For ten years, TUM Alumna Professor Dr. Kerstin Prechel has worked in management positions in the field of Marketing and Product Management. Here, it was primarily the human element, guiding and helping young people in their development that brought her happiness. As a professor, she can now devote herself fully to this rewarding and challenging task (photo: Jonas Fischer / HAW Hamburg).
The class teacher advised Kerstin Prechel not to go to secondary school. She would probably not be able to cope there, she was told. A few years later, Kerstin Prechel graduated from high school without having to study very hard. Nobody in her environment thought that she could also go to university. But Kerstin Prechel took the plunge. When choosing a subject, she consciously decided against her affinities for philosophy and literature and opted for Business Administration and International Management. It was to be a degree program that would give her the most targeted path to a secure financial future.
THE COURAGE TO DO A DOCTORATE
The pragmatically chosen course of study proved to be just what it had promised. Her first job as a marketing manager at a technology company in Hamburg gave Kerstin Prechel her first chance to catch her breath when it came to money. She immediately plucked up the courage to make more room in her life for her true interests. She no longer wanted to just deliver results in marketing as quickly and efficiently as possible, but wanted to engage in questions of business ethics with scientific depth. So she embarked on a doctorate, which she completed under Prof. Dr. Christoph Lütge at TUM’s Peter Löscher Chair of Business Ethics. However, at the same time she continued to work full time as a research assistant at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University and at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron-Forschungszentrum. A double load that required a lot from her, but brought her a bit closer to her dream.
She impressed with her good work, and her doctoral adviser increasingly involved Kerstin Prechel in research projects on Ethics and Artificial Intelligence. As a result, she was called upon more and more frequently to give lectures as an expert in this field. To this day, she is doing research in a DFG project led by Professor Dr. Petra Ahrweiler, who is a member of TUM’s Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute for Ethics in AI.
After finishing her doctorate at TUM, Kerstin Prechel worked in management positions with listed companies. In 2019, she started her own consultancy and was appointed Deputy Professor of Business Administration at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. In 2021, she was called to Duale Hochschule Schleswig-Holstein to become a professor. A dream had thus come true for Kerstin Prechel: She is now able to pass on her extensive knowledge in the fields of Business Administration, Project Management, Organizational Management and Business Ethics to her students. She considers it a great joy when she also succeeds in being a mentor and role model for them, encouraging them and making them believe in themselves.
On Wednesday, the 24th of August 2022, Kerstin Prechel will talk about equal opportunities and the ups and downs of her career at a Women of TUM event. She will offer personal advice on how to make a career even if one’s path is full of obstacles and stumbling blocks. “If I am able to encourage just one woman here, I have already achieved my goal,” Kerstin Prechel says.
Her doctoral adviser at TUM increasingly involved TUM Alumna Kerstin Prechel in research projects on Ethics and Artificial Intelligence. Today, she is considered an expert in this field. The picture shows her at the University Future Festival of the AI Campus (photo: Hochschulforum Digitalisierung).
Kerstin Prechel (Picture: private).
Doctorate Business Ethics 2014
From 2002 to 2004, Kerstin Prechel studied Marketing at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington/USA with a DAAD and Fulbright scholarship. In 2005, she earned a diploma in Business Administration and International Management at Hochschule Bremen. In 2014, she successfully completed her part-time doctorate in Business Ethics at TUM.
For ten years, Kerstin Prechel has worked for international companies in management positions in the fields of Marketing and Product Management. She was a research assistant and lecturer at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, the Fachhochschule Nordakademie Elmshorn and FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics & Management. It has always been working with people that made her particularly happy. In 2019, she started her own consulting company for Business Ethics in Theory and Practice. In the same year, she was appointed Deputy Professor for Business Administration in Public Administration, International Marketing and Business Ethics at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW). Since 2021, Kerstin Prechel has been Professor of Project Management, Organization and Key Competencies at Duale Hochschule Schleswig-Holstein.
Kerstin Prechel is a member of the KI-ExpertLab at Hochschullehre at FernUni Hagen and a Fellow of the AI-Campus, a project funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research to strengthen AI competencies through innovative, online learning opportunities.
Together with her two cats and her Great Dane puppy, Kerstin Prechel recently moved into a house with a garden very close to her parents. As they get older, she wants to support them more.
