After years as a business traveller, Christian Grupp took the plunge and is now the new managing director at the Roxy in Ulm. His career path may be rather unusual for a graduate of Ulm University’s Business Mathematics Programme, but Grupp is quite content with the change and his new responsibilities.

At first glance, 40-year-old Christian Grupp still looks the part of the business consultant. He arrives for the interview sporting a smart shirt with his hair smoothly parted down the side. Grupp started as the new managing director at the Roxy, a local arts and culture centre, at the beginning of the new season last September. The Roxy describes itself as one of the largest sociocultural centres in Southern Germany, a gathering place for creative minds, artists and free spirits.

“I am really happy here”, says Grupp with a smile. “The staff have been very welcoming and I learn something new every day. I’ve even had the chance to stand the behind the counter and serve beer”. Until recently, Christian Grupp’s working environment looked completely different. Based in Vienna as an IT consultant in the financial services sector, he was responsible for customers in Central and Eastern Europe for 13 years. His job required him to be on the road three to four days a week, leaving little time for his partner and son.

The fact that he can now better reconcile work and family life was one of the reasons that prompted him to make the change. “I still do have long days – the day doesn’t even really get started until the evening at the Roxy, but this way I can go home from time to time and have dinner with my family or put my son to bed”, Grupp says of his new daily routine.

A perpetual business mathematician, Grupp has remained loyal to numbers and statistics in his new job as well. As the Roxy’s managing director, he is responsible for the finances and personnel. He is primarily involved in project work, a situation familiar to him as a former consultant. Around 80 staff members, ranging from salaried employees to hourly service staff behind the bar, rely on Grupp’s sound management at the arts and culture centre. The Roxy is a non-profit organisation, covering around 70 per cent of its own costs with revenue from ticket sales and food and beverage services. The remainder is provided by city and state cultural funds, as well as external sponsors.

The long road to the Roxy

Christian Grupp never dreamed that he would one day be able to combine his professional expertise as a business consultant with his passion for music and the arts. When he learned that the job vacancy was being advertised, he jumped at the chance and was ultimately hired as the Roxy’s managing director. Grupp is no stranger to the Roxy. Since his student days, he has been making appearances at the Roxy not only as a guest, but also as an artist. He has performed in the venue as the bass guitarist in the band for the “Theater in der Bastion” theatre group. “Our theatre group has been developing plays and musicals for nearly 20 years, and that is how the contact to the Roxy came about. In Ulm everyone knows each other”, explains Grupp, who views Ulm as his home.

When he came to Ulm University from the small city of Geislingen in the Zollernalb District in the late 1990s, Grupp found Ulm and the free academic lifestyle at the University exhilarating. As a graduate from a high school with a business focus, he immediately developed an interest in business mathematics, though he admits he struggled during his undergraduate studies. “The most important things I learned at the University were self organisation and time management skills. Through my job as an IT consultant, I also had a fair amount of exposure to the topic of digitalisation. Here the adroit methods I learned during my studies proved to be very helpful”, says Grupp.
Although he doesn’t have much contact today with his former fellow students, a former faculty member did take notice of the fact that Grupp would be taking on an important role in the local culture scene. “One of my former professors, Hans-Joachim Zwiesler, even sent me an email congratulating me on my new position. It is nice to see that people at the University still remember me”, relates the amateur musician.