Hall of Fame - Former employees

Prof. Dr. Katharina Hölzle, MBA is Professor of IT Entrepreneurship at the Hasso Plattner Institute, Digital Engineering Faculty of the University of Potsdam and former Chair of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Potsdam (2011 - 2019). With a degree in industrial engineering, she first worked in business at Infineon Technologies, Cap Gemini and an American start-up company. In 2008, she received her PhD from TU Berlin, and worked there as a junior professor and “Habilitated” in 2011.

She teaches entrepreneurship, innovation and technology management at Bachelor, Master and Executive Master level at national and international universities. Katharina Hölzle has been a coach at the HPI School of Design Thinking in Potsdam since 2009, as well as a member of the Design Thinking Research Program. Since 2015 she is editor of the journal 'Creativity and Innovation Management' (CIM). In 2018, Katharina Hölzle was appointed as a member of the Expert Commission on Research and Innovation (EFI) and in 2019 as a member of the High-Tech Forum of the German Federal Government. She is also a Visiting Professor at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing, and the UTS Business School and Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) in Sydney.

Her research areas include the implementation of creativity and innovation in business, design thinking, digitalization, business model innovation, and strategic foresight. She advises companies on strategic technology and innovation management and acts as a mentor for start-up companies. 

Dr. Lars Groeger was Interim-Chair and Professor of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Potsdam from 2019 to 2020. 

For more than 10 years, he has taught MBA students and executives in Sydney and Hong Kong in the areas of business model innovation, strategic marketing management, consumer behavior and design thinking. The MGSM MBA is ranked among the top 100 MBA programs in the world (Financial Times & The Economist). Dr. Groeger is also one of the startup academics at the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship and has designed and developed experiential innovation units for industry and entrepreneurs at the Macquarie Incubator.

Dr. Groeger is also an associate professor at RWTH Aachen University and a design thinking coach at the HPI School of Design Thinking in Potsdam. He continues to co-found Fisherfolk, a strategy and education consultancy specializing in innovation, human centred design and smart disruption. In this role, Dr. Groeger works with leading global corporations, start-ups, and public institutions on topics ranging from co-designing market-driven strategies to building innovation capabilities in leaders and their teams to facilitating transformation projects.

Dr. Groeger is a regular speaker at international conferences, business forums and workshops in Australia and Europe. His research addresses design thinking skills and leadership, business models as complex adaptive systems, the emergence of university incubators, and online and offline customer engagement, and has been published in leading academic and professional journals.

In 2004, he received a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Business Administration from the University of Cologne, Germany, and in 2005, he received an M.Sc. International Management (CEMS MIM) from Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC), Paris, France. During his studies, he also participated in the MBA program at Pennsylvania State University, USA, and conducted research for his master's thesis on a full scholarship from the DAAD. Dr. Groeger received his PhD in 2008 from the University of Cologne, Germany, on the phenomenon of exponential product diffusion of innovations. He also gained extensive experience as a management consultant in Germany before moving to Australia in 2009. 

Prof. Dr. Bastian Halecker was Interim-Chair and Professor of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Potsdam from October 2020 to August 2021. Previously, he was employed for two years at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences as Professor of Business Administration and Entrepreneurship. 

Professor Halecker is a passionate and experienced entrepreneur. In addition to his own start-ups such as the matchmaking platform www.startuptour.de and the food innovation platform www.hungry-ventures.com, he is currently active as a founding partner of www.germandeeptech.institute. Here, the main focus is on networking between industry, deep tech (from research) and entrepreneurial talent. The mission is to leverage the scientific potential in Germany in an entrepreneurial way to solve relevant problems in the world.