OAV Young Leaders
The OAV Young Leaders Programme is the leadership programme of the German Asian economy. In the programme the high potentials of OAV member companies come together to build an international network, develop and deepen their Asia competence and expand their leadership skills.
The programme, formerly known as OAV Juniors, was founded in 2001 in Hamburg, when about twenty young executives came together for the first time to exchange experiences about their work in relation to the Asia-Pacific region. Today, more than two decades later, the number of members has grown to over three hundred, organised in over ten regional groups. To this day, the Young Leaders Programme has a strong focus on Germany, even though more than a third of the members are now based in the Asia-Pacific region.
At the same time, the Young Leaders programme has constantly expanded and we now offer a wide range of different events on current topics relating to the Asian markets, the political and social framework conditions as well as the cultural background in the respective countries. In addition, the regional groups offer discussion and exchange opportunities to further intensify networking in Germany and the Asia-Pacific region.
An Extensive Range of Events
- regular exchange in webinars, seminars and workshops on current issues with renowned Asia experts
- Round tables and initiatives with high-ranking representatives from the OAV network
- the OAV Young Leaders Annual Conference as a central networking event and the Young Leaders General Assembly
- visits of OAV member companies
- regular events of the regional groups
Key Subjects and Objectives
- discussing economic opportunities and risks of the Asia-Pacific region
- strengthening intercultural competences in dealing with business partners from the region
- establishing/expanding an international network with a focus on the business area Asia
- knowledge transfer with exchange of best practices on a wide range of business areas relevant to Asia
Membership Requirements
The person...
- is employed by an OAV company member or partner organisation and has been nominated for the programme by that member or partner organisation
- is a young executive
- has gathered extensive experience in Asia or has a high level of affinity with Asia
- shares the objectives of the OAV
- is under forty years of age
- is motivated to actively participate in the Young Leaders Network
Spokespersons of the OAV Young Leaders
The OAV Team is supported by the Co-Speakers, the Regional Spokespersons and the Liaison Representatives.
Co-Speaker
Katja Neumüller, attorney-at-law in the Cologne office of the law firm Luther, has been Co-Speaker of the OAV Young Leaders together with Dr. Philipp Meyer since March 2022. She has already been an active member of the OAV since 2012 and the regional spokesperson for the Young Leaders in North Rhine-Westphalia since May 2015. She also supports the "Women in Leadership" initiative. The Young Leaders network offers her the perfect platform to stay in touch among young experts with Asian expertise, both regionally and globally. Katja Neumüller is committed to the steady growth of the OAV Young Leaders programme and intends as Co-Speaker to further expand and strengthen the OAV Young Leaders network.
Dr. Philipp Meyer, Managing Director of the Chinese TRUMPF subsidiary JFY, has been Co-Spokesperson for the OAV Young Leaders since August 2020. Philipp Meyer has been a member of the OAV since 2016 and is committed to a closer exchange between young German and Asian executives. Before moving to China in July 2019, he was a consultant to the TRUMPF group management in Ditzingen. He has also represented the Young Leaders on the OAV Presidium since November 2020.
Regional Groups and Spokespersons
Germany
Anna Hölzle represents the OAV Young Leaders in Baden-Wurttemberg since September 2020 for a stronger network of those interested in Asia and support the regional group activities. To her, the exchange during company visits and round tables is particularly important.
As the owner of Olymp Bezner's right hand, Anna is responsible for marketing, retail and e-commerce as well as for the Asia related supply chain activities. After studying business administration, she focused on the Asian economic region in her master's degree and also spent a semester at Tsinghua University in Beijing via a scholarship.
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Delip Prasad represents the OAV Young Leaders in Bavaria since November 2020.
Delip Prasad has been a member of the OAV Young Leaders Bavaria since 2017 and has Indian roots. For MAI, he and his team are responsible for business development activities and for the implementation of international projects related to airport operation, planning and optimization. Among other things, he has accompanied or partially managed projects in the Middle East, North America, Latin America and Asia.
Dr. Jost Wubbeke represents the OAV Young Leaders in Berlin since February 2021.
Jost Wubbeke is Director at Sinolytics GmbH, a specialised consulting company that offers expert analysis and strategic advice on China. Previously, he was Head of the Economics and Technology Programme at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).
