Mathias Falkenstein has over 20 years of experience in higher education management and consulting universities and business schools around the world in designing and implementing institutional change, with particular focus on issues of sustainability and responsibility; quality management and internationalization. Mathias is a Founder and one of the Managing Directors at XOLAS while he is also a Professor of Practice in Higher Education Management at LUISS Business School, LUISS University (Rome-Milan-Amsterdam), where he develops and leads Executive Education programs for university and business school managers.

Mathias’ previous professional assignments include Director of Business School Services EFMD and Director of International Relations at IÉSEG School of Management in Paris & Lille. He previously was Director of FUBiS, the International Summer University at the Free University in Berlin and started his career in higher education as a Program Officer at the North American headquarters of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in New York. He currently serves in different international advisory boards and is the chair of the Supervisory Board of the Positive Impact Rating.

Mathias holds a DBA in Higher Education Management from the University of Bath (UK), where he is a research fellow at the International Centre for Higher Education Management (ICHEM).

Within XOLAS, Mathias advises clients in their strategic repositioning, quality management, internationalization, and the expansion of sustainability & responsibility coverage. He also contributes to the development of knowledge, training and intelligence solutions.

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Ulrich is Founding Partner and Managing Director of XOLAS GmbH. He contributes particularly to the creation of knowledge and intelligence solutions and helps business schools to enhance their risk management capabilities as well as to achieve their quality management and accreditation goals. Ulrich also develops restructuring solutions for clients and spearheads the development of XOLAS’ financial advisory capabilities.

Ulrich is an internationally recognized expert of accreditation, quality management, risk management and strategic leadership in higher education, and a prolific writer on business school topics. He has served in various leadership capacities at EFMD Global over a period of more than 12 years, including Director of Quality Services, Director of Business School Development and Director of Research & Surveys. Ulrich is currently a member of six international advisory boards of business schools located on 4 continents.

Ulrich has completed more than 20 years of service as Professor of Finance at EBS University & Law in Wiesbaden (Germany), which included appointments as Dean, Rector and Managing Director. His academic research focuses on risk management, restructuring and entrepreneurial financing, all topics that mirror his interests in higher education. Ulrich holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has been awarded a Dr. habil in Business Administration by WHU.

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Nick has a focus on online and blended strategy, having founded the EdTech Lab at ESMT Berlin in 2018 while Associate Dean for Degree Programs at ESMT, the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. In early 2022, Nick moved full-time into EdTech consulting in early 2022, after 12 years’ managing ESMT’s on-campus degree programs, internationalization and partnership activities.

He was the 2021 Chair of FOME, the Future of Management Education alliance, a group of 11 universities committed to excellence and collaboration in online and blended learning. Before moving to Berlin in 2010, Nick spent five years at INSEAD in France and Singapore, lastly as Director of Communications, and four years at the UCD Smurfit School in Dublin.

Nick works with XOLAS clients to enable their successful transition to online programs, both from the business, program portfolio and brand perspectives, as well as on online pedagogy, technology selection, and the organizational processes to enable effective online program development and delivery.

He holds an MSc in Political Economy of Development from School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and a BA from Dublin City University. He is also a qualified executive coach.

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Wolfram Berger has over 15 years of work experience in a variety of senior management roles at business schools and universities in France, Germany and England. His focus is on providing direction and ambition for academic development and he has extensive experience in faculty management and development, research & innovation management, program development, and successfully leading and implementing change.

Wolfram is a Chair Professor of Economics at Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany. Prior appointments include serving as Academic Director and member of the Executive Committee of ICN Business School with strategic responsibility for faculty and research management. Over the course of his career, while serving in other leadership positions, Wolfram was also responsible for the renewal of program portfolios, teaching & learning development as well as knowledge transfer and exchange with external partners and stakeholders.

Wolfram works with XOLAS clients to help them enhance the scale, quality and impact of their research and innovation activities, and ensure that strategies and policies support continued improvements and impactful engagement with the various communities and stakeholders their schools serve. Wolfram also advises on effective faculty management, deployment and development policies enabling clients to achieve sustainable academic growth and success. Wolfram holds a Ph.D. and a postdoctoral qualification (habilitation) in Economics.

