Monika Aretz started her professional career after successfully completing her studies in 2006 at Continental AG, where she worked as a human resources administrator after a practical training. She then moved to K.O.M. GmbH as a specialist consultant for the areas of personnel and organisation. From 2008 to 2010, she worked as a Career Development Coordinator at The Boston Consulting Group before moving to Red Bull Deutschland GmbH in 2011. As Head of Human Resources, Monika Aretz leads a team of eight employees and is responsible for more than 500 employees in the Sales, Marketing and Business Support Sections. She is responsible for all HR-related issues (recruiting, development, administration, labour law, C&B) and works on various national and international projects, including organisational development and digitalisation. In her role, she reports directly to the Executive Director in Germany and has represented Human Resources in the Senior Management Team since 2015.

Bernd Bösche is passionate about the automotive industry: after completing his studies with a double degree - diploma from FH Aachen and Bachelor of Arts from Coventry University - in 2007, Bernd Bösche started his career at Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg. Initially, he worked for almost nine years as Purchasing Manager for the Infotainment and Air Conditioning divisions. This was followed by two stays abroad: In 2017, he supported strategic negotiations for local vehicle start-ups in the Electrics/Powertrain division at Volkswagen do Brasil in Sao Paulo. A year later, he moved to the VW subsidiary Skoda Auto in the Czech Republic for a year, where he was responsible for radio and navigation systems in the Infotainment division. Since the beginning of 2019, Bösche has been working for Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg again and is responsible for the air conditioning division as Purchasing Manager. His tasks here include the development of global procurement strategies, the negotiation of group-wide procurement contracts and ensuring a reliable supply chain from Tier-X to Tier-1 suppliers.

The Volkswagen brand is one of the world's most successful volume manufacturers. The Group's core brand produces vehicles at production sites in 14 countries for customers in over 150 markets. Volkswagen Passenger Cars set a new delivery record in 2018, with 6.2 million vehicles delivered worldwide. The Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand aims to "move people, move people forward". The "TRANSFOR M 2025+" strategy therefore focuses on a global model offensive with which the brand aims to become the leader in the volume segment in terms of innovation, technology and quality. With its future programme "TOGETHER - Strategy 2025", the Volkswagen Group has cleared the way for the biggest change process in its history: the realignment of one of the best automotive companies into one of the world's leading providers of sustainable mobility. To this end, the Group will transform its core automotive business, among other things with more than 30 additional fully electric models by 2025, as well as the expansion of battery technology and autonomous driving as new core competences.

Even during her Bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Business Studies, Fee Damm focused on marketing. After successfully completing her Bachelor's degree at FH Aachen, the trained marketing communications specialist went on to complete a Master's degree in Business Management at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and further deepened her knowledge in marketing. In addition to practical trainings at Lindt & Sprüngli GmbH and Molkerei Meggle Wasserburg GmbH & Co KG, Damm also gained professional experience as a Graduate Assistant in Regional Marketing at Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft StädteRegion Aachen mbH and the Institute for Business Process Management and IT in Mönchengladbach. In her Master's thesis, she worked on a topic for the Moss bakery, where the Aachen native built up the marketing department and took over its management following her studies in 2015. Since 2018, she has been working there as Head of Administration and Marketing. Her tasks include all topics of strategic as well as operative marketing, from product development to campaign planning to the development of further distribution channels, but as part of the administrative management, she is also responsible for the areas of human resources, finance, disposition and IT.

Founded in 1925 in Aachen's Pontstraße, the family business is a daily guarantor of rolls, breads and pastries with character, baked by hand according to old family recipes, at over 50 locations in the Aachen region. As one of the traditional houses in Aachen, MOSS is also known for its unique Printen recipe. The philosophy includes sourcing regional raw materials and a clear commitment to craftsmanship, where machines are only used where manual labour could not do it better. For coffee and chocolate, local sourcing is not possible, so these raw materials are only purchased Fairtrade certified. As a craft business that masters the balancing act between tradition and modernity as well as between ecology and economy, the MOSS bakery has already received several awards. In addition to the NRW State Food Prize and various product awards, the MOSS bakery was named one of the 600 best bakers in Germany by the gourmet magazine DER FEINSCHMECKER.

