"115 years of HHL - 11+5 HHL faces" portraits Kurt Biedenkopf

[HHL gGmbH - 13.04.2013] HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, the first business school established in Germany, celebrates its 115th anniversary this year. The institution was founded in the Auditorium Maximum of Leipzig University on April 25, 1898, to train young merchants seeking to lead large companies in an appropriate manner. After World War II, it was absorbed into Leipzig University: in 1969, the GDR opened a business school with a focus on domestic trade. In 1992, today's HHL was re-established as a private university by the Leipzig Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Association of Friends of HHL.

Teaching all its programs in English, HHL has been one of the trailblazers in Germany since the mid-1990s. Long before the financial crisis, HHL was one of the first business schools to focus on the conditions for responsible and sustainable leadership.
HHL now responds to the new challenges of leadership in the 21st century through its innovate125 Future Concept, keeping in tune with a holistic approach and expanding the dimensions of effectiveness and responsibility, aided by the perspective of innovation.

On the occasion of the 115th anniversary of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, the school publishes the "11+5 HHL faces” series introducing personalities connected with HHL.

*** Kurt Biedenkopf (*1930)

Prof. Dr. jur. Kurt Biedenkopf is considered one of the founding fathers of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management that was re-established in 1992.

In the 1970s, he was the Secretary General of the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and served as Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony from 1990 to 2002. However, Biedenkopf, who is now 83, dedicated a great part of his life to the university. After studying law at Georgetown University, where he also received his doctorate and qualified as a professor, he served as the Rector of Ruhr-Universität Bochum from 1967 to 1969. After the reunification of Germany in 1990, Biedenkopf briefly taught as a Professor of Economics at Leipzig University before eventually assuming the leadership of the state government.

Since 2003, he has been the Chairman and since 2010 Honorary Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hertie School of Governance, playing an active part in establishing it, the first German Professional School for Public Policy, in Berlin. He is also the founding President and now Honorary President of Dresden International University. In 2011, Kurt Biedenkopf accepted a research professorship at the WZB Social Research Center Berlin on the topic of "Democracy as Concept and Cultural Performance”. Moreover, he will focus on literary work over the next few years.

It was with great benevolence and personal commitment that the then Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony accompanied the HHL project. The people who joined a brainstorming session at Prof. Dr. Biedenkopf's Dresden apartment on the content of the HHL concept, which paved the way for training generalists, remember the meeting to this day. In a letter to the Managing Director of the Leipzig Chamber of Industry and Commerce dated February 8, 1993, as Prime Minister he once again emphasized his position by stating that the re-establishment of HHL was a matter close to his heart since the school, being a private institution, could most effectively contribute to training leadership elites. On June 5, 1993, he gave a speech entitled "The Academic Landscape Facing New Challenges” on the occasion of an event with friends and supporters of HHL held at Leipzig's Old Stock Exchange. In the following years, he continued to support HHL.

Since 2001, Prof. Dr. Biedenkopf has given lectures for MBA students in the "L-BEST” (leadership, business, ethics and technologies) seminar series developed by HHL. Additionally, he has not only served as the speaker at a graduation ceremony but has been actively involved in HHL's student initiatives such as the Negotiation Challenge (world championship in negotiating).

During the festivities surrounding the 110th anniversary of HHL in 2008, Prof. Dr. Biedenkopf was awarded an honorary doctorate for his great accomplishments in science and culture in general and HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management in particular. Back then, he said: "The Free State of Saxony is lucky to be the home of HHL.” In an interview in 2012, he spoke about his connection to HHL: "First of all, I think of HHL's great past. It can be traced back to the initiative of merchants and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce at the end of the 19th century. We resurrected HHL from a state of atrophy. And the result is amazing. Just look at the large number of students, the faculty and the new dean of this school. And considering the wide recognition of the university in numerous evaluations you can tell: bringing HHL back to life and giving it the opportunity to renew itself was a good idea.”

*** HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management

HHL is a university-level institution and ranks amongst the leading international Business Schools. The goal of the longest standing business school in German-speaking Europe is to educate effective, responsible and entrepreneurially minded leaders. In addition to HHL's international focus the combination of theory and practice plays a key role. HHL stands out for its excellent teaching, its clear research focus, its effective knowledge transfer into practice as well as its outstanding student services. The school offers an 24-month full-time als well as part-time Master program in Management leading to the degree Master of Science (M.Sc.) and also an 18 month Global Executive MBA.HHL's program is complemented by the two-year Euro*MBA-Program, a program based on e-learning (electronically supported learning). A three-year doctoral program, which can be studied part-time as well, completes HHL's courses of study. The department of Executive Education offers company specific and open training programs for advanced education for specialist and leading positions. HHL received the accreditation of AACSB International in April 2004 and was the first German private school to be re-accredited in April 2009. http://www.hhl.de

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