Jean is a Chair in Accounting and Financial Management at the University of Kent, which owns a triple-crowned business school. Prior to joining Kent, Jean had worked in the UK Higher Education Sector for more than 20 years and served a wide arrange of managerial roles, including Head of Department, Dean of Business School, University Vice-President. She obtained her PhD in Economics from Lancaster University, UK. She holds a Chair in Accounting and Finance in the University of Surrey and the University of Southampton, a Fellow of Higher Education Academy UK (FHEA) and a Fellow of Chartered Public Accountant (Australia) (FCPA). She held two senior roles as a Council Member and the Chair of Council’s International Committee in the Royal Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) in the UK. In the last 8 years, Jean had worked for the University of Liverpool in its China campus as the Dean of International Business School and Chair Professor, and for the University of Macau as the Dean of Faculty of Business Administration and Chair Professor. She has been engaged in several NGOs in Macau and serves as the Vice-President of China (Macau)-Europe International Business Association.

Jean is an internationally well-known expert of business school accreditations. She led the business school from no accreditations to obtaining AACSB and EQUIS in Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, which made the School the youngest business school in the world to earn full AACSB and EQUIS accreditation in the shortest time. She further made the Faculty of Business Administration in the University of Macau from no accreditations to the TRIPLE CROWNS. She has actively participated in international accreditation review and assessment activities, being a peer review team chair or a member to review many business schools in the world for AACSB, EFMD and AMBA. She also has significant expert of developing executive courses, such as DBA and EMBA.

Jean is a world-leading scholar in the field of accounting and finance in general and corporate governance in particular. She has served as an editor, an editorial board member, delivering international conference keynote speeches and seminars, participating in advisory and review bodies. She has published 190 journal articles, monographs, book chapters, and international conference articles, with international excellence (e.g. FT50, ABS4*).

Jean has joined XOLAS as Senior Consultant supporting and leading our Strategy & Quality Enhancement as well as Portfolio and Technology Practices.

Ignacio Gafo has worked in global management education for 17 years with different global business schools. He is specialized in portfolio strategy, online learning, academic innovation and upskilling & reskilling.

Ignacio spent 17 years at IE Business School both in academic and managerial positions, culminating in his role as Associate Dean for Executive and Online Master degree programs. Ignacio has served as Chairman of the FOME Alliance and has advised several academic institutions including MIT Professional Education, ESADE Business School and EBS University.

Prior to joining academic full-time, Ignacio held for 15 years global management positions Canon, Mars and Vodafone in Europe, US and Latin America.

Ignacio works with XOLAS clients setting up and implementing their strategies around Program Portfolio, Online Education, Academic Innovations and Lifelong Learning.

Ignacio holds a PhD in Marketing and an Executive MBA and an Advanced Management Program from IE Business School.

Kirstin S. Garnatz has over 20 years of experience as an assistant to management and board members from a wide range of business sectors. Today she is self-employed and works as a virtual assistant. The focus of her work is the optimization of a holistic office management with its manifold tasks and organizational areas.

She knows how to quickly adapt to different business situations characters and thus creates effective and pragmatically structured workflows. When dealing with issues, she relies on her creative talent, which is fully in line with her role as an entrepreneur.

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Fiona Hunter has worked in the global higher education sector for over 30 years in a variety of different academic and management roles. She is now a consultant, trainer and researcher with private, public and faith-based institutions around the world and her work focuses mainly on strategic change and internationalization of both academic and management processes.

Fiona is also Associate Director at the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (CHEI) at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy, Visiting Tutor at the University of Bath in the UK, member of the International Advisory Board at the Universidad de Granada in Spain, member of the Scientific Council of AVEPRO (Holy See’s Agency for the Evaluation and Promotion of Quality in Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties) and Co-Editor of the Journal of Studies for International Education (JSIE). With Neil Sparnon, she is co-author of the book ‘The Illustrated Guide to Higher Education Management: For New Leaders and New Institutions’ published in 2021. She holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) in Higher Education Management.

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Gareth Howells has worked in the global management education sector for over 25 years with extensive experience working in and with global business schools. He specialises in degree portfolio development with an emphasis on curriculum design & development, programme leadership and delivery, recruitment & admissions and organisational realignment.