After his Bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Business Studies at FH Aachen, Daniel Diebäcker completed a Master's degree in International Business at Maastricht University. In 2013, he joined Amazon Deutschland GmbH in Munich, where he first worked as a project manager and later as a programme manager for external fulfilment and operations excellence. In 2017, he moved to Porsche Consulting GmbH in Hamburg, where he worked as a senior consultant on fourteen projects in seven countries on four continents with clients from various industries. As part of the projects, he implemented a global concept for digital employee management at logistics locations, optimised the processes of a franchise gastronomy concept and introduced an efficiency programme for indirect processes at an international consumer goods company, among other things. Since November 2019, Daniel Diebäcker has been Strategy and Operational Excellence Manager at Serrala Group GmbH, where he is responsible for the global optimisation of internal business processes.

Serrala Group GmbH optimises the world of payments for companies seeking an efficient overview of their cash position and secure financial processes. With a suite of forward-looking end-to-end solutions for incoming and outgoing payments and related financial processes, Serrala Group GmbH enables greater efficiency and optimisation opportunities, including in the area of consulting for cash visibility and treasury. Driven by its entrepreneurial mindset, Serrala Group constantly challenges itself to bring truly relevant innovations to the market.

Daniel Doering already focused on financial management during his studies. He spent his year abroad at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Ireland, where he received an award for the best final thesis of the year. He remained true to the field of finance in his professional career as well. After graduating, he started as a Consultant Treasury at GFKL Financial Services AG in Essen. In 2011, Daniel Doering then joined LANXESS AG in Cologne as Manager Subsidiary Finance in the Treasury department, where he took up the position of Manager Corporate Finance & Risk Management four years later. Since then, he has been jointly responsible for group financing. Among other things, he is in charge of the LANXESS Group's capital market financing and the dialogue with rating agencies. The area of financial risk management includes, in particular, the analysis of foreign exchange risks and the hedging of corresponding positions with derivative financial instruments.

Wolfgang Hermann was already interested in finance during his studies: he chose to focus on finance both at the FH Aachen and during his year abroad at Coventry University in London. After successfully completing his double degree, he joined Ernst&Young in 2002 as a junior consultant in transaction consulting. In 2006, he moved to Deutsche Post, where he initially worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions team at the corporate headquarters. In 2009, Wolfgang Hermann joined DHL Global Forwarding, where he was promoted to Head of Mergers & Acquisitions one year later. Since 2015, he has held the position of CFO Industrial Projects, where he is responsible for approximately €800 million in revenue in 45 countries. His work includes negotiating major customer contracts, structuring and financing foreign Group companies and numerous initiatives to increase profitability.

DHL Industrial Projects is the specialised project and heavy lift logistics division of DHL Global Forwarding and comprises 50 offices worldwide. DHL Global Forwarding is the global market leader in air and ocean freight with over 30,000 employees in more than 150 countries. The forwarding services for air freight, ocean freight and land transport include standardised transports as well as multimodal and industry-specific solutions. DHL Global Forwarding is part of Deutsche Post DHL Group. The Group generated revenue of more than 61 billion euros in 2018.

Already during his studies, Stephan Kemen gained practical experience through a practical semester and subsequent working student activity at L'Oréal and LVMH in Düsseldorf. After graduating in 2010, he joined the cosmetics company Coty as Junior Trade Marketing Manager. In 2012, he moved to the media group RTL Germany, where he managed communications for the channel VOX as Marketing Manager. In 2014, Stephan Kemen moved to MÄURER & WIRTZ, where he was initially responsible for the BALDESSARINI brand as Global Brand Manager. Over time, he took on more and more responsibility and took over other brands such as TABAC and 4711. Since 2017, he has been Global Marketing Director for MÄURER & WIRTZ and is responsible for the brand management of all corporate brands as well as the corporate strategy.

