Robert Ader studied Business Studies at the FH Aachen with an integrated semester abroad at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. During his studies, he gained practical experience at Deutsche Bank AG, Ericsson Eurolab GmbH and Porsche AG, among others, where he joined as a project manager in the field of internet and dialogue marketing after graduating in 2001. He quickly took on management tasks and was head of the "Strategy and Transfer" team until 2006. This was followed by activities in Sales Operations as Area Sales Manager Great Britain, Middle East & Africa and as Regional Manager Europe. Since 2012, Robert Ader has been Director of Marketing Communication for Porsche AG and is responsible, among other things, for the conception and worldwide coordination of the Porsche brand and communication strategy, has group-wide responsibility for brand & corporate identity, coordinates all worldwide marketing campaigns and manages the digital and dialogue marketing area, including the worldwide management of the website www.porsche.com.

Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, based in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, is the world's leading manufacturer of exclusive sports cars. In 2016, the company delivered around 237,000 new cars to customers all over the world and generated sales of 22.3 billion euro. The operating result was 3.9 billion euros, making Porsche one of the most profitable car manufacturers in the world. With the sports car icon 911, Porsche founded the sports car segment more than 50 years ago. In addition, further model series have been established with the 718 Boxster, 718 Cayman, Panamera, Macan, Cayenne and 918 Spyder. Porsche also sets milestones in plug-in hybrid drives: Porsche was the first manufacturer to use this technology in high-performance sports cars, exclusive saloons and premium off-road vehicles. And in the 919 Hybrid rolling test laboratory, Porsche is working on the technology of tomorrow in the LMP1 class of the WEC World Endurance Championship, which will also be used in the first purely electric production sports car Mission E at the end of the decade. In total, the Porsche AG Group employs around 27,000 people in 70 subsidiaries worldwide. Production sites are located in Zuffenhausen and Leipzig. Development and design as well as motorsport are located at the Weissach development centre.

Already during his studies, Tim Breidenbach focused on human resources and organisation. After eight years in training and further training, he joined ALHO Holding GmbH as HR Manager in 2016. The trained banker studied International Business Studies at the Faculty of Business Studies and spent a semester abroad at Southeast Missouri State University, USA. After graduating in 2008, Tim Breidenbach worked at DEKRA Akademie GmbH in Siegen, where he initially worked as a coordinator for more than five years. From 2014 to 2016, he managed the Siegen and Olpe production sites there and gained his first experience as a manager. As Head of Human Resources, he is now responsible for personnel acquisition, development, planning and personnel marketing.

The family-run company ALHO Holding GmbH, headquartered in Morsbach, Germany, is one of the market leaders in the industry with 850 employees across Europe. For 50 years, the company has been producing modular buildings as a sustainable alternative to conventionally constructed houses. The room modules are manufactured ready for assembly and put together on the building site to save time. This is how individually planned, high-quality buildings such as schools, kindergartens, office and administration buildings or dormitories are created.

After studying Business Studies at the Faculty of Business Studies at FH Aachen, Alfo Fliegen started his professional career at the mail order company 3Pagen in Aachen. There he was responsible for three years as a marketing employee, especially for the topics of new customer acquisition and dialogue marketing. Among other things, he worked intensively with Deutsche Post, where he moved in 2001. In his now 15-year career at Deutsche Post DHL Group, he has held a variety of positions in marketing/consulting and especially in sales. Since the beginning of 2017, he has been the sales manager responsible for the group's publishing customers in the West business division. In the six years prior to this, he was active in various management positions for sales development in the area of digital products (E-POST/ SIMSme/ POSTID).

Deutsche Post is the largest postal service provider in Europe and the market leader in the German letter and parcel market. As a strong brand with around 150,000 employees, the company is recognised as "The Post for Germany" as well as one of the leading providers in international letter and parcel delivery. Deutsche Post's product and service portfolio combines the present and the future of postal and communications services: from letter mail and parcel delivery to secure electronic communications and dialogue marketing for private and business customers. The company is a pioneer in the development of new technologies, such as CO2-neutral shipping and logistics solutions for online retailing. Deutsche Post is part of the Deutsche Post DHL Group. The group achieved a turnover of more than 57 billion euros in 2016.

Michael Fredel set his professional focus on management early on. During his studies, he spent a semester at the University of North Alabama in the USA and got his first taste of corporate life during a practical training in management consultancy at Business and Logistic Systems - Gesellschaft für Unternehmungsberatung und Systementwicklung mbH. After graduating in 1999, he worked there first as a junior consultant, later as a consultant for project management and research activities in the context of EU projects, among other things, and took over the management of international project teams. In 2002, he moved to Vector SCM GmbH, where he initially worked as a logistics engineer for the analysis of goods flows in the automotive sector. From 2003 onwards, as Supervisor International Inbound, he took over the management and organisation of an international team as part of a logistics programme for General Motors. In 2004, Michael Fredel joined INFORM GmbH in Aachen as Project Manager, where he has held the position of Senior Project Manager in the Inventory & Supply Chain division since 2010. Here he supports globally active companies from the automotive, food and life science sectors in the implementation of new programme systems.

