Board of Trustees elects Senior Vice Presidents of TUM
New members of the Board of Management: Hana Milanov and Gerhard Müller
Apart from the President and the Senior Executive Vice President for Human Resources, Administration and Finance, the TUM Board of Management consists of five Senior Vice Presidents and two Vice Presidents.
Prof. Müller will succeed Prof. Regine Keller, Professor Milanov will succeed Prof. Liqiu Meng, and Hans Pongratz will continue his leadership responsibilities within the same department. Thus, the university’s new Board of Management represents all scientific areas of the extensive TUM-portfolio: Natural Sciences, Engineering, Life Sciences and Economics.
President Herrmann was pleased with the election of the new managing representatives and stated that the personalities – outstandingly qualified and recognized throughout the university – will surely shape the university’s future significantly. The TUM has expanded considerably throughout the past years.
The number of students has almost doubled during the last ten years (currently around 36,000). There are now close to 10,000 employees and the professoriate has 509 members (a plus of 35%). In 2013, TUM reached an all-time high in external third-party research funding: almost 300 million Euros.
Senior Vice President "Academic and Student Affairs":
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Müller holds the Chair of Structural Mechanics at the Faculty of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering. He studied Civil Engineering at TUM, where he received his doctorate in 1989. After working at the TUM Chair of Structural Mechanics as an assistant (until 1992, interrupted by a research stay at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris), he became a consulting engineer for the company Müller-BBM GmbH in Planegg (1992 - 2004).
Shortly after taking up his freelance work, he habilitated at TUM. In 2000, he was appointment as an adjunct Professor at the TUM Faculty of Civil Engineering (at that time). In 2004, he was appointed to the Faculty of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering and became Dean of his faculty in October 2010.
As a Dean, Prof. Müller played a key part in introducing and developing the new study course of Environmental Engineering, as well as in converting the classical Diploma courses to the Bachelor-/Master system.
The new Senior Vice President is planning to further improve the quality of the teaching and to proceed with the internationalization of the TUM’s curriculum, based on the system accreditation which was introduced by his predecessor, Prof. Regine Keller.
Senior Vice President "International Alliances and Alumni":
Prof. Hana Milanov, PhD, is a professor of International Entrepreneurship at the TUM School of Management. She was raised in Zagreb (Croatia) and studied Economics at her hometown university, where she also worked as a teaching and research assistant.
At the age of 27, she received her doctorate as a Doctoral Student Associate Instructor at the prestigious Kelley School of Business at Indiana University (Bloomington / USA). Later, she became an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the IE Business School in Madrid (Spain). In 2012, she was appointed Professor of International Entrepreneurship at TUM.
Her research concerns entrepreneurship, international management and social networks – in particular network effects in connection with internationalization-efforts of companies. A main focus lies on the industry-branches of venture capital, biotechnology and high-technology in the US.
As she was born in Croatia, she can also draw on experiences from the emerging EU-region of south-eastern Europe and – at the same time – knowledge concerning the US entrepreneurship scene and experiences from the outstanding and entrepreneurial IE Business School, Madrid, with one of the best MBA-programs in the world.
As a new Senior Vice President, Professor Milanov feels responsible for stabilizing the international TUM locations (especially TUM Asia and TUM CREATE in Singapore) and for their further development as recruitment centers for especially qualified TUM students, while another focus lies on the need to strengthen the TUM’s European network and to establish new TUM-liaison Offices (in the US and in India). As a Vice President, Prof. Milanov will be responsible for the TUM International Center with its associated university-wide service facilities.
Senior Vice President "Information Technology" (TUM Chief Information Officer):
Dipl.-Inf. Hans Pongratz studied computer science at TUM – in connection with Economics as a secondary subject. For his master’s thesis, he developed a WBT for the international master’s course of Industrial Chemistry at TUM Singapore. Before and during his studies, he worked as a freelance employee in the economy, especially in the field of software development.
In 2005, he continued working at TUM: at first with the project elecTUM (integrated e-learning); later, he managed the major project IntegraTUM and also took over the new Campus Management System (overall responsibility from 2010 onwards).
In 2011, he was elected Senior Vice President of IT Systems and Services (CIO) at TUM. Since then, he has been working in the position, which includes substantial personnel responsibility. Under his supervision, the TUM became a "Digital University", while he is also a sought-after advisor for other universities.
He succeeded in expanding the TUM’s IT infrastructure efficiently and to establish this key development project as a university-wide service center that is highly appreciated by thousands of users. For him, one of the key challenges of the next term of office is a complete digitization of the TUM’s process operations.