2011 Award Winners
Innovator with passion
Special Prize Winner Prof. Dr. Werner Bornholdt
“Innovation is when the market cheers!” Prof. Dr Werner Bornholdt was born in 1945. After completing his degree, obtaining his doctorate and spending several years as a management consultant, he accepted a post at Furtwangen University in 1984 so that he could be part of the best possible integration of research, teaching, practical experience and consultancy in Baden-Württemberg. He taught and conducted research there until 2010 in the Department of Product Engineering / Industrial Engineering. The topics closest to his heart are project management, product marketing, strategic marketing, technology and innovation management, rhetoric and sales psychology. He is particularly distinguished by his holistic approach, which holds that technology (expanding feasibility), marketing (meeting demand) and management (ensuring success) must always work together; this made him both respected and popular amongst his students.
In 1988, Werner Bornholdt began his Steinbeis career by founding the Steinbeis Transfer Centre for New Products in Villingen-Schwenningen as a service centre for technology transfer between academia and small and medium-sized enterprises. The Transfer Centre advises and assesses small and medium-sized enterprises and innovations; educates and trains entrepreneurs, business development officers and investors in the management and marketing of new products; sources, evaluates and disseminates information; and supports technology transfer. Werner Bornholdt handed over the management of the centre to his successor in 2010.
At the same time as the Steinbeis Transfer Centre was founded, Werner Bornholdt began to contribute his extensive expertise through teaching assignments and lecturing at universities and at seminar organisers in industry and the banking sector. This included, amongst others, the Steinbeis University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. Here, too, he was able to provide impetus with his holistic approach, resulting in him being honoured in 2006 with an honorary professorship at the Budapest Business School, where he also taught. His published books document his expert knowledge.
Werner Bornholdt was, and remains, particularly valuable to Steinbeis because he has integrated ‘vertical’ projects into a holistic approach. His Business Check, featuring the Steinbeis Competence Star, is a standard tool for many consultants.