Alumni

Die GISMA Business School hat im Laufe der Jahre eine Reihe erfolgreicher Alumni und Absolventen hervorgebracht.

Wir sehen unsere Alumni als wertvoll an und investieren in die Aufrechterhaltung eines aktiven Alumni-Netzwerkes, indem wir unsere Alumni in die Veranstaltungen und Aktivitäten der GISMA einbeziehen.

Wir glauben an lebenslanges Lernen. Daher bieten wir unseren Alumni Lehrgänge an, um ihr Wissen aufzufrischen und zu vertiefen. Zusätzlich zur Karriereplanung fördern wir den stetigen Austausch zwischen ehemaligen und derzeitigen Studierenden.

In regelmäßigen Abständen laden wir unsere Alumni für Veranstaltungen an die GISMA ein, bei denen sie ihre beruflichen und persönlichen Erfahrungen mit unseren derzeitigen Studierenden teilen können. Diese Veranstaltungen liefern wichtige Informationen zum Stellenmarkt und Hinweise zu Einstellungsmöglichkeiten und Erfahrungen unserer Ehemaligen. Darüber hinaus bieten sie die perfekte Gelegenheit für unsere derzeitigen und ehemaligen Studierenden, ihr professionelles Netzwerk zu erweitern.

Wir ermuntern unsere Alumni sich weiterhin einzubinden und bieten viele Möglichkeiten an die GISMA zurückzukehren. Bei Alumni-Treffen kommen ehemalige Kommilitonen wieder zusammen. Diese Treffen bieten nicht nur die Gelegenheit, Erfahrungen auszutauschen, sondern auch neue Ideen zu entwickeln und mit alten Bekannten zu feiern.

“After founding my own company, I quickly realised that I was lacking management skills. Working as an engineer, I faced difficulties in calculating project offers, making strategic decisions and managing my employees. After talking to some of my friends who had MBA degrees, I was encouraged to pursue an MBA myself and I found that the English-taught, part-time MBA degree offered by GISMA in partnership with the Maastricht School of Management was perfect for me.

Although the full tuition fee was paid by my company, balancing my GISMA Business School work with my work life and family needs was not easy. However, after two very exciting years, I am now able to better understand business problems, ask the right questions and I am now more self-confident. Meeting people from all over the globe, sharing their experiences in group assignments and learning more about a variety of business fields greatly enhanced my knowledge.

What I especially enjoyed about participating in the GISMA/MSM programme was that I had the chance to be taught by internationally-renowned professors from prestigious universities such as TU Hamburg and Cranfield School of Management. All of them were very knowledgeable in their fields and easy to communicate with.”

This MBA that Metin studied is no longer available, but GISMA Business School do offer another full-time MBA: the Grenoble MBA from the triple-accredited institution of Grenoble Ecole de Management.

With the intention to explore my future career potential abroad, I came to Germany to pursue my MBA degree in summer, 2014. This decision was not easy for me because of the language barrier and eastern-western culture difference; however, I started my study life here far better than I expected.

This MBA program delivered a quite diverse teaching and knowledge observing approach which covered from classical management theory to up-to-date business case study. Due to different courses set up, I had the opportunities to work individually or with different school peers as a team under the professors’ guidance and handouts. With those well-selected lectures and materials, I have gained holistic skills to summarize the key take-aways from the theory and analyse the pros and cons from the actual business cases as a result to solve the problems and bring out new solutions or recommendations.

After finishing all the courses successfully in summer 2015, I started preparing my Master thesis. At that moment, I received an internship offer from Sennheiser, which helped me to employ my understanding from the MBA to a real work environment. Luckily, the business segment Audiology which I worked for is my interested research field. I had several years’ professional background on medical electronic products between my home country China and Germany/Switzerland. With my MBA systematic knowledge base, I could be capable to deeply dive [into] the market trend and consumer insights for the future product development

Beside my individual research work on my thesis, I was mentored by [a] segment leader and product manager to communicate among the teams-stakeholders, sales and marketing, engineering, purchasing and production. From product concept initiating, project milestones implementing to new product line launching, I endeavoured all my efforts to be part of the management team. As a return, I delivered a good quality master thesis for my MBA research and for my company as well.

Since 2016 March, I have become the Junior Product Manager in Sennheiser. With the new title, I am responsible to manage the segment product portfolio, lead the project team, evaluate the new products designs/features, and monitor the market/competitor performance on a regular basis.

