His motivation is curiosity: As Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for General Electric in Europe, Dr. Carlos Härtel drives the development of new products and technologies in the region (Image: GE Global Research).
As a doctoral student, he dreamed of leaving deep and lasting marks on our collective scientific knowledge. Yet there were also many exciting and enticing tasks outside of academic research, and here it was also possible to realize one’s own ideas as practical applications. Today Carlos Härtel thinks of his doctoral training as an opportunity to learn perseverance and clear thinking. “I only learned to really appreciate these things in retrospect.”
When the researcher finished his post-doc, he abandoned his secure university career path and started afresh as an employee in an energy technology company, where he worked on development projects. This was a hugely important change. “It only gradually became clear to me how research in an industrial environment is fundamentally different from academia,” he says. He has never regretted taking the plunge.
Accompanying innovation
Carlos Härtel is now the Innovation Director of General Electric in Europe. At the American industrial giant, he is responsible for, among other things, innovation partnerships with important customers, the accelerated implementation and commercialization of new technologies and the development of cooperative projects with leading research institutions.
In his job he most enjoys accompanying the implementation of innovative products. “It’s tremendously exciting to work closely with our global teams. They can take a brilliant idea that might just be a sketch on a blackboard and turn it into a marketable, high-end technological product. Unfortunately, because of all my other commitments in day-to-day business, I have much less time for this part of my job than I would like.”
Carlos Härtel has been involved in the program TUM Mentoring by Alumni for Students as a mentor for over nine years. He has got to know 20 mentees during this time and mentored them for up to a year each. He finds the most exciting mentees to be those who know precisely what they want, who are open-minded and willing to argue their corner in discussions. Härtel sees his mentorship as providing an extra source of help: “I am there for questions that professors or friends or family cannot answer. Carlos Härtel often finds his mentees’ enthusiasm infectious: “This gives me a real motivation boost.”
Carlos Härtel (Image: Magdalena Jooss/TUM).
Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering 1994
Carlos Härtel holds a doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from TUM. He has many years of research under his belt which he undertook at the German Aerospace Center in Göttingen and at the ETH Zurich, where he completed his post-doctorate (Habilitation) in 1999.
As Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for GE in Europe, Carlos Härtel has been advancing the development of new products and technologies in the region since July 2016 in close collaboration with GE’s global business units. He also heads GE’s European Research Center in Garching near Munich. He has been instrumental in developing the center into a global industrial research facility with now over 200 scientists from nearly 40 countries.
From October 2015 to July 2016, Carlos Härtel was responsible for GE’s business and corporate strategy in Germany and Austria as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GE Germany and Austria.
He has been involved in the program TUM Mentoring by Alumni for Students as a mentor for over nine years and was awarded the golden alumni needle for his engagement. Carlos Härtel is married and has a daughter.
