Euro*MBA's candidate for the MBA Student of the Year Award 2009
Dr. Michael Herrler, Euro*MBA
Michael was born in Germany and finished his Ph.D. in Biochemistry with magna cum laude at Philipps University Marburg in 1994. He currently lives in the United States and is married to a Paraguayan. Speaking fluently German, English and Spanish and being familiar with European, North American and Latin American culture he describes himself as a “World Citizen”.
Michael has 20+ years combined experience in global research at academic institutions and product development at companies in the healthcare industry with a focus on life sciences, in vitro diagnostics (IVD) & medical devices. Throughout his career he received numerous honors and awards in both Germany and the United States.
In 2007, Michael joined the Euro*MBA while working as Executive Director for a U.S. based Medical Device company directing an oncology diagnostics product development program. In this function he managed strategic alliances & collaborations with key opinion leaders in the U.S., Russia, Germany and the U.K. At the end of 2007, the business was successfully sold to a British biotech company. Through his international management experience Michael added tremendous value to the content of the Euro*MBA program.
Overall, Michael has been an outstanding MBA student and is admired both by the MBA teaching staff and fellow students. His fellow students overwhelmingly nominated Michael for this competition. With an average grade of 8.1 (out of 10), he has demonstrated excellence throughout the courses. Michael has always shown himself to be a team player. He is able to facilitate group work discussions and plays an active leadership role when required. His experience in managing cross-functional virtual teams has been very beneficial during the team exercises. Not only has Michael contributed greatly to the program, he has also invested his own time in promoting the Euro*MBA, calling prospects and discussing with them the details of the program.
In 2008, Michael took on an additional challenge while continuing the Euro*MBA program. He decided to set up his own consulting business providing educational services to the healthcare industry. He is a “Registered Education Provider” (R.E.P.) and Board Member of the NPDP Certification Committee at the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA). In addition, he became staff member of the San Francisco State University teaching classes in “Development & Regulation of Medical Devices”. He is also in contact with the Program Director of the “San Francisco State University Executive MBA” to explore options for teaching classes in “International Management” and to foster international relationships between different MBA programs.
Michael has a strong network both in the U.S. and in Europe. He is a member of a variety of international organizations, including the “German-American Business Association” (GABA) and the “Silicon Valley Association of Start-up Entrepreneurs” (SVASE). Michael is currently working on his MBA thesis – Topic: “U.S. vs. European Entrepreneurship”. He is interested in analyzing how different industry clusters drive innovation and how they effect entrepreneurship locally. He is also in the process of developing a blog on “Perceptions” with the objective of analyzing entrepreneurship in the U.S. and Europe in the context of cultural differences, language barriers, historical developments, access to venture capital and private equity markets, and “creative funding”. He believes that new ideas have to be applied to a wide variety of problems and issues, ranging from the environment, to education, to health and to government policy. Furthermore he is convinced that MBA programs should focus on this value creation process through “Social Entrepreneurship” programs.
Most recently, Michael accepted a Senior Management position as Director of Platform/Business Development at a startup company in Silicon Valley. The company is developing automation platforms for diagnostic cytogenetic testing services.
