Personal leadership is the key to a successful organization

It took some time to adjust five years ago, when she started next to Maarten Steinbuch as director at High Tech Systems Center (HTSC). Katja Pahnke is originally a chemist, not an electrical engineer, software engineer, mechanical engineer, mechatronics engineer or physicist – the type of experts that HTSC usually brings together. “I came here looking to set up an organization and establish a new style of collaboration. Early on, I dealt with a lot of smart people who were focused mostly on content and quality of research, rather than on how to do things smarter or more commercially. That felt a bit lonely in the beginning.” Nowadays, Pahnke feels very comfortable, as her personal leadership has helped to successfully expand the activities of HTSC.

HTSC brings several research activities in the field of complex high-tech systems to a single research center. The organization is embedded in Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) and combines the expertise of the faculties of mechanical and electrical engineering, mathematics and computer science, as well as applied physics. HTSC carries out multidisciplinary fundamental research and designs new concepts and prototypes in close collaboration between the academia and industry.