Professor Sarah Jastram and Professor Dirk Max Johns take up their new term of office as Vice Presidents of HSBA Hamburg School of Business Administration today until June 2027. The University Council approved the selection of the new Vice President at its meeting yesterday. Professor Sarah Jastram replaces the previous incumbent Professor Max Johns as Vice President for Research and International Affairs, who will take over from Professor Alkis Otto as Vice President for Teaching and Didactics with immediate effect. Professor Johns had been in charge of Research and International Affairs for three years.
New Vice Presidents for HSBA: University Council Decides on Change in the Executive Board
"I am very pleased about the election of Professor Jastram and Professor Johns. Both are excellently suited to the positions and highly motivated. I am therefore firmly convinced that we will continue to successfully pursue our strategic goals with this support in the university management,” explains Prof. Dr. Tim Goydke, President of the Hamburg School of Business Administration. "Professor Otto has shown extraordinary commitment to HSBA over the past four and a half years and has demonstrated strategic foresight. We are very grateful to him for this."
As the new Vice President for Research and International Affairs, Professor Sarah Jastram would like to focus her term of office on expanding internationalization and HSBA's strengths in applied, practice-oriented research: “I am looking forward to this wonderful new role. HSBA has a strong network in the business world, which offers excellent conditions for relevant, practical research with real impact. I would like to make even greater use of this asset in the coming years and make the outstanding applied research at HSBA even more visible. At the same time, I see great potential in the internationalization of our activities. By intensifying international cooperation and exchange with leading universities worldwide, we can further enrich our research and teaching."
For Professor Johns, the continuous optimization of teaching and teaching content is at the forefront of his new role: “Above all, I would like to concentrate on continuing to maintain the close links between the university and the company as places of learning, focusing on the high quality of teaching and ensuring the constant adaptation of teaching content to developments in companies and research. The meaningful embedding of artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching will be given special consideration,” explains Professor Johns. Furthermore, Professor Johns will also deal with the strategic further development of the Master's programme as part of his role.
Prof. Dr. Alkis H. Otto has been Vice President for Teaching and Didactics since Januar 2020 and was responsible for the academic design and anchoring of the topics at Executive Board level. From January to September 2023, he also took over the office of President on a deputy basis together with Professor Johns. After four and a half years as Vice President, he is stepping down from university management to focus more on teaching and his research projects. During his time in office, he has implemented and supported the successful introduction of the modernized Bachelor's degree, driven forward the further development of online teaching, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, and optimized didactic standards and teaching content.
About Sarah Jastram:
Sarah Jastram has held the Chair of Business Ethics and Sustainability as well as General Business Administration at the Hamburg School of Business Administration since 2015 and has been Head of the Strategy & Leadership Department since February 2022. She previously worked at the Institute of Management at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Professor Jastram's research focuses on human rights in international supply chains, impact measurement, artificial intelligence and sustainable innovation. The results of her research have been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Cleaner Production and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
Sarah Jastram also works as a consultant and facilitator in the private and public sectors. She has been a member of the Porsche Sustainability Advisory Board since January 2021.
About Dirk Max Johns:
Dirk Max Johns is Professor of Maritime Management, Head of the MSc Innovation Management programme and Head of the Maritime Business School. From June 2021 to June 2024 he was Vice President for Research and International Affairs and from January to September 2023 he took over the office of the President on a deputy basis together with the then Vice President Prof. Alkis Otto.
In addition to his current teaching and research activities at HSBA, he was Managing Director of the VDR Association of German Shipowners until 2019. In this position, he represented the interests of German shipowners in national and international committees. After studying archaeology, art history and business administration in Montpellier, Leuven, Harvard and Tübingen, Professor Johns taught at numerous universities and worked successfully in the media industry from 1992 to 2005 with a focus on new media.
In the field of Maritime Management, Professor Johns focuses on the economic implications of ship financing, social issues and the impact of the financial crisis on the maritime industry.