Gabriel Perkmann

Head of Product Management, D. Swarovski KG

Study Program: Industrial Engineering and Management (Master)

When I look back at my time at MCI...

... I am sure that I chose the right university for my studies.

How did your studies prepare you for your current job?

"The unique combination of key competences in business & management and a solid technical and industry-related education was the decisive criterion for me to study industrial engineering at MCI. It was this broad-based education, which helped me in my previous jobs to familiarize myself quickly while achieving success in a dynamic environment. During my part-time Master Degree program, I started as a project manager in the product development department of Swarovski Professional. In this position, I was able to apply the newly acquired knowledge in practice, for example in the development of the world's smallest gemstone "XERO". After completing my studies, which was accentuated by a stay abroad at a partner university in Sao Paulo (FGV EASP Business School), I found an exciting opportunity for further development in product management at Swarovski. As a product manager, I was initially involved in building up a portfolio of tactical second-and third-line products and within two years I was handed the global responsibility for the product group with the largest turnover from Swarovski Professional. As part of a reorganization, I later took over the management of an innovation program focusing on the development of new gemstone materials. In 2018, I was promoted to Head of Product Information Management at the age of 30. In this function, I now lead a multicultural team consisting of project and process managers, content editors, marketing analysts and content localization managers in Wattens in Tyrol and Poland. As part of the e-commerce division, we are building a "Single Source of Truth" for product data to provide internal and external, online and offline channels with target group specific, localized and high quality information".