I have no doubt, all qualified MBA graduates have the confidence and competency to be a leader or coordinator in any competitive business place.

"I am very thankful to GISMA and especially to its Careers Centre for paving the path to my career. Although I gained deep knowledge from regular lectures, it was the workshops organised by the Careers Centre which gave me full confidence and prepared me for the German job market. After attending the résumé and cover letter workshop, I drafted a German résumé, which was the key that opened many doors within the German jobs market. Every month, we had something useful organised by our Careers Centre like alumni talks, public speaking, role play, mock interviews and salary negotiation workshops.

Alumni talks are key workshops that anyone could make use of. I had an opportunity to network with GISMA alumni and extend my professional connections. Mock interviews in both German and English were very helpful in facing the actual interviews. I never had an unexpected question in any of my interviews. Role play, debates and public speaking sessions helped me improve my communication skills further.

It is not an easy task to secure an internship within such a culturally diverse group. However, with its good reputation and large alumni network, GISMA made it look so simple. I even secured my dream internship position as an internal auditor at Axalta Coating Systems Germany GmbH using the alumni network all thanks to GISMA and its Careers Centre!”

“The Careers Centre at GISMA Business School deserves a lot of recognition. With the Careers Centre’s knowledge and expertise on diverse working environments, they were able to meet my expectations and helped me write a great CV for the German jobs market. The seminars and workshop sessions are comparable to none, considering the depth of knowledge that it offered.

I am currently working as a research assistant for GISMA alumnus, and I owe this to the Careers Centre. The mock interview sessions that prepared me for my interviews with German companies have been really helpful.”

"The Careers Centre at GISMA helped me to secure three internship opportunities, one of which was with Sennheiser. Sennheiser is a leading audio equipment manufacturer and I am currently occupying an intern position within the Customer Development and Application Engineering department. I am very grateful for the Careers Centre’s efforts; they helped me through the whole internship search process, including tailoring my CV according to the German labour market standard, as well as helping me prepare for job interviews."

"Personally, I think the Careers Centre at GISMA is a very helpful resource for all students. We have experienced training and workshops, such as German business culture and job application preparation. Besides this, we had the chance to attend alumni talks and company presentation sessions in which we could establish our professional network with former GISMA MBA students and regional businesses, thus we would find employment opportunities.

Furthermore, they provided us with individual coaching and supported us in looking for an internship matching our profile. This help and information from the Careers Centre has been extremely valuable in preparing for my future career in Germany and other European countries.”

“The decision for me to come for an MBA was a thirst for international exposure, deep business knowledge, and network and career development. All of which my experience at GISMA offered.

I did an internship with TVS Motors in India. The internship was a real hands-on experience where I got to interact directly with the customers of the company and visit a lot of places in India. Another good opportunity was the consulting project, which was a collaboration between a leading German automobile company and a big four accounting company. My team and I worked on a process optimisation project.

Talking about the class experience, the interactive attitude of the professors and students made me learn a lot more, not just about familiar markets but also markets I have little or no prior knowledge of. The discussions were always interesting and with a very international class; one could see and address a topic from different perspectives. The highlight of the course, for me, was the entrepreneurial class, where I had to work with my team on solar projects in Nigeria.

Every day and in my job, I try to apply these lessons to real-life problems and bring solutions to my customers. Overall, I would say it was a worthy investment decision for me, and I hope to keep reaping the benefits of it as much as I can”.

“I graduated with a BSc in Chemistry and Geology (Double Major) from Cairo University in 2002. Then I did a Postgraduate Diploma in Geophysics (Cairo University) in 2004. I originally wanted to work in the oil field. However, when I got a position with NAMRU3, a joint venture between the US Navy and the US Department of State (DoS) and located in Cairo, I decided to focus my career as a public health specialist. Through that post, I executed many public health and medical research projects in the regions of Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It was a great 11 year journey, filled with adventures and surprises. I had the privilege of meeting the [then] current US President and the one who may potentially succeed him.

In order to develop my career as a public health specialist, I pursued a Master’s degree in Environmental Science majoring in Environmental Management and Environmental Risk Assessment at Ain Shams University, Egypt. During this time I got a scholarship from the Global Emerging Infection Surveillance and Response System (GEIS), a department of the US government, to do a Certificate in Public Health at the University of Florida (USA) in 2010.

