Press Release 046/2018

KIT Senate Confirms Election of Michael Ganß as Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance

Senate Follows the Decision of the Supervisory Board –Appointment Procedure Is Next Step
Michael Ganß. (Photo HZG/Kerstin Petermann:)
Michael Ganß. (Photo HZG/Kerstin Petermann)

Today at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), a very large majority of the KIT Senate confirmed the unanimous vote of the Supervisory Board in favor of Michael Ganß as the new Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance. Upon completion of the appointment procedure and subsequent signing of the contract, a new Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance will assume office at KIT. Ganß is an acknowledged expert in science management, the focus being on finance, controlling, and infrastructure. Since 2003, he has been heading the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht as Administrative Director together with his scientific colleague.

 

Michael Ganß knows the world of research centers quite well. Before he became Administrative Director in Geesthacht, the mechanical engineer was Managing Director of the Cologne-Porz and Bonn-Oberkassel sites of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Director of the Technical Services. Prior to this, the presently 59-year-old Ganß had assumed a range of executive positions at DLR, among others, for corporate controlling.

 

Professor Renate Schubert, who chairs the Supervisory Board of KIT, welcomes the decision of the KIT Senate: “The Supervisory Board unanimously decided in favor of Mr. Ganß as future Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance. We are pleased to have found with him a person with excellent expertise in finance management and, at the same time, vast knowledge of the research community. I am convinced that Mr. Ganß will manage the activities of KIT in his area of competence with a steady hand.”

 

“This clear confirmation by the KIT Senate is a strong and encouraging signal,” says the President of KIT, Professor Holger Hanselka. “Michael Ganß is an excellent choice and I am pleased that the post of Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance can be filled again,” Hanselka continues. “KIT is part of both the university world and the research world. This fact is associated with special challenges for this office. Thanks to the outstanding expertise and prudence of Mr. Ganß, I know that this task now is in good hands.”

 

“I would like to express my cordial thanks for the big trust placed in me by the bodies of KIT deciding in favor of my appointment,” Michael Ganß says. “After my work at two Helmholtz Centers, it is a great pleasure and challenge for me to help shape the future of KIT, the “Research University in the Helmholtz Association” that is unique in the German research community. I am aware of the special framework conditions of the KIT, which will result in highly complex new tasks for me. I greatly respect that and look forward to contributing my experience and my commitment to university business as well. The leitmotif of my work so far has been to understand administration and infrastructure as areas serving science. I will continue to work along this line in the future and to implement this at KIT.”

 

The term of office of the Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance is six years as from the time of his appointment. Ganß will assume office presumably in the middle of the year.

 

Präsident Professor Holger Hanselka mit Michael Ganß (Foto: Sandra Göttisheim)

Professor Holger Hanselka and Michael Ganß. (Photo: Sandra Göttisheim)

 

Michael Ganß – About the Person:

Michael Ganß was born in 1958 in Eschweiler near Aachen and studied first economics at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and then mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University. In 1989, he graduated with a mechanical engineering degree. In the same year, he started his career as assistant of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). In 1990, he was additionally appointed Director of the Executive Board Office. In 1992, Ganß took over the direction of the Program Coordination Office and established the corporate controlling system of DLR, for which he became responsible in 1996. Following the merger of the DLR and the German Space Agency (DARA), Michael Ganß took over a management position in the space activities of DLR in Bonn in 1998 and in 1999 became Director of DLR’s location in Berlin-Adlershof and of the Institute of Planetary Research and Space Sensors Systems located there. From 2001 to 2003, he was Managing Director of the DLR locations in Cologne-Porz and Bonn-Oberkassel as well as Director of the Technical Services at DLR in Cologne. In 2003, he moved to Geesthacht and took over office as Administrative Director at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht with 1000 employees and an annual budget of EUR 120 million.

 

Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,800 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.

lg, 23.04.2018
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