About the Author

Professional Career

He currently serves as Chairman of Stiftung Mercator and holds supervisory board positions at Nederlandse Gasunie N.V., Meridian Stiftung, and Deutsches Komitee für UNICEF e.V. Previously, he served as CEO of the European Climate Foundation (2011–2017), Managing Board Member of the Bertelsmann Foundation (2003–2009), CEO of GE CompuNet Computer AG (1998–2003), and Partner at McKinsey & Company (1990–1997). He has also held supervisory board positions at Onvista AG, HHL gGmbH, XING AG, Cliqz GmbH, and New Work SE.

In 2009, he developed the Labor Market Monitor, a collaboration platform for the German Federal Employment Agency, which received Germany's 2011 award for the most innovative e-government solution.

Education

He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from RWTH Aachen University and a Ph.D. in Communication and Information Sciences from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.

About the Book

This book distills the lectures from the course "Change Management in the Age of AI" that Johannes has taught for many years in the MBA programs at HHL Graduate School of Management in Leipzig. Given AI's rapid technological evolution, the course content is updated annually. Consequently, the book captures a fleeting snapshot of current technological developments and AI applications. Nevertheless, the fundamental principles and heuristics for navigating complex, nonlinear change at the individual, organizational, and societal levels remain enduring and robust across time.

The book was written with the support of many AI-agents based on GPT-5.1, Claude Sonnet 4.5, and Gemini 3 Pro in a Cursor environment. These agents supported the author in researching references, prototyping applications, improving writing, creating infographics including the title page, getting critical editorial feedback, and typesetting the book. They took over many of the tedious tasks and left the author with the fun parts of writing this book. Working in this "hybrid team" was an amazing experience.