"115 years of HHL - 11+5 HHL faces" portraits Lars Wulfken

[HHL gGmbH - 20.04.2013] 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.

*** Lars Wulfken (*1976)

Lars Wulfken is the President of the HHL Alumni Association.

Between 2010 and 2012, the manager for Adobe in Hamburg, who was born in the state of Hesse, completed the Part-time MBA Program at HHL. Through his studies and the contact with classmates, professors and HHL staff, he came to appreciate the Leipzig business school: "Thanks to the Part-time MBA Program at HHL, I was able to develop professionally and at the same time learn skills I could use during my everyday work. The program and the exchanges with my classmates have greatly shaped the way I think."

Since last October, he has been presiding over the alumni of his
Alma mater together with Vice-President Christoph Stancke. The passionate regatta sailor has a clear mission: "The reputation of HHL and its alumni is ultimately what defines the value of our degree. Therefore, many of our activities focus on improving communication to demonstrate that the HHL alumni form one of the most valuable networks in Germany."

In close connection with the innovate125 HHL Future Concept, Wulfken wants to further develop the association over the next two years with regard to both quality and quantity. In addition to new impulses, he is currently working on redesigning the Alumni Platform to promote the dissemination of information and network activities within the association. For this purpose, Wulfken and his Board assessed the situation in the regional alumni groups, the so-called chapters, and are presently developing a new, standardized concept to take the chapter work to the next level. The network has seven chapters with about 900 members throughout Germany; there are ten more regional groups with about 600 members in Switzerland, the UK, the US, India, China and Australia. The President would like to include as many alumni as possible in the restructuring process. "The alumni network can only be as active as its members," says Wulfken. "We want to give all members a chance to network and learn new things during first-class events."

Wulfken has already restructured the work within the Board of the Alumni Association. Each member now has a volunteer and together they are responsible for special fields (e.g. company contacts, membership management, chapter events). In addition to the interlocking of the strategy with that of the university, the association wants to work close with HHL's Executive Management , for example, when organizing top events for the HHL alumni. Following the idea of networking, the annual homecoming events will be combined with the graduation ceremonies for the students in order to gather alumni from all generations. More plans and alumni-related news will be announced on the Alumni Platform over the next few weeks.

*** 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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