Gareth spent over 20 years at London Business School (LBS) in a variety of roles including Programme Director and Deputy Associate Dean, culminating in his role as Executive Director for Degree Programmes with strategic responsibility for a portfolio of seven degrees including the flagship MBA and suite of general and specialist masters programmes.  More recently, Gareth was based in Rwanda as Executive Director for Academic Programmes at the African Leadership University School of Business (ALUSB). He has also served on advisory groups for both GMAC and EFMD and now works as consultant.

Gareth works with XOLAS clients to help them achieve their institutional goals through the development of a cohesive degree program portfolio strategy, ensuring that they remain agile and innovative, allowing them to achieve sustainable growth and continued success in  a complex market environment.

He holds a BA Politics from University of Leeds and has completed a number of Executive Education Programmes at London Business School.

Petra Kreis-Hoyer is an expert of teaching and learning (T&L) in higher education with more than 30 years of professional experience in developing, managing and quality assuring degree programs and program portfolios. She was furthermore in charge of a large number of accreditation projects over the course of her career.

Petra currently heads the T&L area of the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences and was previously the Vice Dean Education at EBS Business School of EBS University of Business & Law. As Mentor Coordinator/Mentor, Petra currently has a lead role in EFMD Global’s Quality Assurance Academy. She is also a member of a number of national and international quality assurance networks.

Petra holds a doctoral degree from EBS University of Business and Law. She has extensive experience in facilitating Bachelor, Master and executive education courses. Petra is an experienced trainer of teaching didactics and state-of-the-art pedagogy in higher education and is a certified coach.

Within XOLAS, Petra advises clients in formalizing and improving institutional quality management as well as in optimizing program design, development, and review processes. She also supports XOLAS clients in institutional and program-level accreditation projects.

Tim Mescon is currently Executive in Residence at the Parker College of Business at Georgia Southern University. Previously, for eight years, Dr. Timothy S. Mescon was Executive Vice President and Chief Officer for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for AACSB International, the oldest, largest accreditor of business schools in the world. In this capacity, Mescon and his team supported close to 600 members and 180+ accredited schools throughout EMEA. Mescon and his team opened the EMEA Office in January 2015 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Mescon is President Emeritus of Columbus State University in Georgia, where he served for 6 ½ years.  Prior he was the dean and Dinos Eminent Scholar Chair for 18 years at the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. He was previously dean at the Perdue School at Salisbury (MD) University and prior to that a tenured faculty member and Assistant Dean at the University of Miami Herbert School of Business and an Assistant Professor of Management at the Carey College at Arizona State University.

Mescon is the author of more than 200 articles and case studies, and he has co-authored five books, including “Entrepreneurship: Venture Initiation, Management and Development” 2nd edition (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) and his latest co-edited work, “Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Learning Post-COVID-19- The Crucial Role of International Accreditation,” (Springer, 2022). In 2021 Mescon was named a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Business Schools in the U.K.

Mescon Chairs the International Advisory Board at Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and serves on the International Advisory Board of the Coller School of Business at Tel Aviv University on the visiting Strategy Board at Henley Business School and on the International Accreditation Board Wroclaw University of Economics and Business. Mescon is a visiting Professor at the University of Ulster Business School.  He received an Honorary Professorship from Alfred Nobel University in Ukraine and Honorary Doctorate from United Methodist University in Liberia.

Dr. Mescon received his Ph.D. from the Terry College at the University of Georgia, MBA from the Cox School at Southern Methodist University and B.A. from Tulane University. 

Within XOLAS, Tim Mescon is consulting on strategy development, executive leadership training, change management, rankings & accreditations as well as global network development.

David has over 20 years of experience as Dean, leading two business schools to the prestigious Financial Times ranking. He is an expert in driving the globalization and strategic growth of business schools. He has created more than 100 strategic partnerships around the globe, and has held leadership positions in Canada, Japan and Russia.

David has a wealth of expertise in managing the accreditation process and developing strategies to improve a business school’s standing on various rankings.  He served as Chair of the EQUIS Accreditation Board and Vice-Chair of the AACSB Initial Accreditation Committee, as well as a board member of both EFMD and AACSB.  He has served on the board of CEIBS (China), and the international advisory boards of SKEMA (France) and Schaffhausen Institute of Technology (Switzerland).  David is also a highly successful fundraiser, leading the naming of two business schools, and overseeing the raising of over $200 million during his deanships.

