Entrepreneur Award: MCI graduate recognized as best entrepreneur of 2016

Felicitas Kohler distinguished as Austria's best entrepreneur 2016 in the category for export

Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) has just received this pleasant piece of news: The WirtschaftsBlatt and Austrian Federal Economic Chamber have announced Felicitas Kohler, graduate of the degree course in Business & Management, to be the country’s best entrepreneur in the category for export.

Three years ago Felicitas Kohler took over the family business planlicht from her father. At that point the company had 90 employees and an annual turnover of 16 million euros. By 2015 both annual turnover and export rate had already doubled: With 160 employees the company for the first time reached an annual turnover of 27,5 million euros and an export rate of 60 %. As part of Kohler’s strategy to minimize the entrepreneurial risk, the company has entered several new markets. For 2016, Kohler plans to achieve a further growth rate of up to 16 %.

MCI has got to know Felicitas Kohler as a committed student who does not always just choose the easiest path. Kohler herself describes her student years as follows: “Studying at MCI shaped my personality, opened up new opportunities, enabled me to connect with wonderful humans, and enriched me with valuable experience and a good amount of endurance. My time as a student was challenging and full of setbacks. But it taught me to follow my true mantra ‘If you fall over, get up, smile, and move on’, and led me to success!” Kohler likes to share what she has gained at MCI and therefore only employs the “best of the industry, which are very often graduates of MCI.” The Department for Business & Management is delighted to announce that their students will soon also be able to cooperate with planlicht in a joint project.

Custom-made lighting systems

The company planlicht based in Vomp primarily produces customized lighting systems for large objects such as schools or medical centers. Their competitive edge rests on flexibility: “In-house production allows us to intervene at any time necessary. This is not possible in large corporations,” Kohler explains. She is furthermore convinced that “in the long run investments in quality are cheaper than products of poor quality.”

The Entrepreneur Award of the WirtschaftsBlatt and Federal Economic Chamber is to recognize exceptional achievements of Austrian entrepreneurs.

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