Dr. Michael Ilgner

With his experience as an industrial engineer, scientist, top athlete, and international top manager, Dr. Michael Ilgner has been studying the factors for success in sports, business, and society for over 30 years.

After a successful career as a top athlete, including as an Olympian and spokesperson for the German national water polo team, he explored the success factors of performance-oriented groups and the tension between "I" and "we" in teams in his dissertation on microeconomic theory at the University of Karlsruhe, and was subsequently able to apply this knowledge in numerous professional positions.

As a top manager, he has dealt with how organizations become high-performing in times of transformation and change across a range of industries. Among other things, as a member of the management board of the strategy consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, as CEO of the German Sports Aid Foundation, and as CHRO and general representative on the management board of Deutsche Bank AG, he has provided significant impetus in shaping change processes and has established himself internationally as a thought leader, particularly in the transfer of success factors from top-level sport to business.

He has received numerous awards for his extraordinary dual career and commitment, including the Bavarian Prime Minister's Sports Award, Manager of the Year, and induction into the Sponsorship Hall of Fame. In 2021, he was honored with the Medal of Values of the State of Hesse for his outstanding socio-political commitment.

In October 2023, he founded the One May Group, thereby translating success factors in sport into tangible solutions for transformation and leadership challenges in companies and organizations as an entrepreneur, investor, scientist, catalyst through consulting mandates and keynote speaker. He is also involved in various curatorial, advisory, and supervisory board roles and is a guest lecturer at the German Sport University Cologne and WHU Düsseldorf, among others.