UNITED SUSTAINABILITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Institute of Technology Seibersdorf - Chairman of the Management Board
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the World Future Council
Alexandra Wandel is chairwoman of the World Future Council‘s Management Board. The Council brings together 50 eminent members from all around the world who have already successfully promoted change (see www.worldfuturecouncil.org), Since 2010 she has set up partnerships for the Future Policy Award with twelve UN agencies on topics such as biodiversity, forests, oceans and coasts, desertification and agroecology. The Award has given prizes to 60 impactful and innovative policies from 40 countries since 2010.
Previously, she was the European Trade and Sustainability Programme Coordinator of Friends of the Earth International in Brussels. Between 1999 and 2006, she coordinated European NGO activities including at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conferences in Seattle, Doha, Cancun and Hong Kong and the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
She was an advisor to the European Commission's Delegation in Johannesburg and to EU Commissioner Lamy on globalisation, trade and environment on behalf of the major European environmental NGOs: Friends of the Earth Europe, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Greenpeace and Birdlife. Earlier she worked for EcoPeace Middle East in East Jerusalem, the Egyptian Youth for Development and Environment in Cairo, and was personal assistant to Eva Quistorp, MEP, Brussels and Elisabeth Schroedter, MEP, Potsdam. Alexandra has obtained a MA in International Relations with Honours from the University of Amsterdam, and studied political science and public law at the Free University Berlin. She is mother of two girls.
Dirk Hamann is specialised in corporate laws, M&A and other transactions and projects in various industry sectors, including energy and natural resources. He advised the Swedish state owned utility group on its market entry into Germany, and helped transforming the German group parts in a series of restructuring steps into what is now known as Vattenfall Europe. Dirk was taking care of the public welfare interests on instruction of the Federal Republic of Germany in the defense sector and the national security agreement, and was advising Germany in the large aircraft manufacturing sector and the WTO-trade law context in relation to the EU commission vis a vis the USA. His advisory activities included corporate litigation, e.g. international and domestic arbitration and court proceedings, as regulatory aspects in the industries, including the German Foreign Trade Act.
Dirk consistently advocates the concrete implementation and scaling of sustainable business practices and impact investments. He is deeply convinced that the enormous financial resources in the investment sector should be channelled into just and rational investments in order to preserve and expand the natural foundations of life. As one of the most distinguished lawyers in Europe, he works in large scale transactions with major industrial companies, is legal advisor to various ministries in the Federal Republic of Germany and has broad access to international and national clients from various economic sectors as well as to politics and civil society.
Georg Fischer is a shareholder of Blanc & Fischer Familienholding GmbH, an internationally active group of companies with production plants in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. The company includes, among others, the sink specialist Blanco and the E.G.O. Group, a leading manufacturer of components for the household appliance industry.
After an apprenticeship at Deutsche Bank and various industrial internships, he joined the family-owned company E.G.O. in 1972. In 1988, he first took over sales management for the European market, later taking on responsibility for sales and marketing worldwide as managing shareholder. In 2007, he joined the supervisory board of the German E.G.O. Group and to the Board of Directors of the parent company (Blanc &Fischer Familienholding GmbH).
Since 2018, he has been on the supervisory board of Naturata AG, a leading supplier of organic and biodynamic foods. He joined the circle of shareholders of United Sustainability through his involvement in the retail and wholesale of organic food and in the field of sustainable energy production.
Günter Koch has been a pioneer in computer science since the late 1970s. In various publications, projects and through his memberships in renowned technology and software institutes, such as the European Software Institute (ESI) and the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), he worked on software development, process data processing and software quality management, among others.
After completing his studies in computer science at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Günter continued to work, lecture and research at the university on application-oriented software, its architecture and control. In the early 1990s, his achievements and qualifications earned him the status of Habilitation, after which Günter worked in various professorships, including at Graz University of Technology and Danube University Krems. In 2001, he was awarded the Viktor Kaplan Medal of the Upper-Austrian patent holders and inventors' association (Österreichischer Patentinhaber- und Erfinderverband) for his pioneering work in computer science, in particular for his invention of a system for pattern recognition in the quality control of banknotes.
