Experience

Academic Lead, Focus Area “Digitalisierung”, and MBA Lecturer

Academic lead of the focus area “Digitalisierung” in the part-time MBA for working professionals and managers.

• Owns the content of the digitalisation focus area in the part-time MBA, from thematic direction and the alignment of the modules on digitalisation, change and leadership to the quality of the learning materials.
• Teaches the module “MBA 24 – Digitalisation, Change Management and Leadership”: how organisations adopt digital technologies and AI, what changes for managers and teams, and where the technical, organisational, legal and ethical limits lie.
• Participants are 30 to 40 working professionals and managers from industry and the public sector per module and semester. Translates research on AI adoption and leadership into decisions the participants implement in their organisations.

Tools Microsoft 365 and Teams, PowerPoint, Zoom, Miro and Conceptboard, generative AI in teaching and assignments

Sub-project Lead “GameLOAP” (in tandem)

Co-lead of the sub-project “GameLOAP”, shared with a colleague, within DigiKompASS, a teaching-innovation programme (programme total approx. €4.3m, 21 sub-projects). Goal: making digital competences visible and building them through AI-supported, gamified learning formats.

• Led a sub-project in tandem with a colleague within a programme of 21 sub-projects. Own responsibility for subject-matter design, AI integration and transfer into live teaching. Budget and hiring decided jointly, coordination of an interdisciplinary team.
• Developed AI-supported online educational escape rooms based on business case studies: students solve realistic company problems with course content. Plus a transferable methods toolkit for other courses and disciplines.
• Brought the formats into live teaching with an API integration for LLM-based interaction and learning control, generative AI in real operation rather than in the lab.
• Analysed gamification and digital leadership development as methods for building digital competencies in organisations.
• Worked closely with teaching units and external partners, presented the results at university events and conferences and transferred the approach to further digitalisation initiatives.

Tools Team: one staff member and one student assistant · Trello, MS Project, LLM APIs, BigBlueButton

DAAD Research Fellow

DAAD research fellowship (individual grant) with three and a half weeks on site in Kigali within KeyComp4Practice@UR, the cooperation between the University of Koblenz and the University of Rwanda (College of Business and Economics) that bridges higher education and the labour market.

• Owned a qualitative field study on sustainable leadership practices of local guides from start to finish: interview guide, on-site data collection, analysis.
• Worked closely with local partners and research institutions and presented the key findings to the project partners.
• Took away an international, intercultural perspective on leadership and collaboration, and the experience of being solely responsible for a study in an unfamiliar environment.

Lecturer, MBA Programme

Lecturer in the part-time MBA for working professionals and managers (Centre for Distance Learning and Continuing Education).

• Teaches the module “MBA 17 – Entrepreneurial Strategies”: strategy development, business models and innovation for new and established organisations, online for working professionals from industry and the public sector.
• Since 10/2025 additionally Academic Lead of the “Digitalisierung” focus area and lecturer for “Digitalisation, Change Management and Leadership” (listed separately above).

Research Associate

Research and teaching at the Institute for Management, Faculty of Computer Science – at the interface of technology, organisation and leadership.

• Designed and owns a five-year research programme with five studies (2021 to 2026) on what digital technologies such as AI, VR/AR and the metaverse can do for 24 leadership functions and where their limits lie. The result is a 574-page dissertation, submitted 09/2026 (Dr. rer. pol., defence pending).
• Built access to top management independently: around 250 direct approaches via LinkedIn and personal network led to 36 interviews with executives from 33 large German enterprises, including 10 C-level and 13 further top managers, in companies with up to more than 250,000 employees. Plus 25 interviews with experts in leadership and technology, selected with a self-developed criteria matrix.
• Two systematic literature reviews covering 59 publications and qualitative content analyses with AI-assisted coding and transcription (ChatGPT, Claude, Whisper), used in a documented and reflective way since 2024.
• Four peer-reviewed papers published or accepted: leadership challenges of virtual teams (Springer 2025, ISPC 2024, first author), traits of e-leaders (ECIS 2022, first author, Best Paper Nominee), reference model for the smart factory (Springer 2024, ISPC 2023), AI in leadership (HICSS 2027, accepted). Further results after the defence.
• Designed and delivered courses on Digital Business Management and Management & Leadership (online), plus Introduction to Business Administration and an international online course on Entrepreneurship (bachelor/master), up to 300 students per module. Supervision of bachelor and master theses.
• Editor of the research journal “Junges Forschen”, vol. 4 (2021) and vol. 5 (2022).

Tools MAXQDA, ChatGPT and Claude (AI-assisted coding), Amberscript, Whisper, Zoom, Teams, BigBlueButton

Document Management Associate, DMS Implementation Project Team

Full-time until 04/2014, part-time alongside studies thereafter – and the one place where I saw a digitalisation project from the inside, including everything that is not in the project plan.

• Co-built the newly created scanning team of two to four people from scratch and onboarded new staff (reference letter: “substantially involved”).
• Helped shape the introduction of electronic document management for customer files in the project team, developed filing structures and document descriptions. “Key impulses for successful project delivery” according to the employer. The position ended as planned with project completion (12/2016).
• Built Excel/VBA tools including an investment plan, continuously optimised processes, prepared and delivered presentations, supported complaint management.

Tools Scanning team of two to four people · document management system, Excel/VBA

Freelance Journalist, Sports Desk

Eleven years of regular reporting and writing to deadline for a regional daily – alongside school, studies and work.

• Lower-league football on Sunday, copy filed the same evening, in the paper on Monday morning.
• Looking closely and writing the essentials so that everyone understands. Still in daily use.