Since the winter semester of 2022/2023, Simon Kiesel has supported the departement of Economics as a professor of general business administration with Major in digital marketing. He completed his initial business administration degree with a media Major at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University in Heidenheim. Due to the Bologna Process during those years, he was also enrolled at the Open University Business School and holds both a Diplom-Betriebswirt (German equivalent of a German Diplom in Business Administration) and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours. He then pursued a Master of Science in Management at the University of South Wales, Glamorgan, while working. This program was a collaboration with the German Graduate School of Management & Law (GGS) in Heilbronn, whose location has since been largely taken over by the Technical University of Munich as the Heilbronn Campus. A close connection to the GGS and his involvement as a founding member of the alumni association led to further academic study trips and a part-time doctoral program for executives at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris.
Even during his school years in the 1990s, Mr. Kiesel volunteered to help build the internet infrastructure and websites of the Bavarian Red Cross, created SAP training presentations for SALT/Accenture, and wrote his final high school thesis, a comprehensive online archive about Nazi institutions in Würzburg. As part of his dual studies program, he completed a two-year commercial apprenticeship in publishing and a one-year traineeship at the Vogel Communications Group. After receiving his first university degree, he began his career in sales at Vogel Druck und Medienservice. A move to controlling, then within the Bertelsmann/Arvato Group, provided him with the opportunity to assume personnel responsibility as deputy head of finance. This included establishing and managing an employee suggestion program for incremental improvements, as well as contributing to media innovations and new digital business areas as an innovation coach as part of an innovation initiative at Bertelsmann.
Before joining THM, Mr. Kiesel spent twelve years in various senior marketing positions within the Krick Group. There, he oversaw the digital transformation of a traditional telephone directory publisher and media provider into an IT company. Today, Krick.com offers advertising services encompassing search engine marketing, websites and online shops, smartphone apps, social media services, and influencer collaborations.
In addition, Mr. Kiesel is involved in event formats in Mainfranken, such as the Mobile Media Day of the Media Network Bavaria, the Würzburg Web Week, as a long-time lecturer at the THWS University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, as a speaker at the Center for Digital Innovations, and as a jury member for the Business Plan Competition of the Network Northern Bavaria for BayStartUp. As part of the Gründen@Würzburg initiative, he regularly organizes founders' meetups and the annual Würzburg Startup Prize.