INFORM specialises in IT systems that not only manage data, but also "think" and optimise operational processes according to the situation. The basis for this are scientifically founded, mathematical optimisation algorithms of Operations Research, which are adapted for the respective field of application. INFORM focuses on different solutions with seven business areas. The "software with decision intelligence" enables an agile management strategy in production planning, logistics, materials and merchandise management as well as in air traffic, for financial service providers and insurance companies. Today, more than 600 employees support well over 1,000 customers around the world, including industrial, commercial, logistics and transport companies, container terminals, distribution and handling centres, commercial airports, banks and insurance companies.

After completing her double degree (Ecole de Commerce and FH Aachen), Natacha Hilger joined Deutsche Bank. Her path quickly led her to the Global Markets division - trading in securities and derivatives. After four years as a trader of short-term interest rate derivatives, she was transferred to London to trade euro interest rate derivatives. Back in Frankfurt, various stations followed, including trading in interest rate derivatives Switzerland, floating rate notes corporates and supranationals, short-term treasury notes and later government bonds, interrupted only briefly by two maternity leave periods. Since 2016, the native Frenchwoman has been responsible for the supervision of all financial agencies in the euro area. In this function, she is responsible for the co-placement of government bonds, the recommendations for refinancing management and the supply of liquidity to the secondary market by Deutsche Bank.

Jo Kristof has been a self-employed consultant, trainer and business coach since 2010. She accompanies executives, companies and teams on all topics related to leadership and change and advises across (almost) all company sizes and sectors on all issues of leadership culture and organisational development.

Her German-French studies in business at the FH Aachen and in France enabled her to start her career as HR Manager at Vaillant in the Bergisches Land region. Working internationally from the beginning, she was responsible for the implementation of the HR development programmes in France, among other things, and took over responsibility as HR Development Manager there for one year. Back in Germany, she moved to an international retail group where she was Head of Recruiting and responsible for recruiting international specialists and managers. During this phase, she also had the opportunity to accompany employees and managers during a difficult restructuring process. And with this experience came the desire to do exactly this full-time and to set up her own business as a consultant, trainer and business coach. For seven years, Jo Kristof has been advising, training and accompanying managers, teams and companies. Thanks to her international background, the foundation of which was laid by her studies, she is internationally active - with a focus on German-French constellations. Jo Kristof has two small daughters and lives and works in Ratingen near Düsseldorf.

JK Business Coaching is a consulting firm with a focus on leadership and change. The services include organisational development and the accompaniment of change processes, training and workshops on the topics of leadership and change leadership, as well as coaching and consulting for specialists and managers. Based in Ratingen, JK Business Coaching advises companies of (almost) all sizes and sectors. A special focus is on companies and executives who operate in a German-French environment and want to take into account the differences in the respective (leadership) cultures in their actions.

During his international business studies at FH Aachen with an integrated semester abroad at Napier University in Edinburgh, Volker Küpper gained practical experience at Prym GmbH & Co KG and Deutsche Telekom AG, among others. After successfully completing his studies in 2008 and a subsequent Master's degree, he joined KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft as a management consultant in 2010. From 2013 to 2015, he worked there as an authorised signatory and project manager in the information and communication technology, pharmaceutical, energy, industry, trade, insurance and sports sectors. Since 2015, Volker Küpper has been employed as Manager Corporate Strategy & Cooperation Management at Lufthansa Technik AG, where he is responsible for the company's long-term strategic orientation as well as global strategic partnerships and M&A projects (mergers and acquisitions).

Lufthansa Technik is the world's leading provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for civil, commercial aircraft. Founded in October 1994 as a subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Lufthansa Technik AG is the parent company of DLH's MRO business segment and the worldwide Lufthansa Technik Group with a total of 54 companies and more than 20,000 employees. It counts more than 800 other airlines and other operators of commercial aircraft among its customers. Its revenue amounted to 5,144 million euros in 2016. Lufthansa Technik continuously ensures the reliability and availability of its customers' fleets with tailored maintenance programmes and state-of-the-art repair procedures. It is an internationally licensed repair, manufacturing and development company.

Susen Loskant has been working in Human Resources and Organisational Management at Galeria Kaufhof GmbH for over ten years. Already during her studies in business, the trained wholesale and export merchant focused on human resources. After a successful start to her career in the trainee programme at Galeria Kaufhof GmbH, she has been a member of the Executive Director of several shops there since 2007 with management responsibility for around 160 employees. Her activities focus on personnel management, personnel organisation, cost planning as well as sales management such as customer and service management. Among other things, she takes care of the application procedures for new employees or the further training of employees. She also organises logistics within the department stores and takes care of house and work safety.

With over 100 department stores in around 80 vibrant German cities and towns and 16 Galeria Inno shops in Belgium, Galeria Kaufhof is one of the most successful department stores' companies in Europe. Galeria Kaufhof has been part of the Canadian Hudson's Bay Company since 2015. Since then, international impulses have enriched the evolved corporate culture: speed, creativity and innovation drive the omnichannel company. Galeria Kaufhof offers its customers an international brand portfolio and inspiring shopping experiences.

