Student organisation team: from left to right, Angela Eisele, Ana Lía Jessen, Venise Busch, Stefanie Trofimov and Sofia Fugel with Prof. Julika Baumann Montecinos and Prof. Frank Kramer.
On Thursday, 16 November, the HFU Business School at Furtwangen University (HFU) will be focusing on the future of sustainability management. Together with its cooperation partners Gewerbeverband Oberzentrum, IHK Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg and the International Business Alumni Association, HFU looks forward to bringing a range of experts from business and science to the Schwenningen Leadership Summit to exchange ideas with practitioners from the region and its students.
In keynote speeches, panel discussions and workshops, the topic of "sustainability" will be examined from various perspectives. Among other things, the focus will be on current regulatory developments related to reporting obligations and supply chain management, as well as the significance of these trends for companies in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg region.
With this local event, the HFU Business School will also be a venue for the global Transcultural Leadership Summit this year. "The morning of 16 November will be dedicated to a regional perspective before we switch to a global stage at 1.30pm," explains the initiator, HFU Professor Julika Baumann Montecinos, "From our campus in Schwenningen, we will then embark on a journey with the other participating universities in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America and learn from and with each other what sustainability means in the different contexts.
The fact that this year's focus topic of sustainability has created a great deal of interest in companies is probably due, among other things, to current developments at a political level. As Frank Kramer, Professor of Sustainable Corporate Management at HFU, emphasizes, "The regulations on sustainability reporting and the requirements for risk management in global value chains are becoming increasingly complex and binding. Added to this are the expectations of customers, banks and NGOs. All of this increasingly affects small and medium-sized enterprises - and it is precisely these companies that have often long internalised the basic idea of sustainability in their DNA."
Students on the Bachelor's and Master's programmes at HFU are also enthusiastic about the topic of sustainability and are already preparing for the event, which is embedded in various courses at the Business School. A student organisation team has also taken over the event management. "It is really encouraging how well the format is being received by our practice partners and our students," says Julika Baumann Montecinos happily, "Now we're just looking forward to the big day and exciting discussions."
Further information and the opportunity to register free of charge can be found at: https://schwenningen-leadership-summit.de, but spontaneous participation without prior registration is also possible.