Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design TechnologyProf. Dr. Holger Kohl Becomes Acting Director of the Institute
Change at the helm of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK: The Fraunhofer Executive Board has appointed Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Kohl to serve as interim director of the institute effective April 1, 2026.
He will lead the institute until the ongoing appointment process to succeed Prof. Dr. h. c. Dr.-Ing. Eckart Uhlmann is completed. Uhlmann left the Fraunhofer IPK on March 31, 2026, after 28.5 highly successful years as institute director.
Holger Kohl is a professor of Sustainable Business Development at the Institute for Machine Tools and Factory Management (IWF) at the Technical University of Berlin and most recently served as Deputy Director of Fraunhofer IPK. He studied industrial engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and the University of California at Berkeley and began his career at the Production Technology Center Berlin in 1999 as a research assistant at Fraunhofer IPK. After obtaining his doctorate in 2006, he headed the Business Excellence Methods department at Fraunhofer IPK. Since 2013, he has been head of the Corporate Management business unit at the institute.
Since 2010 Professor Holger Kohl is Adjunct Professor for "Strategies for Business Excellence in Service and Industrial Management" at the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu. He is a member of the Board of the German Association for Intellectual Capital Reporting (BVWB), Chairman of the European Benchmarking Network for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (ESBN) and a member and Strategic Advisor of the Global Benchmarking Network (GBN).