Maria Kieslich has been involved with the regional group of OAV Young Leaders in Berlin since June 2022 and has set herself the goal of establishing an active and lively network of Young Leaders in the region.
Maria Kieslich has been working as a lawyer in the area of commercial and corporate law at the Berlin office of the law firm GvW Graf von Westphalen since June 2022. Until May 2022, she lived predominantly in China for several years, where she studied and worked.
Alexander Oldenburg is a member of the Global China Desk at KPMG AG and is among others contact person for Chinese clients in Germany. He has been actively involved in the OAV network since the end of 2013 and since then, as Regional Spokesman for Northern Germany, has promoted the constant exchange among the YL, e.g. he successfully established the Ambassador Talk, which takes place annually as part of the Ostasiatisches Liebesmahl in Hamburg with ambassadors from the Asia-Pacific region.
Juliane Bendig works as a Key Account Manager in the department Corporate Fashion for the company C. Melchers GmbH & Co. KG in Bremen. Apart from her personal interest, trading with textiles comes with a strong focus on Asia, which motivated her to join the OAV Young Leaders programme. Additionally, the topic of sustainability is of major interest for the textile industry, therefore Juliane is a member of the Sustainability Round Table.
Katja Neumüller is specialized as attorney-at-law in the Cologne office of the law firm Luther on advising companies on their cross-border transactions, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. She has lived and worked a longer period in time abroad, including Singapore and Shanghai. Since May 2015, she has been exchanging her professional expertise and personal Asian interest with the OAV Young Leaders in North Rhine-Westphalia as regional spokesperson and is further expanding the regional network. She organizes local get-togethers and company visits as well as ambassador talks and webinars.
Dr Keno Strömer has been an active member of the OAV since 2021 and is regional co-spokesperson for the NRW region since September 2022. He is the managing director of REMONDIS Aqua (India) Pvt. Ltd., a company specialising in the recycling of industrial wastewater.
Christoph Haberkorn has been active in the OAV Young Leaders network since 2020 and took on the role of regional spokesman for the Rhine-Main area in 2022. As Director Strategic Projects, he is currently responsible for M&A projects in the Health Care business unit of Evonik. Previously, he worked for Siemens and BASF and has spent several years in Asia, mainly in China, Vietnam, and Singapore.
Asia-Pacific
Patrick Kemnitz, General Director of TRUMPF Vietnam Co. Ltd., is heading the two TRUMPF offices in Ho-Chi-Minh City and Hanoi since 2018. He holds a diploma in industrial engineering of the Technical University of Berlin and worked for 8 years in the Management Consulting business before he joined TRUMPF Headquarter in Ditzingen, Germany. During his time in the Corporate Development Department he worked also on projects in China.
Since 2021, Patrick Kemnitz took over as Regional Spokesperson for the OAV Young Leaders in Vietnam.
Dr Viet Anh Nguyen was born in the city of Bac Giang, Vietnam. He graduated with honours in Physical Engineering from the Technical University in 2010. After completing his studies, he worked as a research assistant at the Department of Structural Mechanics and Computation at the Institute of Mechanics at TU Berlin. There, Dr Nguyen successfully completed his doctorate in structural mechanics and dynamics in 2015. Since the end of 2015, he has been working in the large gas turbine business unit at Siemens AG and, since October 2020, at Siemens Energy AG. He is currently working in the Green Hydrogen division at Siemens Energy AG in Berlin. In addition to his main job at Siemens Energy AG, Dr Nguyen takes on the role as President of the Vietnam Innovation Network in Europe (VINEU). Furthermore, he is the representative for Vietnam of the Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade (BWA) in Berlin. Since September 2022, Dr Viet Anh Nguyen took over as Regional Spokesperson for the OAV Young Leaders in Vietnam.
Born to German-Indonesian parents, Leonard Anilaputra Eggert is a Vice President at KfW IPEX-Bank where he is responsible for originating large-scale infrastructure transactions in Asia-Pacific incl. Indonesia. Having worked for several German banks in APAC since 2014, he most recently headed the representative office of LBBW in Jakarta from 2019 to 2021, after passing the Fit & Proper Test of the Indonesian Financial Services Authority OJK. He holds a Master of Science in Finance and the Chartered Financial Analyst charter.