During my experience, I realised that in the medical field, financial skills are in huge demand. I decided that an MBA is the best degree to pursue such knowledge (especially the subjects of general and financial management). I got scholarship offers from many business schools in Europe and the US. I have always been excited to come to Germany. German was my second foreign language at school and I thought it would be a great opportunity to ‘resurrect’ it. I finally decided to land at GISMA. The school has an excellent mix and the faculty is extremely professional, reputable and enjoyable.

The MBA degree significantly impacted my knowledge and my career progress. Currently, I am leading the international business development for Medexo GmbH, a German middle-sized start-up in the field of e-Health headquartered in Berlin. I was extremely interested in this post because Medexo will revolutionise medicine the way we know it and it gave me the opportunity to make our world a much better place… and no one can say ‘no’ to Berlin!

My thirst for articulated knowledge did not stop at this point. Now I am pursuing a doctoral degree at Potsdam University. Another opportunity that came my way through my GISMA Professor, Dr. Eric Kearney, who is now the Chair of Leadership and OBHR at Potsdam University. I am excited about this project and I am excited about my life, and I admit that I wouldn’t have gotten this far without GISMA.”

“I graduated as a Computer Engineer in 1998 then went on to pursue two Master’s in Research degrees in 2002 and 2003 in Spain whilst working full-time. Due to my love of innovation and project management, I shifted my focus towards attainting Project Management Professional (PMP) and Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) certifications. I completed these in 2008 and 2009 respectively after gaining work experience in this area by becoming a Project Manager for an IT company. In 2011, I obtained an MBA degree in the full-time programme at GISMA Business School in Hannover, Germany

Whilst obtaining my qualifications, I have been a developer, researcher and project manager for more than 8 years in 20 projects across 10 different industries, such as applying artificial intelligence techniques to power plants, creating a platform for secure cross-border communication among law professionals and building a tool for offshore wind project planning. Besides this, I have worked as an Associate Professor at a university in Spain

When I left GISMA in 2011, I remained in Germany. I always aspired to have my own business and felt encouraged that an MBA course at GISMA would help me achieve this. I first set out to learn German, essential for obtaining a job in Germany. I took a language course and had a job at a pub to help further my knowledge of the language. Then in 2012, I landed the job at Fraunhofer IWES in Bremerhaven as a Project Manager and researcher in Project and Risk Management. With the pursuit of entrepreneurship still on my mind, I came across The Founder Institute in May-June 2014. This was the break I was looking for as this organisation trains aspiring entrepreneurs to start up their businesses through a four-month, part-time programme in Berlin. Through expert knowledge and feedback as well as structured training courses and practical assignments, I was able to build my business idea. Then in September 2014, TourSnapp was born!

I am currently working on TourSnapp and have been accepted to ‘SpeedUp! Europe’: a start-up acceleration programme designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs develop their ideas. I am also attending the Wolves Summit in Poland, one of the top tech conferences in the EU with 1,500 attendees, to pitch my business idea along with 15 other start-ups. Besides these, I have been invited to be an evaluator for the Eurostars European Program, a funding programme for SMEs.”

“I am a Product and Marketing Manager at the Bosch Business Sector Car Multimedia. My career started at the University of Hannover, where I worked in an early phase on digital maps. Those maps became important in the context of car navigation systems, which were invented and developed by Bosch. I did a lot of pioneering work in this completely new industry. A lot of entrepreneurial spirit was required in the emerging industry. A considerable part of the work was recruiting skilled people, training them and forming teams. The work was continued in a Joint Venture called Tele Atlas.

Then the map production went into a more mature phase, the company went public and I decided to go for new endeavours. I had been thinking about an MBA education for some time and I decided to go for the full time course. At that time, I was already 45 years old and had a family with two daughters (8 and 10). After we had reached a consensus in the family, I went for the TOEFL and GMAT tests and applied for the MBA course at GISMA. After this was successful, I quit my job and started the course. It was hard in the beginning and I had to switch to a different mode of study compared to my younger classmates.

After graduation, I applied at different companies in different parts of the world and finally decided to go back to my previous employer. Here, I could combine my job experience and newly acquired knowledge for setting up new businesses, this time in the area of telematics. There were other growth projects to follow. Today strategic marketing and innovation management is the domain I am active in.

However, the lifelong learning process did not stop. After a coaching education, I am active as an internal consultant and outside my current employment as a coach and mentor. Apart from the immediate benefit in daily work after graduation, you are part of a global alumni network with very diverse members. As an example, the MBA 2005 class will celebrate the 10th anniversary of their graduation in Chicago.”