Advisory Board Public Governance

Current members of the Public Governance Advisory Board of MODUL University Vienna (in alphabetical order):

Mag. Renate Balic-Benzing
Group Director Chief Executive Office
Executive Group for Personnel and Internal Auditing

Mag.a Renate Balic-Benzing was born in 1955 in Vienna. She is a certified social worker and has many years of professional practice specializing in youth, welfare and adult education. In 1983, alongside her professional responsibilities, she began studying law at Vienna University’s Faculty of Law. Since 1988, she has worked for Vienna’s municipal administration as a legally trained official and charged with various tasks in the social sector including administrative management and responsibilities in the office for foreign relations. She was head of the Department for Youth and Family from 1996 to 2008. As of 2009, she directs the Academy of Administration task force and strategic human resource development at the main office of Vienna’s municipal administration.

Dr. Henrietta Egerth
Managing Director FFG

Dr. Henrietta Egerth (38) graduated from the University of Linz and has a degree in Commercial Business Administration. For a couple of years Henrietta Egerth worked for the Commission of the European Union. In Vienna, she worked for the Industrialists' Association before changing to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, where Henrietta Egerth was responsible for Business Development as well as Research and Development. Since 2004 she has been Managing Director of FFG.

Mag. Klaus Hartmann
Administrative Academy (Verwaltungsakademie) of the Federal Chancellery

Dr. Martin Krajcsir
Deputy CEO Wiener Stadtwerke

Dr. Martin Krajcsir studied Law and earned his PhD degree in 1998 at the University of Vienna. In 2001 he completed a post graduate Management course at the University of Economics and Business in Vienna. He started his professional career in 1983 in the Business Administration Department of Wiener Linien, where he became head of the organization and economic affairs unit in 1992. In 1999, he was promoted as the head of the main commercial department and procurer. In 2004, he became a member of the management board of Wiener Stadtwerke Holding AG. Since 2004 he has been in charge of general economic affairs, accounting, controlling, treasury & corporate finance, organizational matters, information management, strategic IT and much more. Since 2009 he has been deputy CEO of Wiener Stadtwerke.

Prof. Dr. Helga Kromp-Kolb
Department Head Institute of Meteorology BOKU

Helga Kromp-Kolb is climate researcher and heads the Institute of Meteorology and is chair of the University Senate at the University of Applied Life Sciences and Natural Resources in Vienna. Her scientific expertise is in the area of climatology and meteorology in particular environmental meteorology and environmental research. After a leading position at the Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik/ Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics and after being an Associate Professor at San José State University in Californa / USA she has been teaching and researching at the University of Applied Life Sciences and Natural Resources in Vienna since 1995. She is a member of the Austrian, German and American Associations for Meteorology. Her scientific expertise is in high demand in numerous advisory bodies and councils. Ms Helga Kromp-Kolb was awarded with the “Konrad Lorenz Award” In 1991 and “Austrian Scientist of the Year Award” in 2005.

Dr. Emanuel Maravić
Director EIB Vienna

Dr. Emanuel Maravić graduated with a Doctorate of Law degree from the University of Vienna. From 1977 until 1996, he worked for the Austrian Creditanstalt Group and the Deutsche Bank Group with an international career leading him to assignments in Brussels, Sydney, Manila and Hong Kong followed by New York and London. He worked in Vienna as the bank’s Head of International Credit Risk Control followed by an appointment as Managing Director of asset-based lending arm Creditanstalt Leasing International. Following a special assignment as head of a unit for restructurings and distressed corporate assets, he was nominated in 1994 as the Assistant General Manager and Head of the Corporate and Trade Finance Department. In 1996, he joined the European Investment Bank (EIB) as the first Director to be nominated from the then three new Member States: Austria, Finland and Sweden. His assignments as Director for Lending Operations were from 1996 until 2000 for Germany and Austria, from 2000 until 2003 for the Accession Countries and from 2004 until 2005 for Central Europe. On the 1st of January 2006, he was appointed as the Director of the newly opened office of the EIB in Vienna covering Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Dr. Friedrich Rödler
President Austrian Patent Office

Dr. Friedrich Rödler was born in Vienna in 1954. He graduated from University of Vienna with a degree in law in 1983 and started his professional career already during high school when he was working as head of remuneration and head of the division in the area of financial administration. Between 1978 and 2001, he was a member of the National Audit Office (Rechnungshof) where he held several different positions. Among other positions, he was Chief Editor of all reports to the National Assembly (Nationalrat), Head of the EU-Department, and Assistant Section Head (Financial and Economic Administration of Public Companies). From 2001 until 2004, he was provisional head of the Austrian Patent Office, and since 2005 he has been the president of the Austrian Patent Office.

Gregor Schönstein
Managing Partner Public Interest

Gregor Schönstein was born in Vienna in 1969 and started the operating business of PUBLIC INTEREST in October 2007 with the aim of offering top-quality lobbying services and the best expertise available on the market. His objective is to strengthen lobbying consulting in Austria and to drive forwards its recognition as a leading strategic communication discipline.
The intention is to offer the high consulting quality of PUBLIC INTEREST beyond Austria’s borders, above all at European level. For this reason, Schönstein opened a lobbying office in Brussels in 2009 in order to place its established and experienced EU lobbying consultants at the disposal of local Public Interest clients.
In March 2009, Schönstein founded Austria’s leading communications consulting group, LEADING ADVISORS GROUP, together with Helmut Brandstätter, Dietmar Ecker, Peter Filzmaier, Sophie Karmasin, Monika Langthaler, Christian Nohel and Wolfgang Rosam. Public Interest is the “specialist lobbying agency” within the group, whose services are offered together with Dietmar Ecker, Maria Rauch-Kallat and Wolfgang Rosam.
Schönstein most recently headed up the lobbying unit of ACCEDO Austria where he developed lobbying services that were offered on the market independently of public relations.Before that, Schönstein worked as a PR consultant at ACCEDO and Viktor Bauer Public Relations.He gathered experience for his activities as a lobbyist between 1997 and 1999 as an independent political consultant and between 1994 and 1997 at US company Proctor & Gamble.
Schönstein started his career in 1982 at ORF, where he worked as a moderator, designer and actor until 1992.

Dr. René Siegl
Managing Director Austrian Business Agency

René Siegl started his professional career in the Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing area after finishing his Business Administration and Law studies. He worked for a big industrial company, banks, a lobby association as well as the labor market services (AMS). In 1997, he became the Managing Director of the Austrian Business Agency, the Austrian investment promotion agency. This national agency attracts international companies for the Austria and supports them in their investments. So ABA has to meet the needs of both sides - the public owner as well as the companies from all over the world. In 2009, the Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking 2009 report of the World Bank Group ranked ABA-Invest in Austria as the top global performer among 181 investment promotion agencies.

Dr. Friedrich Stanzel
Head of Human Resources Development and Internal Communication BMF

Dr. Stanzel started his professional career in 1985 in the local finance authority of Vienna as a member of court of audits followed by the position of the deputy department head of the protocol department in the Federal Ministry of Finance (1991 – 2001) with special responsibility for event-organization for the Minister as well as training affairs for the ministry. From 1997 tzo 1998 and and from 2005 until 2006, Dr. Stanzel worked as a project leader for organizational issues and event management of Austria´s EU-presidency including financial responsibility. Since 2001, he has been the head of human resources development and internal communications at the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Dr. Stanzel is the head of the Bachelor Program of Tax Management at the University of Applied Arts “Campus Vienna”. He is married and has 2 children who are currently studying at university.