Karl currently lives and works in Innsbruck, Austria. He was confronted with something special early in his life. Growing up in Tyrol in a family where his father played a key role in developing cross-country skiing, he also worked his way up to the Austrian junior national cross-country team (1991/92). His colleagues at that time would later become Olympic and World Champions.
He attended the HTBLA (Higher Technical College for Electrical Engineering) in Saalfelden a. st. Meer, the school branch with the statistically highest dropout rate in Austria at the time, and was one of eight students to make it from first grade to the “Matura” (A-level diploma) (1994) without detention. This time would be formative for him.
He then decided to study business administration in Innsbruck to move away from technology and closer to people. This led to his focus in the second half of his studies on human resources and strategic management. He spent two semesters of the second half of his studies at “Limerick University” in Ireland through an “ERASMUS” program. A very enriching time, during which he also learned to know, understand, and love Golf from an Irish perspective.
After completing his business studies (2000) and gaining initial professional experience in management consulting, he quickly realised that there were still many unanswered questions he wanted to find answers to. This led him to Graz to pursue his doctorate at “Karl-Franzens University” (2004). He subsequently conducted his research at the “Institute for Management Accounting & Control” (Karl-Franzens University Graz), the “Institute for Organization and Learning” (Leopold-Franzens University Innsbruck), the “Faculty of Interdisciplinary Research” (University of Vienna), the “Center for Art & Leadership” from the “Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy” (Copenhagen Business School – CBS), and the “Institute for Management and Economics in Healthcare” (UMIT TIROL – Private University for Health Sciences and Health Technology).
In 2004, he was awarded the “Alps-Adriatic Science Prize” in Graz.
A brief but very valuable stint in one of the most renowned top management consulting companies, “Droege & Comp.” (2004/5), helped him significantly to further advance his consulting skills.
Based on that experience, he decided to further develop his creativity first in research and than develop his own consulting venture. He received a one-and-a-half-year top-level research grant (2005/6) from the “Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture” (BM:BWK), in which he explored concepts and questions surrounding the connection between art and leadership in expert organisations.
Since 2006, he has been part of the international researchers, consultants, and artists network “AACORN – Art, Aesthetics, Creativity, and Organisations Research Network.”
From 2007 till 2022 he focuses on his work as a consultant, initiator, and project manager within his company “ckb GmbH – the art of consulting”. Within that time he successfully managed and executed notable projects (at C-level) in multinational corporations, government, art & science organisations.
Since 2020, based on all this experience, he has been working on the mission of a healthy and thus sustainable society based on global democracy and founded in September 2023 the “Institute for the Development of a Global Democratic Republic” (IDGR).
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