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Eastern Europe Scholarship for Bright Minds

Prof. Dr. Thomas Strothotte on campus

Together with our academic partner Kühne Logistics University (KLU) in Hamburg, the German Eastern Business Association has developed the Eastern Europe Scholarship for Bright Minds. In the following interview with KLU President Prof. Dr. Thomas Strothotte, you’ll learn how you can support the managers of tomorrow, today.

Prof. Strothotte, what is the Eastern Europe Scholarship?

Prof. Dr. Strothotte: First and foremost: an exclusive opportunity for member companies of the German Eastern Business Association to make targeted investments in their own future managers.

KLU is one of the best business universities in Germany. At our campus in Hamburg, we offer English-language courses for young people from around the globe, who will become the best of their generation of managers. In this regard, our focus is mainly on Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

Who is the scholarship intended to benefit?

Prof. Dr. Strothotte: The scholarship is intended to benefit young talents from Eastern Europe: ten especially promising bachelor’s graduates in business disciplines, who, starting in September 2021, as part of a fully financed master’s degree program at KLU, are to be prepared for international management careers with a future focus on Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Why are you now offering members of the German Eastern Business Association the chance to participate, and why in this way?

Prof. Dr. Strothotte: Over the past several years, KLU and the German Eastern Business Association have established an excellent, trust-based partnership, one that we hope to further strengthen through this program. What we’re talking about here is a smart but challenging educational model for bright young minds from Eastern Europe. It will yield true added value for everyone involved, but will also entail costs. We at KLU are pleased to cover part of those costs: as a gift, to mark the occasion of our tenth anniversary as an independent university in the fall of 2020.     

Why is investing in future managers now more important than ever?

Prof. Dr. Strothotte: The demands on experts and managers continue to grow, and especially on the international stage, foreign language skills and intercultural skills are among the most essential management qualities. Moreover, the competition to get the finest minds is getting tougher and tougher, including in Eastern Europe. By sharing our prize-winning educational know-how in Logistics, Supply Chain Management and Leadership, we wish to build a bridge between young Eastern Europeans, who contribute their languages and cultural backgrounds, on the one hand; and German companies that are active in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and that, for this purpose, wish to help develop future experts and leaders from these regions in keeping with the highest international educational standards, on the other.

How can companies contribute to the Eastern Europe Scholarship?  

Prof. Dr. Strothotte: In this context, there is one essential financial aspect and there are several content-related options. The Eastern Europe Scholarship calls upon companies to invest 10,000 euros per year and student, for a duration of two years. KLU covers the remaining study costs. Every scholarship holder must cover her or his own living expenses in Hamburg.

In terms of content, contributing companies have the option of providing mentors to accompany scholarship holders during their studies at KLU, to offer them internships, and to help them develop practical research topics to explore in their final thesis papers. In this way, their studies are intended to be an intensive phase of exchanges with and getting to know the contributing company, which could ideally culminate in subsequently being hired by it.

And what do the sponsors achieve?

Prof. Dr. Strothotte: The sponsors do something good for themselves, and for others. They help young, ambitious people, perhaps some of the brightest of their generation, prepare for careers in international management. By supporting these future experts, they strengthen themselves, while also demonstrating a strategic commitment to their development.

Based on our experience, young people who plan to be future leaders are now especially on the lookout for this type of corporate engagement and corresponding development prospects.

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