Executive MBA in Innovation & Business Creation

Voices of Alumni

Catharina van Delden, Class of 2009/2010

»The venture innosabi was just started when I found out about the EMBA program at TU München. The prospect of completing my management studies with an MBA degree and at the same time being able to work fulltime on the success of our new company appealed me most. The cherry on the cake though is the entrepreneurial network: We met several successful company founders, venture capitalists, business angels and fellow entrepreneurs. Altogether I can say the decision for the EMBA was the right one for me at the right time in my life: I am proud to be part of this class and I can only recommend everybody with entrepreneurial ambitions to take the same step!«

Christoph Krois, Class of 2009/2010

»As an intrapreneur, the EMBA Program gave me the chance to combine my corporate career within a medium sized corporation with entrepreneurial spirit. The international network that I could establish will help me to develop my intrapreneurial challenges and enables me to contribute to my corporation's base of know-how in innovation and business creation. The combination of entrepreneurial skills and innovation techniques within the learning and project modules in the program and the possibility to directly transfer them into the real life project is an USP that makes this program so unique and different to others.«

Jesús Vizcarra, Class of 2008/2009

»The EMBA in Innovation&Business Creation has been a great opportunity for me to grow professionally and personally. Rather than the great combination of lectures and project modules, I give a lot of the credits to my MBA colleagues to bring their experiences and friendships. The mix of experiences, cultures and backgrounds from the MBA and program team as well as the Munich entrepreneurial ecosystem, inspired me to start a new phase in my life and create a new venture: BioBlick.org. All in all, I will say that the program is worth if you want to base your business in Europe, get the insight and network from different entrepreneurial ecosystems like Silicon Valley and Munich, and for sure, enjoy the Bavarian culture!«

Daniel Burns, New Zealand, Class of 2008/2009

»The EMBA program has been a fantastic opportunity for me to grow both professionally and personally. A compelling USP of the program is the opportunity to combine theory and practice in the project modules. The mix of top academic lecturers, industry experts and corporate leaders is motivating and often inspiring. This is especially the case for aspiring intra or entrepreneurs looking to revitalize their company and capitalize on business opportunities. For me personally, it has also been a great chance to access a very strong and well established professional network here in Munich.«

Armin Rau, Class of 2009/2010

»I am delighted to say that I could benefit from the program in two areas. As an Executive Board Member and shareholder of sicap AG, an International Telecoms Applications firm and subsidiary of the Swiss operator Swisscom, I could immediately apply the methods learned on innovation management. The results of my master's thesis led to the formulation of sicap's innovation strategy. As a part-time entrepreneur, I learned a lot about building my entrepreneurial story and checking my project for feasibility. In this respect, the innovation methodology of the program as well as the lectures in Munich and in Berkeley were very helpful.«

Are you interested to contact an alumni of the Executive MBA?

Get in touch with us:
+49 (0)89-32 46 24-600
info@innovationprogram.de

Projects

Helmut Drewes: agrista
Helmut Drewes Helmut Drewes, the founder of agrista, attended the EMBA in 2008 with the purpose of expanding the business he started in South Africa internationally: »The EMBA provided an awesome opportunity to crystallize my business plan and gave me a footprint to access European customers faster.« agrista provides an online fund management platform that minimizes the risk of investing into and financing agricultural projects. Their goal is to increase the funds available to farmers in emerging economies. Emerging economies have the potential to increase agricultural production that is required to address the growing global food crisis. The combination of business theory lectures and coaching on my business project adds value that other MBA programs do not offer and Munich is the ideal location to connect with the various financial centers in Europe.«
Christian Doll, SIEMENS IT Solutions and Services: Service Sourcing Project
Christian Doll Christian Doll, EMBA Class of 2008/2009, worked at Siemens IT Solutions and Services in 2008. His idea was to develop a business concept for Siemens that aimed at engaging and managing external service providers along customer project lifecycles. »We took advantage of the innovation processes and tools recommended by the EMBA Project Advisors. The methods like mood-boards, story-telling, brainstorming and especially the use of prototypes as an integrated innovation approach worked extremely well together.« Most of the methods used were new to Siemens: Especially the 3D LEGO prototype which was used to work out and present the main ideas of the new business concept. »Such prototypes are incredibly effective in making abstract and virtual concepts transparent and understandable to all important stakeholders.« With this approach it was possible to come up with a detailed model in only 5 months by utilizing only 0.5 man-years of a team of 8 employees. Several new ideas have been generated and are now implemented by three different departments within Siemens IT Solutions and Services.
Jan Philipp Hinrichs: CaptchaAD
Jan Philipp Hinrichs CaptchaAd is the first provider in the world which combines conventional CAPTCHAs with high-quality online video advertising. Every day an estimated 250 million CAPTCHAs - spam protection which ensures that the response is not generated by a computer - are displayed on the Internet. The business model and the product of CaptchaAd are simple yet ingenious at the same time: instead of the regular combination of distorted strings of letters, the user is shown a short video spot. With the response to the embedded question it is possible to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. Jan Philipp Hinrichs is co-founder of CaptchaAd and participant of the EMBA Class 2009/2010. During Jan Philipp's time at the EMBA CaptchaAd won several awards and prizes like Europe's largest start-up competition enable2start 2009, the IBTEC 2009 and the Global Entrepreneurship Competition 2010. »The EMBA program was a perfect combination: I got an excellent, academic management education with an MBA degree at the end of it. Additionally, the program provided a great platform to bring forward my start-up. The program team has greatly helped us to develop our young company.«
Matthias Rosenberger: Treems
Matthias Rosenberger Matthias Rosenberger joined the EMBA program in 2009. During the one-year program he developed further the Treems business model. By turning protected trees into a commodity that can be bought directly online he will revolutionize the way people connect with the environment. Treems allows everyone to own a tree, to protect it and to actively participate in nature conservation. By collecting trees over the online platform treems.com customers are provided with data showing all their trees' valuable effects. By enabling this, every single tree becomes a potent symbol of one's own empowerment. Within the EMBA year Matthias made progress on understanding his position within the market of skilled people and on the implementation of social prototyping. The value of networking emerged clearly and personal growth, mainly on a social area, was an important outcome. »During the program I learned to focus on the most promising aspects and to manage the mass of information and ideas of daily life wisely. I found my personal balanced way to success.«

Read more about the project work during the program.

Impressions


Student Profiles

Mixture of participants
Entrepreneurs
Corporate Innovators

60%
40%
Median Years of Work Experience 8.5 years
Median Leadership Experience 5 years
Median Age 34 years
International Students 29%
Countries represented

Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Chile, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Venezuela and Vietnam

Corporate representatives include

BMW, Deutsche Bank, Johnson&Johnson, Mircosoft, and others

Startup representatives include Agrista, CaptchaAd, enbreeze, innosabi, and others
Pie chart of students' backgrounds
Technical University Munich