David is also an expert in negotiation and change management, most recently working with organizations that are in the process of digitalizing. He has a rich background as a researcher and is co-author of the world’s three bestselling negotiation textbooks, next to numerous other books and papers.  He earned a Ph.D. in social psychology from Western University in Canada.

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Alexis Strippoli has worked in the higher education sector for a decade supporting universities with their strategic and management initiatives for transformational outcomes.

She has led the strategy and execution of many large cross-functional strategic initiatives involving industry and academic partnerships, digital transformation, enterprise risk, sustainability, resource allocation and mobilisation and major teaching and learning infrastructure development. She has expertise in leading teams with a range of stakeholders from government, external board members, internal university executive team, academics and students solving complex institutional problems. She brings to clients an acute understanding of university governance and operations.

Alexis’ professional experience extends to many years in the design and communication sector where she has been in charge of multi-national campaigns in the FMCG sector.

Alexis holds a MA in International Higher Education Management from the University of Bath (UK), School of Management. Her academic research has focused on institutional strategy and competitiveness, digital transformation, resource allocation modelling and incentivisation, the business of rankings, and several aspects of Internationalisation and transnational education policy.

Within XOLAS, Alexis advises clients in institutional strategy development and implementation roadmaps. She also supports XOLAS clients in institutional and program-level accreditation projects.

Claire Thouary is the Founder of QACE UP, a consultancy assisting higher education institutions in achieving their quality improvement ambitions and accreditation objectives. She has previously held the position of Quality and International Accreditations Director at emlyon business school (France), a triple-accredited institution. At emlyon, Claire has also managed executive education teams involved in delivering customized programs and has contributed to faculty management in the areas of recruitment as well as data management.

Next to her work for QACE UP, Claire is also a part of XOLAS’s core team. She advises business schools to achieve their quality improvement and accreditation ambitions. She applies her expertise of accreditation frameworks (AACSB, EQUIS, EFMD Accredited, AMBA) to initiate and facilitate continuous improvement programs based on in-depth gap analyses, to implement or strengthen assurance of learning, and to prepare external audits.

Claire’s professional roots are in the medical industry where she was in charge of (internal and external) quality audits, data management activities, and reporting to EMA and other agencies. Before that, Claire was employed by euronews to help grow the organization’s Eastern European coverage and to strengthen its data management.

Claire holds a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from HEC Paris.

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Philip Vergauwen is Professor of Strategic Management Accounting & Control at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). From 2018 to 2021, he was also Dean of the School.  Prior executive positions included the deanship at the Maastricht University School of Business & Economics (Netherlands) as well as at the Faculty of Business Economics of the Universiteit Hasselt (Belgium).

Philip has previously been Member of the AACSB Board of Directors (2015-2017, 2020-2021), Chair of the AACSB European Advisory Council EMEA and Member of the Continuous Improvement (Reaccreditation) Review Committee. He chairs the International Advisory Board and is Member of the Board of KEDGE (Bordeaux-Marseilles) Business School, is Chair of the United Nations University MERIT/UM and is Member of the Deakin Business School (Deakin University, Australia) Advisory Board. Philip has been awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the Jyväskylä University (Finland) in 2019.

Next to his executive roles at Hasselt, Maastricht and Solvay, Philip has held and in the latter case still holds a professorial appointment. His research focuses on studying the behavioral implications of management control systems with specific attention devoted to reward structures and performance measurement linked to intellectual capital deployment. His current work on linking management control to innovation with applications in the health, biotech, medtech and pharmaceutical sectors.

Christina is currently Division Director for Quality Management at Technical University Munich, TUM School of Management, Germany. In this role, she is responsible for leading AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS accreditation projects (all three accreditations have currently been awarded to her school for the maximum period of five years). At her previous position at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, she had lead roles in the EPAS accreditation projects (the latter is now called EFMD Accredited) and strategy development.

Christina holds a degree in management from the University of Applied Science in Ingolstadt, an MBA from the University of Missouri in Kansas City, and a doctoral degree from the Catholic University of Ingolstadt. She is the recipient of various recognitions for excellent academic and professional work (including her contributions to moving her current school from no international accreditations to the so-called Triple Crown).

Within XOLAS, Christina helps clients in linking strategic development to quality assurance.