sectors. It is active in about 190 countries. In fiscal 2010, revenue from continuing operations (excluding Osram and Siemens IT Solutions and Services) totaled €69 billion and net income from continuing operations €4.3 billion.
In his current position he is responsible for Business Excellence/top+, Corporate Quality Management, Productivity Management and the annual top+ awards honoring the most outstanding Siemens projects of the last fiscal year. Furthermore, he is heading the top+ SMART Initiative which aims at further growth in emerging markets as well as in the global segment for entry-level products and solutions. SMART stands for simple, maintenance-friendly, affordable, reliable and timely-to-market.
Before he became Head of top+ & CQM, he worked for Siemens Management Consulting (SMC), beginning in 2000, where he specialized in Benchmarking (projects covering Industrial Automation, Automotive, Energy, Communication, IT Services, Home Appliances). From 2007 on, Felix Scheffler joined the management team of SMC as Vice President focusing on the Siemens Energy Sector.
He holds a Dipl. Wirtschaftsingenieur Degree after studying Industrial Engineering & Management Science at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Barcelona.

Franz-Josef Schürmann leads as country head all business development activities in the German market and is responsible for the overall market growth across all Verticals, horizontal services including Business Consulting and all operations for the Manufacturing Vertical Business Unit in Germany.

Previously, Franz-Josef was Partner and Senior Executive at Accenture. In this role he was responsible for the global business of Accenture at three German DAX companies across all services, outsourcing, technology and management consulting. Prior to this function, FJ has been instrumental in building Accenture´s outsourcing capabilities in particular in the Resources Industry and has been part of the respective German and EALA Leadership Team of Accenture.

Mr. Zhu joined CICC in 1998. Under his leadership, CICC has registered remarkable achievements in business development and expansion and has been repeatedly honored with awards by globally-renowned publications.  

With broad investment banking expertise, Mr. Zhu has consistently played a leading role in a large number of landmark transactions including the IPOs of Sinopec, China Telecom, China Life Insurance, China Shenhua Energy, Agriculture Bank of China, as well as a number of restructuring and M&A deals for major industries such as the mobile assets acquisition of China Telecom.

Prior to joining CICC, Mr. Zhu worked for CSFB in New York, a world-wide investment banking group, and an international accounting firm in Chicago. Mr. Zhu holds a Ph.D. in Meteorology from University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master degree in Accounting from DePaul University of Chicago and an MBA from International Bankers’ School of Credit Suisse First Boston.