Supervisory Board

Prof. Dr. Volker Gruhn (born in 1963) was a co-founder of adesso AG in 1997 and is now the Chairperson of the Supervisory Board. He is Head of the Software Engineering Department at University of Duisburg-Essen, where his main research focuses on mobile applications. Prof. Dr. Gruhn is the author and co-author of approximately 200 national and international publications and conference contributions. Moreover, he is member of the BIPRO e.V. advisory board. The BIPRO initiative is an association of finance companies that aim to optimize cross-company processes by developing functional and technical standards.

Prof. Dr. Willibald Folz worked in the economics division at Bavarian Ministry of Finance and Bavarian State Chancellery after studying law and economics and graduating with a major in business administration. He then held management positions at various banks including the Bayerische Landesbank, at the Deutsch-Skandinavischen Bank AG as a member of the executive board and at Münchner Hypothekenbank eG as speaker of the executive board and later from 1998 to 2010 as the chairman of the supervisory board. From 1990 to 1999, he was the president and chairperson of the executive board of the Genossenschaftsverband Bayern e.V. (Bayern association of co-operatives). Moreover, he is member of the supervisory boards at Bayerische Versicherungsbank AG, Bayern Versicherung, Bayerische Beamtenversicherung as well as Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall and he is the chairperson of the BayWa supervisory board.

Prof. Dr. Folz taught at the faculty of economics of Eichstätt/Ingolstadt Catholic University, specialising in bank law and cooperatives. He was the chairperson of the university council of Bamberg University and the board of trustees of the Academy of Philosophy in Munich.

Dr. Friedrich Wöbking (born in 1950) is a declared expert on information technology and the banks and insurance industries. He was member of the Executive Board at Dresdner Bank AG between 2003 and 2009 and took responsibility for the IT Services and Operations department. Previously, during the 1990s, he was member of the Executive Board at Allianz Versicherungs-AG/Allianz Lebensversicherungs-AG and Deutsche Versicherungs-AG where he was head of the Private Customer Business department as well as head of the departments IT and e-Business. Wöbking owns a doctor’s degree in Information Technology and Mathematics and currently runs FW ADVISORY Management Beratung. Above that, he acts, among others, as an advisor at EXMACO AG and is a Senior Advisor at Droege & Comp. Unternehmerberatung.