Like the three previous summits on China, Sub-Sahara Africa, and Brazil, this year’s summit, too, took place on the ZF campus of Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen. It attracted 200 visitors from all over the world. The organisation and realisation was in the hands of 20 ZU students under the project lead of Kirsti Grund and Laura Trattner. The TLS is not only a platform for different stakeholders from business, academia, politics, and civil society but also a great opportunity for students to learn how to organise such an event; it is part of an educational concept at ZU called the Global Studies Project. From the very beginning, the Transcultural Leadership Summit series has been chaired by Professor Dr Josef Wieland and supervised by Dr Julika Montecinos from the Leadership Excellence Institute Zeppelin | LEIZ. The Summit is part of the“Transcultural Caravan”, a hub for global thinking, research, teaching and networking, initiated and run by the LEIZ.
Just as in previous years, this year’s summit, too, was generously supported by Rolls-Royce Power Systems as main sponsor. As a speaker and panelist, Rolls-Royce Power Systems CEO, Andreas Schell took an active part in the debate, as did Carlo Bevoli, Managing Director of the SAP Sustainability Labs in Markdorf, another generous sponsor of the Summit. Without its sponsors, among whom were also Zeppelin GmbH and Zeppelin Universtitätsgesellschaft, the Summit could not have taken place.
The talks, panels and workshops addressed Europe from various perspectives, encompassing politics in- and outside the EU as well as business and economic issues, civil society, culture, education, and ethics. The consideration of Europe as a cooperation network plays a special role here: “Transculturality is not a vision in Europe, it is the reality when we look at the practice of economic and social cooperation and value creation”, explained Professor Josef Wieland in his opening speech.
In addition to the keynote speeches on topics ranging from “Transcultural Leadership in practice – Insights from a European company” (Dr Sabine Klauke, Head of Engineering Airbus Defense and Space) to “What is Europe? (Prof Dr David Engels, Senior Analyst at Instytut Zachodni, Poznan), attendees of the TLS were given the opportunity to join five different workshops of their choice:
- Successful mobility strategies and transcultural leadership in the European automotive industry (Claudia Schickel, Head of Project Management at MAN Truck and Bus and Dr Albert X. Kirchmann, former CEO and Chairman Daimler Trucks Asia, Chief Executive Advisor)
- Europe in the world – A geopolitical approach (Julian Caletti, Division for Multilateral Diplomacy United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR))
- The changing space for civil society in Europe (Dr Rupert Graf Strachwitz, Director, Maecenata Institute for Philanthropy and Civil Societyand Dr Asif Afridi, Human Rights Practitioner and Researcher, brap)
- Europe – A hub for sustainability? (Carlo Bevoli, Managing Director of SAP Labs Germany, Markdorf (SAP Sustainability Labs))
- Salut Kultur! – Transcultural cooperation in Germany and France in the cultural sector (Dr jur. Dirk R. Lupberger, Business Consultant Finance, Law)
The exhibition of the Italian photographer and artist Valerio Vincenzo has the appropriate title “Frontiers of peace” and was last shown at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. He has photographed landscapes throughout Europe that were the scene of bloody border conflicts in the past. Another guest was the British blogger and photographer Dr. Hannah White, who has been travelling by bicycle across European borders since the Brexit decision and who reports on her experiences in her blog.
Learn more about our sponsors:
Our main sponsor Rolls Royce Power Systems
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