MÄURER & WIRTZ is a fifth-generation family business and one of the leading European houses for high-quality fragrance and care products. The history of Mäurer & Wirtz is a success story: the former soap factory founded by Michael Mäurer and his stepson Andreas Wirtz in 1845 has become an international player. Mäurer & Wirtz's portfolio includes own brands such as 4711 and Tabac as well as the licensed brands s.Oliver, Betty Barclay, Baldessarini and Otto Kern. The strategic focus is on the maintenance and worldwide expansion of the fragrance brands as well as the development of new fragrance concepts taking into account relevant consumer trends. Mäurer & Wirtz is headquartered in Stolberg near Aachen and has been an independent, wholly-owned subsidiary of the dalli-group since 1990.

Before Moritz Peetz began his business studies at the Faculty of Business Studies, he completed an apprenticeship as an event manager and worked as a sales assistant at Management Circle AG. He gained further practical experience during his studies through two practical trainings at CPC Unternehmensmanagement AG and L'ORÉAL Deutschland GmbH as well as a semester abroad at the VSE University of Economics Prague. After graduating in 2013, he was accepted into the junior management programme at Ferrero Deutschland GmbH. This was followed by positions as an assistant in key account management and then as a key account manager. After a sabbatical year in South America, Moritz Peetz joined Danone Waters Deutschland GmbH in 2018 as Key Account Manager, where he is responsible for supporting trade centres in the AFH (Away From Home) sector and strategic channel expansion. To ensure long-term and profitable growth, he develops customer-specific strategies and carries out regular market and potential analyses. He is responsible for conducting annual meetings and for budget and sales planning, taking into account all relevant key figures within the framework of the respective customer P&L.

Danone Waters Deutschland GmbH, based in Frankfurt am Main, is part of the international Danone company and is represented in Germany on the market for natural mineral water with the products Volvic and evian. We have made it our goal that people consume less heavily sugared soft drinks. Inseparable from our mission is our "Double Projet" - our commitment that corporate success and social responsibility are inseparable. That's why we protect our springs, extract only as much mineral water from them as they can naturally reproduce, revise our packaging to use 100% recycled material as quickly as possible, and work to ensure that people around the world have access to clean drinking water where it is not a given. These and other initiatives contribute to our status as a certified Business Corporation (B Corp) since July 2019.

The area of procurement, production and logistics was already a focus of Jörn Pflitsch's studies. After graduating in 2000, the qualified industrial clerk joined GPS Schuh Komplexitätsmanagement GmbH in Aachen as a product manager. This was followed by a position as project manager for supply chain at Costdata AG. From 2004 to 2010, he worked as a project manager at Accenture GmbH. He then went to Capgemini Deutschland GmbH, where he was responsible for global supply chain projects as a manager. In 2014, he then took on the position of Training Manager and Trainer for Supply Chain Management at MTAC GmbH, until he finally joined Cisco Systems Deutschland GmbH as Senior Manager in 2016. As Global Service Manager, he is primarily responsible for the delivery, cost compliance, resourcing and sales issues of service projects for customers in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. In addition, as a programme manager, he leads strategic consulting projects and their implementation in the healthcare sector.

Cisco was founded in 1984 by a team of employees and students
from Stanford University in California. In 1990, the company went public, and ten years later Cisco was considered the most valuable company in the world. Today, 80 percent of global data traffic passes through Cisco devices.
Cisco helps companies, authorities and other organisations to use the opportunities of digitalisation - the secure, intelligent networking of everything with everything. To this end, Cisco develops and sells network-related products and solutions, i.e. network infrastructures, cyber security, data centre equipment, video communication
and collaboration solutions, cloud/software and services. Cisco concentrates on the market segments for large enterprises, medium-sized companies, the public sector and service providers. In Germany, Cisco relies on indirect sales via around 1,800 certified partners.
In the 2019 financial year, Cisco achieved sales of 51.7 billion US dollars with around 74,000 employees in 93 countries worldwide. In Germany, Cisco has locations in Garching near Munich, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