Before Christoph Poos began his studies in Business Studies at FH Aachen, he trained as a bank clerk at Sparkasse Aachen and as an insurance specialist at Allianz Versicherung. He completed his studies in 2006 and initially worked for EGC EUROGROUP Consulting AG as a management consultant. His focus was on topics such as the overall strategic orientation of companies as well as sales and process optimisation. Among other things, he accompanied a major merger in the German banking market. In addition to his subsequent work as an independent management consultant, he founded the start-up company "KP Innovations" together with a friend in 2014 and took over the positioning of the cocktail machine "cocktail-box" in the market for gastronomy, events and trade fairs. As Executive Director of cocktail-box, his tasks are very versatile. For example, he is responsible for sales, marketing, HR management, accounting and event management. In 2016, cocktail-box was awarded the European Columbus Trophy start-up prize at the BBB gastronomy trade fair in Maastricht, where cocktail-box prevailed in the final against nine other companies from all over Europe.

cocktail-box builds sophisticated cocktail machines in a stylish design. At the touch of a button, the machines produce cocktails professionally and easily from fresh individual ingredients. The cocktail-box cocktail machines are assembled from high-quality materials and can be rented, leased or purchased as a complete, unique mobile bar or for permanent installation in counters, food trucks or the like. For 10 years, cocktail-box has been setting standards in technology, user-friendliness, speed, innovations, service & maintenance from Aachen. Hotels, discotheques, beach bars, leisure facilities, stadiums, caterers & event organisers as well as large & small companies are among the company's customers.

Kurt Spelthann has dedicated his professional life to taxes. Already during his studies of Business Studies, he focused on taxes and subsequently also began his professional career in this area in 1975. After joining Eschweiler Bergwerksverein AG as an employee in the corporate tax department, he then headed tax departments of various companies for almost 30 years. From 1982 to 1987, he was responsible for the tax department at Uranit GmbH. From 1987 to 1989 he coordinated the worldwide tax affairs of all foreign branches and subsidiaries at BfG-Bank AG in Frankfurt am Main as an authorised signatory. At RWE Energie in Essen, he was then the main department head responsible for the Group's tax balance sheets and tax returns. In 1997, he then took over as head of the group tax department at Generali Germany, a position he held until his retirement in 2016.

Generali Deutschland is the second largest primary insurance group in the country. The 13,000 employees in Germany offer insurance and savings products for private and corporate customers. Generali Deutschland includes Generali Versicherungen, AachenMünchener, CosmosDirekt and Deutsche Bausparkasse Badenia. The company is part of the Generali Group, which is represented in 60 countries worldwide and comprises more than 470 companies and a total of 76,000 employees. The Group can look back on an operating history of around 200 years and is today considered one of the largest 50 companies in the world.

Before studying business at FH Aachen, Dirk Ungnade trained as an office administrator and driving instructor. During his studies, he focused on human resource management. In cooperation with Ericsson Eurolab Deutschland GmbH, he wrote his final thesis on "Competence Management" and successfully completed his studies in 2001. He then began his career at Lindt und Sprüngli GmbH as a management trainee in the human resources department, where he was initially responsible for classic human resources tasks. In 2005, he rose to the position of personnel officer and was primarily responsible for the topics of "recruiting" and "HR management". Since 2009, Dirk Ungnade has had overall responsibility for HR operations at the Aachen plant as HR Manager and is Deputy HR Director there. He is also an active trainer for junior managers and middle and senior management.

Lindt & Sprüngli is an internationally active group of companies and the world's leading manufacturer of premium chocolate. The products enjoy an excellent reputation and great popularity among consumers worldwide. Lindt offers the fascination of an attractive brand that perfectly combines tradition and innovation. Responsible and appealing tasks, flat hierarchies and a friendly "hands-on mentality" characterise the company. With almost 3,000 employees at its peak at the Aachen location alone, the company still enjoys a friendly and helpful family culture. The employees particularly appreciate the passion and initiative for the best chocolate, the maximum creative freedom, the mutual support as well as the security and the dynamic working environment.

Michael Vorbrink has been "advertising" for 17 years and has headed the Campaigning Unit at antwerpes ag since 2014. He learned from the bottom up - starting with practical trainings and a classic IHK training as an advertising salesman at Stöhr Markenkommunikation Düsseldorf. He deepened his knowledge - especially in marketing - by studying at the FH Aachen and Coventry University. After graduating with a degree in business administration and a Bachelor of Arts, he continued his career in the world of advertising in 2003 - at agencies such as McCann Erickson and BBDO, where he was responsible as an account director for Nestlé, Coca Cola and Braun, among others. His path also led him to Saatchi & Saatchi in Moscow, where he spent almost two years. Here he implemented campaigns for P&G, Novartis and ITG. Because of love, he returned to Germany and now lives in Düsseldorf with his wife and their three children.