Nice to finally meet you.

Director of the foundation board

Jörg Schönfeld

The world is coming into the hands of our youth.
When was the last time we were concerned about the stability of democracies in the face of advancing autocracies, about the effectiveness of our medical science in the face of pandemics or about the teachability and farsightedness of mankind about the fact that our basis of life on earth takes place within a manageable temperature fluctuation range?
Today’s young people are showing a strong commitment to important issues. They have strength. Youthfulness encourages innovative solutions and creativity. In this way, they are already helping to shape social change. They are already more than capable of winning a majority anyway (social media …) Where will they (and we) be heading? If we encourage them to drive constructive change, we will lay the foundations for a sustainable and fair future. It is important that we empower young people in their efforts and provide them with the necessary resources. Let’s empower them to the best of our ability and to the best of our knowledge and belief to –

… knowing what to do.

Jörg Schönfeld started his career at NATO in Brussels, where he worked in the communications department and later headed a telecommunications facility. After returning to Germany, he joined the Dyckerhoff Group in 1994, where he initially worked as commercial manager of the Dresden and Bautzen building materials plants. He later became an authorized signatory in the holding company

Headmaster

Thomas Straßer

“I consider agile forms of school development on the way to becoming a smart school to be essential: in order for learners to deal competently with the current challenges – especially in the areas of sustainability and digital transformation – an adaptable learning culture is needed in which children and young people become active in a holistic way and control their own learning.”

Mr Straßer studied teaching at the LMU and TU in Munich, specialising in German and geography. After his traineeship, he taught at Bad Aibling secondary school for several years and completed the management qualification programme at the academy in Dillingen.
He then moved to the State Institute for School Quality and Educational Research (ISB) for six years as a full-time consultant for media education, where he worked in project management in the design of state programmes for digitally supported education and in curriculum evaluation. He also completed training as a school development counsellor and a master’s degree in school management at the University of Kiel, which he completed in 2018 with a thesis on school quality at Bavarian private grammar schools.
From 2018 to 2022, Mr Straßer worked as a deputy headteacher at Hertzhaimer-Gym­nasium Trostberg and was particularly involved in school development measures in the field of digital education.
In 2022, Mr Straßer was appointed headmaster of Dante-Gymnasium Munich, where he was able to get to know the special features of a renowned large city school with an elaborate school profile. In February 2024, he took over as headmaster of the Schloss Neubeuern grammar school.