Career portraits of IKV graduates
Dr.-Ing. Martin Giersbeck
Director – Corporate Research, Applied Mathematics and Engineering for Future Components, Robert Bosch GmbH
My interest in plastics technology was more or less inherited from my father as he used to work at the then Hüls AG (now Evonik) as an engineer, dealing with the development and processing of plastics. After obtaining my intermediate diploma at the Ruhr University in Bochum, I therefore decided to specialise in the subject of plastics technology at RWTH Aachen University. On completing my studies, I worked at IKV from 1995 to 1999 as a scientific assistant.
After my time as an assistant, I really wanted to get into industry. After joining Robert Bosch as a trainee, I was offered, after only nine months, a position as group leader at the Bosch subsidiary Blaupunkt in Hildesheim; the good training at IKV and my experience dealing with student workers were certainly key factors in gaining this appointment.
At Blaupunkt I spent various times in management positions, whereby the focus of my work shifted from mechanical design through project management and new customer acquisition to overall responsibility for commercial products. From 2003, I only rarely had anything to do with plastics, but in 2009, the opportunity arose to go back to my roots: I moved to the Corporate Research and Advance Engineering sector at Robert Bosch GmbH and have been responsible there for the Plastics Technology department since 2010. The move to the new Bosch research campus in Renningen at the beginning of 2015 was a big challenge, but certainly offers excellent perspectives for the future.