Laura Flottmann

Climbing to the position of manager after changing companies twice

After a few months, I no longer felt challenged. That's when Liefery contacted me via XING and hired me. I started there as Junior Manager Operations, but soon my old employer InstraFreight approached me again with an unbeatable offer – and won me back. On the one hand, I think a reason I become Team Lead Groupage so quickly is because InstaFreight is growing so fast. Over the past year, tasks and responsibilities have been redistributed, which gave rise to my current position. On the other hand, as a trainee I was very quickly independent and took the product groupage as a so-called “minimum viable product”, i.e. as a minimally functioning iteration of a product that needs to be developed further. So I had a lot of opportunities to optimise the product and was thus able to prove myself on a professional level.

I’m currently responsible for partner management and product optimisation. My duties also include reporting and monitoring of the numbers, i.e. revenue, margin and profit. Of course, as a team leader, I also have responsibility for staff. The special thing about the position is that I can work independently and make many decisions on my own.

Internationality, the programme contents and presentations prepare students well for the profession

Here is something from my studies that helps me a lot: The international environment at IU (formerly known as IUBH) in Bad Honnef prepared me well for my professional life, as InstraFreight is very diverse. Courses like Entrepreneurship and my semester abroad in Rzeszów in Poland, where I mainly took courses in logistics, also helped. The programmes at IU (formerly known as IUBH) are very practice-oriented, and the small groups and the proximity to lecturers and professors made learning much easier. The numerous presentations, panel discussions and group projects also gave me a lot of self-confidence, so I can assert myself in everyday working life, but also gave me the ability to find compromises. In an international industry like logistics, I also really benefit from the fact that my studies were exclusively in English.