TUM Community

“Today I have completely different expectations,” says the TUM alumna, who works as a project manager at the management consultancy Bain & Company. For her, the job also has to fit in with her private life. For Anna Hepp, this means: predictability, less travel, but still challenging projects in which she can make a difference for her clients.

The job market needs mothers

After her first child, Anna Hepp was able to return to her old job part-time and then gradually ramp up, initially working on internal projects until there was more room for customer projects. “I had a lot of flexibility that many of my friends who had children didn’t have,” she says today. Flexible working hours, home office days, childcare are all offers that companies can – and should – use to support their employees with children. “Because if you don’t bring mothers back from family leave or leave them working part-time below their potential, it often becomes economically and financially tight,” says the TUM alumna. This applies to both the companies and the women.

She understands the respect for the dual role as a mother in professional life, the fear that may come with it. It also makes everything more difficult at first, the coordination of schedules, the new daily routine, the expectations, the additional costs for care, nobody should miss out. But you can grow into this role, says Anna Hepp. There is one piece of advice that she always gives: “Before you think it’s impossible: Try it out first!” This doesn’t just apply to balancing work and family life, but to your own path in life in general.

Daring to follow your dreams

Anna Hepp remembers the time after her bachelor’s degree in economics and sinology when she really wanted to go abroad again. The LSE in London was her dream, but at first she didn’t believe she could do it. She almost didn’t apply. “I thought my grades were too bad,” she says. A friend encouraged her and motivated her. She put all her passion into the application, studying for weeks for the GMAT. It worked. The Master’s degree in London was also her entry into the management consultancy sector.

After two years, Anna Hepp decided to take the academic route again and completed her doctorate at TUM. “It’s an absolutely renowned university in Germany, a top address and TUM was my first choice,” she says. She wrote her doctoral thesis on digital marketing in the construction materials industry at the Chair of Controlling.

Women of TUM: Women who support each other

As a project manager, she now helps companies around the world to improve their digital strategies. This includes clients such as the UN Refugee Agency, for which she and her team have structured fundraising pro bono via foundations. “My job is always about solving our clients’ most pressing problems and I love doing that,” says Anna Hepp. “The fact that I can continue to do my job also gives me a lot of energy to spend time with my children.”

She is involved in her company’s women’s network as well as in the Women of TUM network – a network that includes over 19,000 female students, 130 female professors and 40,000 female alumnae. “The exchange of experiences, mutual support, simple encouragement, that’s what counts, that’s what makes a difference,” says Anna Hepp. She is therefore delighted to be sitting on the podium at this year’s Women of TUM Talk on the topic of “Fierce & Fearless: Women Across Industry, Innovation and Science” on April 9 and to be able to share her experiences with the audience. She is particularly looking forward to networking: “These great mothers and women,” says Anna Hepp, “inspire me every day. I experience so much interest and openness in combining a successful career and a present parental role.”