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Was also at the University of Cologne:
Telekom board member
Claudia Nemat
, like 19 other current DAX board members, graduated here
Photo: Anke Waelischmiller;
Sven Simon / IMAGO
Without a university degree
, it is still difficult for management talent to get onto German Dax boards: 85 percent of the board members of Dax, MDax and SDax have studied at a German or foreign university, more than a third also have a doctorate.
Only 8 percent bring a certificate from a university of applied sciences, 7 percent have another educational path such as a vocational college or an apprenticeship.
The management consultancy Horváth found this out in an analysis of the career of the more than 500 German board members of DAX companies.
The university with the most alumni on German DAX boards is the University of Cologne (see ranking), where Telekom board member
Claudia Nemat
(53) also graduated in 1994.
This is followed by the RWTH Aachen University and the Universities of Mannheim, Munich and Münster.
The situation is different if only the younger board members (under 54 years of age) are considered: WHU in Koblenz has the largest number of acting board members, followed by Mannheim in second place and LMU Munich and RWTH Aachen University in third place.
"It is probably the international character of WHU Koblenz that has recently attracted many top managers," says Oliver Greiner, who headed the study.
"Because internationalization is a clear trend in management careers."
If you put the number of board members with degrees from WHU (11) in relation to the number of its students, the private business school is also ahead in the university comparison: With a total of 1880 students, there is an average of one board member for every 171 students.
At the University of Cologne there is one board member for every 2575 students, at RWTH Aachen University there is one for every 2626 students.
According to the study, German DAX CEOs most often obtained their highest degree at RWTH Aachen University, followed by the University of Cologne and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
"The top positions of Aachen and Karlsruhe show that in addition to excellent business knowledge, technological know-how also plays an important role on many executive boards," states Oliver Greiner.
In fact, a good 35 percent of all German board members have studied engineering, natural sciences or structural sciences such as mathematics or computer science.
