KLU on Successful Course: New Advisory Board Begins Work

Prof. Thomas Strothotte and Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schwenker posing in front of the golden egg

KLU is set for growth. On June 1, 2017, its new Advisory Board began work as a consulting body. The top managers and academics on the Board have been tasked with reinforcing KLU’s interconnection with industry, research, and politics. Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schwenker, longtime head of consulting firm Roland Berger, is Chairman of the Board and his deputy is Michael Behrendt, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Hapag-Lloyd AG.

“In calling the new Advisory Board into life, we have achieved one more milestone along KLU’s successful course toward the future. The members will enrich our theoretical work with their entrepreneurial and academic experience, providing the perfect stimulus for developing our degree programs further,” said KLU President Thomas Strothotte. Schwenker is also very positive about the future. “We have successfully acquired outstanding personalities with a broad range of specialized knowledge and experience for our work on the Board,” he said. “Together, we will bridge the gap between academia and the industry.” According to Schwenker, logistics is one of the German economy’s core competencies and it must be reinforced with excellent training and relevant research in order to implement new technologies and opportunities for interconnection to retain its competitive edge.

The Board will be able to base its work on a series of recent successes. In May, KLU shook hands on an institutional partnership with Bucerius Law School, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), and Hasso Plattner Institute, and accepted the 2017 Hochschulpreis Güterverkehr und Logistik award from the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. And in the latest CHE University Ranking, student ratings put KLU in the top group in all of the main criteria. As if that wasn’t enough, the German Science Council also published its recommendation to grant KLU the right to confer doctorates. “The recommendation alone is a high honor for our work,” said Strothotte.

Members of the Advisory Board:

  • Prof. Dr. Burkhard Schwenker (Chair) – Chairman of the Advisory Council at Roland Berger GmbH
  • Michael Behrendt (Deputy Chair) – Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Hapag-Lloyd AG
  • Milagros Caiña-Andree – Member of the Board at BMW AG
  • Hans-Georg Frey – Chairman of the Board at Jungheinrich AG
  • Dr. Fabian Heilemann – Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital/Co-founder and Chair of the Advisory Council at FreightHub GmbH
  • Dr. Rainer Hillebrand – Deputy Chairman of the Board at Otto Group
  • Zhengrong Liu – Member of the Board at Beiersdorf AG
  • Prof. Dr. Frank Straube – Head of the Logistics Department at Technische Universität Berlin and Member of Kühne Stiftungswerk
  • Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner – Chair of Logistics Management at ETH Zurich and Member of Kühne Stiftungswerk