Profile in Giving
Kenan-Flagler education launches global career
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| Rolf and Ronda Hoffmann |
Rolf Hoffmann’s career has taken him all over the world. His posts as an executive with Eli Lilly & Company included stints in Germany, England, Latin America, South Africa and the midwestern United States. Now he lives in Switzerland, where he works as senior vice president of Amgen International, part of the world’s largest biotechnology company.
But it was at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School that he first gained the skills he would need to thrive in today’s global marketplace.
“I really owe a lot to the business school,” he said.
Born and reared in Cologne, Germany, Hoffmann enrolled in Kenan-Flagler’s M.B.A. program on a scholarship funded by the German government. That was after he’d earned two master’s degrees in his home country, including one in English. He’d been teaching English and P.E. in Cologne before coming to Chapel Hill.
Hoffmann, who received his M.B.A. in 1987, said Kenan-Flagler “re-wired my brain” with a business perspective. But that didn’t mean the school pushed the values of competition at the cost of collegiality.
“It was not a dog-eat-dog environment,” he said.
In fact, Kenan-Flagler stressed teamwork, with faculty and students coming together to share ideas and solve problems. And that ethic has served Hoffmann well ever since.
“The faculty’s and students’ attitude toward teamwork lends itself to leading a global multi national corporation,” Hoffmann said.
And he should know. As senior vice president of Amgen International, Hoffmann oversees all of Amgen Inc.’s operations except those in the United States and Canada. He has been charged with setting the commercial strategy for what he called a historical “U.S.-centric” company and taking Amgen global.
Before Amgen, his 17-year career in sales and marketing with Eli Lilly included serving as area director of Latin America.
Hoffmann can credit Kenan-Flagler with more than just preparing him to rise to such heights. He also met his wife there.
Ronda Hoffmann earned her undergraduate business degree from Kenan-Flagler in 1987, graduating with honors. She and Rolf married in 1992 and have three children. Like her husband, Ronda had forged a successful career founded on her Kenan-Flagler education, rising through the Financial Management Program with General Electric.
Now a “professional spouse and mother,” Ronda spends her time volunteering at the International School of Zug (Switzerland), organizing ski lessons in English for the international community and traveling monthly with Rolf for business as well as alone on bi-annual trips to maintain various real estate investments they’ve made over the years. Her earlier volunteer work included helping local businesses in South Africa write business plans as well as giving eye-screening tests to underprivileged children.
In tribute to what Kenan-Flagler has meant to them, Rolf and Ronda support the school’s Jay Edward Klompmaker MBA Fellowship, named in honor of Rolf ’s marketing professor — “one of the great guys,” Rolf said — and give unrestricted funds that the dean can use at his discretion.
Rolf also supports Kenan-Flagler with his time and expertise. He serves on the school’s board of visitors and, this past December, he did a “Lessons in Experience” talk with a small group of students as part of a Kenan-Flagler initiative that brings real-work experiences in leadership to students. He also recruits the school’s graduates for Amgen.
Beyond Kenan-Flagler, the Hoffmanns have committed $100,000 to Carolina for Kibera, a program founded by UNC alumnus Rye Barcott that works to improve the quality of life in Kibera, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya.
Rolf said that, in general, he feels an “ethical” obligation to support Carolina because he admires the University’s commitment to access and affordability, while at the same time having to pursue resources to compete with well-heeled private schools.
“I think UNC is one of the great institutions in America,” he said. “It’s a great deal.”
And as someone with a global perspective, Rolf also appreciates Carolina’s efforts to raise students’ awareness of the world beyond their dorm rooms. The push for more study abroad opportunities and other initiatives geared toward internationalizing the student experience show that “it’s not just lip service,” he said.
As for what he’d tell students — or anyone looking for insights into getting along in the global economy — Rolf said the key is meeting people on their cultural-terms, and communicating in a way that respects them. Phone calls to the United States, China, Germany and Italy are “four totally different conversations on the same topic,” he said.
“It’s much more about the ‘how’ than the ‘what.’ ”
While the Hoffmanns have lived around the world, they still keep geographic ties to North Carolina, with homes on the Outer Banks and in Chapel Hill.
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