Professor Dr. Wolfgang Merkle is the Professor of Marketing & Management and at the same time the head of the two Master's programs Corporate Management (M.Sc.) and Marketing Management (M.A.) at the Hamburg Campus. With a background of high academic expertise and many years of professional experience, he brings a high level of strategic competence coupled with holistic implementation experience to the research and teaching of his to the business degree programs of the UE – University of Europe for Applied Sciences.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Merkle, studied business administration at the University of Göttingen. Since receiving his doctorate, he has worked for well-known and high-profile retail brands - from 1991 to 1998 in marketing and advertising at the Otto Group Hamburg, from 1999 to 2002 as managing director of the fashion suppliers ZARA and Massimo Dutti, from 2002 to 2007 as marketing director at Galeria Kaufhof in Cologne, and between 2007 and 2015 as CMO at Tchibo in Hamburg.
In these positions, he gained expertise in all matters of strategic positioning, holistic and sustainable implementation as well as efficient marketing and communication strategies. Since 2015, he has passed on this knowledge in various consulting and supervisory board mandates through his company 'MerCon -Concepts for Retail'. He is also the President of the Marketing Club Hamburg.
Professional background
OTTO 1991 - 1996 Head of Advertising, Catalogues
OTTO 1996 - 1998 Head of Marketing, Textiles
ZARA 1998 - 2002 General Manager Germany
MASSIMO DUTTI 1998 - 2002 General Manager Germany
GALERIA KAUFHOF 2002 - 2007 Director Marketing / CMO
TCHIBO 2007 - 2009 General Manager Retail D / A / CH
TCHIBO 2009 - 2015 Chief Marketing Officer
TCHIBO 2011 - 2013 Director Coffee
MERCON since 2015 Managing Director MerCon - Concepts for Retail
Academic background
1983 - 1988 Degree in Business Administration
1988 - 1991 Doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.)
Continuous publications on current topics in sales / marketing
since 2014 Lecturer HSBA
since 2016 Professor University of Applied Sciences Europe
Marketing Networking
since 2016 President Marketing Club Hamburg