After graduating in 2004, Lars Rehbein began his professional career with a management trainee programme at the internationally renowned sporting goods manufacturer adidas. He was then responsible for production planning for Asian apparel suppliers before moving to Continental AG in 2006 as a buyer for investments and services. Here he took over responsibility as Head of Section Indirect Material Management after a short time. After moving to the US conglomerate Honeywell in 2008, Lars Rehbein worked as strategic purchasing manager for the brands Esser, European market leader for fire alarm systems, and Ackermann Clino. Together with a former fellow student at FH Aachen and another partner, he ventured into self-employment in 2010 with the founding of coepto GmbH. Since then, as Managing Director, he has been responsible for strategic corporate development, key account management, global logistics and IT, among other things. In the course of the company's expansion, he has also been President of the Board of Directors at coepto in Vietnam since 2017.

coepto is an owner-managed production agency for high-quality marketing needs. coepto GmbH designs, produces and delivers communication materials with a focus on high-quality packaging, POS and promotional materials. With headquarters in Cologne, offices in Milan, Paris and New York, branches in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, as well as its own production facility in Long An, Vietnam, the coepto group is now represented worldwide with more than 750 employees. The customer base consists of many well-known premium and luxury brands.

Susan Tillmann looks back on eleven years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. After studying business, she started her career at Takeda Pharma GmbH, where she had previously written her final thesis. In 2008, she initially joined the company as a consultant for quality assurance and medical project management at the Aachen site. This was followed by further positions as Project Manager IS and IT, first for Europe and then worldwide, until she was promoted to Head of Programme and Portfolio Management for Europe, Middle East and Russia CIS in 2014. In 2015, she then took over the management and development of the innovation area for Global Manufacturing & Supply. Since then, Tillmann has been responsible for the development and implementation of the entire digital and innovation strategy. Among other things, she leads the development of digital and analytics functions and a digital opportunity management programme to strengthen the company's cross-functional digital collaboration. Her tasks also include the establishment of a digital talent development programme.

Takeda is a patient-focused, innovative and globally leading biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan. As Japan's largest pharmaceutical company, Takeda is committed to providing patients with better health and a brighter future through pioneering medical innovations in 80 countries and regions around the world.
Takeda entered the German market in 1981 under the name Takeda Pharma GmbH as part of a joint venture between the Japanese Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and the German Grünenthal GmbH. Today, Germany is one of the Takeda Group's largest locations worldwide. Around 2,300 people are employed at the four German sites in Berlin, Oranienburg, Constance and Singen.

Mareike Tost loves numbers and laws and this is also clearly visible in her previous
professional career. Already during her studies in International Business Studies, the trained industrial clerk specialised in the fields of auditing and foreign trade. She earned her double degree - also with a focus on accounting - at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. After her very successful graduation, she joined Ernst and Young as an auditing assistant. In 2011, she moved to a medium-sized auditing and tax consulting firm until her career path led her to the pharmaceutical group Laboratorios HIPRA S.A.. From 2015 to the beginning of 2018, the mother of two was responsible for the German and Austrian locations in a management position as Manager Finance and Administration. Since 2018, as Senior Taxation and Group Accounting Specialist at 11880 Solutions AG, she has been responsible for the group's tax matters, such as strategic tax planning and optimisation, as well as clarifying fundamental issues according to HGB and IFRS.

11880 Solutions AG is a listed company whose shares are listed in the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The 11880 Group is one of the largest industry information and online marketing providers and employs around 600 people at a total of three locations in Germany. In addition to the classic information business under the well-known 11880 telephone number, the 11880 Group operates more than 20 specialist portals for small and medium-sized enterprises, which bring consumers and providers together quickly and efficiently. From a listing service in the major search engines to professional websites and search engine marketing campaigns, the 11880.com portfolio offers a wide range of products. The digital offering is supplemented by job portals and a secretarial service, which is increasingly used by small businesses without a back office in particular.

After her international business studies at the FH Aachen with an integrated year abroad at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Katrin Werres completed a Master's degree in Marketing & Strategy at Warwick Business School in the UK. After successfully completing her studies, she returned to Ireland, where she joined Google in 2010 as an Online Marketing Associate for German retail clients in the Marketing/Sales department. From 2014 to 2018, Katrin Werres worked in London as Analytical Consultant and Manager Client Solutions & Analytics. Today, she is Head of Measurement and Analytics at Google UK and advises international companies in the TMT industry (technology, media and telecommunications) on marketing measurement, attribution, insights and data strategy.