Maria Veronika Surboeck

Gaining a comprehensive picture of any organization within increasingly complex environments is quite a challenge, but done well will lead to effective change interventions.

Thirty years ago I started out as a trainee in management consulting on a team of OD practitioners initially doing mostly diagnostic activities. It was stressful and I probably managed to make every single blunder. As we know, however, we learn from our mistakes.

A few years later I was promoted to project manager, where I had the opportunity to execute OD projects not only in almost any country in Europe but also in many different industries. Apart from many medium sized, often family owned businesses I managed projects also with some of the large corporations, like Nestlé in Austria, and SVIT in the Czech Republic. All of these projects had one thing in common: to look at the organization as a whole and to work with all employees towards common goals for improving overall effectiveness.

Within a few years I became a unit vice president, as well as a member of the management team of Central Europe.

After seven years I started my own company with the mission of supporting businesses develop their organizations. I am still working all across Europe with medium sized and large organizations, e.g. Hitachi in Germany, and often collaborate with other consulting firms.

I have been teaching at the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria for 15 years. My first courses were on Organizational Behavior and Organization Theory, which are still some of my most favorite topics. Now I also teach courses in Intercultural Competence, Change Management as well as Network and System Dynamics in Collaboration. I am at times invited to do guest lectures in countries such as The Netherlands, Ukraine, Mexico and Argentina.

The privilege to combine practical experience with academia allows me to regularly question tools and methods applied in the industry and keep developing and applying new methods.