As an entrepreneur, Günter founded and led Biomatic GmbH, which developed software solutions for medical and biological informatics. The company later specialized in integration projects for hospitals and publishers and in software development for automation in industrial production and mechanical engineering under the name 2i Industrial Informatics. As managing director of a public-private technology center and incubator in Germany, he assisted high-tech startups in their development and foundation.
Among his most prestigious positions is his membership in the steering committee of the European Association of Research and Technology Organizations (EARTO). Furthermore, he served as Managing Director of the Central European Institute of Technology in Austria, the Austrian equivalent of the Fraunhofer Institute, from 2006 to 2008.
Throughout his career, Koch has been concerned with the subjects of the knowledge society and the economy for the common good (Gemeinwohlökonomie). In 2004, he was an initiator and member of the European Commission's High Level Expert Groups on Intellectual Capital, which published the RICARDIS Report. Together with Ursula Schneider, he is considered the inventor of intellectual capital reporting and its standard model. For this work, Koch was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class (Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst erster Klasse) by the Austrian President in 2006.
Günter lives and works in Vienna and Tenerife.
Hannes is passionate about new methods of sustainable business valuation and sustainable finance. With his background in business administration and economics, he assists United Sustainability's management board in all executive tasks.
Within his studies in Sociology, Politics and Economics (SPE) at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Hannes focused on business transformation in small- and medium-sized enterprises. After his bachelor degree, he founded a start-up company on digitalization and consultancy.
Now, besides his position at United Sustainability, he enhances his professional expertise with a masters degree in Communication in Social and Economic Contexts at the University of Arts Berlin.
Job Titles:
- Mergers & Acquisitions - Corporate Partner
Jascha Rohr is an internationally reputed expert in the fields of transformation management and participatory design as well as a process designer and facilitator of collaborative design and organizational processes. In 2005 he founded the Permaculture Academy and established this agroecological subject in Germany. He is managing director and was founder of the Institute for Participative Design (IPG), Oldenburg, in 2008 with his wife, Prof. Sonja Hörster. Furthermore, he founded the Cocreation Foundation in 2020 and serves as its Chairman of the Board.
Jascha studied philosophy and sociology at the University Oldenburg, London Guildhall University and Trier University. The Institute for Participatory Design (IPG) is at the forefront of conceptual, collaborative development for local administrations, state, and federal politics, civil society organizations, as well as business enterprises. In this context, the IPG, under the direction of Jascha and Sonja Hörster, designed the national citizens' councils and implemented them nationwide in Germany on behalf of the German Bundestag.
With the Permaculture Academy, Jascha made a significant contribution to bringing the concept of permaculture as a regenerative agroecological practice into the professional and media mainstream. With Sonja Hörster, he developed the Field-Process-Model for analyzing and guiding transformation processes and creative group working.
Job Titles:
- Independent, Non - Executive Member of Board
Soenke Thomsen is entrepreneur, personally liable shareholder and spokesman of Lehmann&Voss&Co. KG in Hamburg, a chemical company that has been marketing chemical and mineral specialties to industrial clients for more than 125 years. The family business is now in its 4th generation.
After studying architecture in Germany and Spain, Soenke initially worked for several years as an architect in renowned offices in Düsseldorf and Hamburg. After completing a part-time MBA, he joined the family business in 2004, where he rose through several positions to become managing director of the parent company as well as the company groups holding.
Soenke is committed to sustainability and the preservation of natural livelihoods, both in his companies and in his private life, with a particular focus on digital and innovative approaches. Soenke joined United Sustainability through a private project that aims to combine sustainability and inclusion with digitalization, as well as through the strong overlap of guiding values and intentions.