Stefan Pohl

Study programme: Information Management and Corporate Communications (BA) (opens in a new window)

Employer: Stadtwerke Ulm/Neu-Ulm GmbH

Position: Group Leader, Basic IT


Straightforward or via detours: What was your school career like and what interests did you have as a younger person?
After my school education at the vocational college, I initially wanted to study IMUK (Dipl.), but was more interested in IT technology and dealing with software applications. That's why I started my training as an IT clerk. After successfully completing my training, I personally wanted to take advantage of the opportunities that arose from the training and my previous school-leaving qualification and therefore enrolled at the HNU for the B.A. IMUK. The practical experience I was able to gain from the training, in combination with the degree, gave me a very good professional and theoretical basis for my current professional life.


What tips would you give to students in your degree programme?
My tip: Don't be discouraged by the first semesters, even if they are sometimes exhausting and very broad in terms of subject areas.


What is your advice to all graduates who are looking for their first job?
Large, well-known companies certainly offer exciting challenges. However, I really recommend including medium-sized, regional companies in your job search. The development opportunities and the chances to become active yourself are significantly greater.


Please describe your everyday working life. Which projects do you work on and which tasks do you particularly appreciate?
We are responsible for the operation, further development and strategic orientation of the entire IT landscape for SWU and all its subsidiaries across the group. With a clear focus on IT security, high availability, resilience and service quality, we ensure that all IT-supported business and core processes in the specialist departments run stably, performantly and future-proof.

As a central enabler of digital transformation, we actively drive forward the modernisation of the system landscape – from established operating models and standard applications to cloud and hybrid infrastructures, automation and lifecycle management, to highly specialised energy management applications and individual industry solutions. In doing so, we act as a reliable business and technology partner within IT and throughout the SWU Group.

Our users benefit from scalable, secure and user-oriented IT services that are operated according to proven best practices and governance models. In this way, we create the technological basis on which our internal teams can rely – so that customers can always rely on the performance and reliability of SWU.


How would you complete the following sentence beginning?
HNU... "is regional and top."