Maximilian Selle has been working in Asia for 10 years. After several years in commercial and general management roles in the project logistics and heavy transport industry in Thailand and Indonesia, he has joined the Melchers Team to develop new business in Indonesia.Together with Leonard Eggert, Maximilian is looking forward to promoting the OAV Young Leaders Program in Indonesia.
Niklas Schröder is the Local Director at Hubner Group’s Korea Office in Seoul since February 2020. The projects he is working on are primarily in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Australia. Having studied and worked in China and South East Asia in the past, he now enjoys living in the democratic part of Asia. Being an active part of Asia’s development excites him and he is always grateful for opportunities to learn new things and to meet interesting people.
Felix Kalkowsky is Vice President of KGCCI DEinternational (AHK Korea). He and his team support German companies interested in entering the Korean market by providing various services. He lives in Korea since 2015 and is particularly interested to meet people from different backgrounds and exchange on topics such as smart cities, sustainability and industry 4.0.
Luhong (Leon) Li has become a member of OAV in 2015. He has been engaging himself for a close cooperation between German and Chinese companies as well as the exchange among the young leaders. Before returning to his home town Shanghai in August 2018, he used to be the executive assistant to Chairman of TÜV SÜD AG in Munich. He is delighted to stay connected with young leaders as the Regional Spokesperson since February 2021 in China and is passionate to convey first-hand experience from China.
Laura Guenther has been involved with China for over 15 years, firstly through her studies in Business Sinology & International Management in Bremen & Chengdu, and then through her work. Laura has been working for the Hamburg trading house Hüpeden & Co. in China for 10 years and was responsible for the import of various products in their Xiamen branch from 2012 to 2015. She has been living in Shanghai since 2015 and manages the Hanlian branch there, which specialises in textiles for the automotive and fast fashion industry.
David Liendgens, Kerstin Köhler and Robert Puschmann have been Regional Spokespersons for the OAV Young Leaders in Singapore since April 2021.
Liaison Representatives
Frauke Steiner studied business administration (Diplom) in Nuremberg and is a tax consultant and auditor. Frauke has been on secondment to China since 2016 and mainly handles DAX30/40 audit engagements with substantial business in China, active in the "advanced manufacturing & mobility" sector. In addition, she represents EY as GBN representative in chamber work in Beijing.
Niklas Schiffers supports German companies in their business with partners from Sri Lanka as a project manager at the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Sri Lank (Chamber of Commerce Abroad - AHK). In addition to individual consultations, the AHK regularly organises delegation trips to Germany and Sri Lanka. Niklas Schiffers began his career at the AHK Ghana after studying economics.
Stefan Schratz is Director at ING Wholesale Banking Hong Kong for > 5 years with a regional role working with subsidiaries of large corporations across 11 countries in APAC. With his team he also supports the German business community by providing lending, trade finance, risk management and strategic advice with a strong footprint in mainland China and enhanced focus on Southeast Asia. Stefan is looking forward to supporting the establishment of the Liaison Office of the OAV Young Leaders in Hong Kong.
Ursula Hoffmann-Mukherjee is a German qualified lawyer who works since 2018 as Senior Associate with Rödl & Partner in Pune and Mumbai, India. She is involved in the topics market entry, business modelling, labour laws, cross border employments and the renewable energy sector. Ursula is looking forward to set-up of the OAV Young Leaders Liaison Office in Mumbai, India.
Philipp Moede has now been working for REMONDIS in Taiwan since 2017, where he takes on the role of business development manager. This includes, in particular, the transfer of know-how from Germany to Taiwan in the areas of plastic recycling, biogas and refuse-derived fuel production.
Philipp has been with the Young Leaders since July 2022 and is currently working on building up the regional group in Taipei.
Daniel Grüner works for SAP since 2014 and has been based in Tokyo since March 2022 as HR Business Partner for the Japanese Cloud Success Services organisation as well as Programme Assistant for the HR Manager Asia Pacific Japan. In his role, he is a bridge builder between global, regional and local strategy and the different cultures. Daniel has been involved with OAV Young Leaders since 2021 and took on the Tokyo liaison in May 2022.
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