Dr. Matthias Catón

My name is Matthias Catón. I’m the Director of Corporate Development at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

Blog

by on

How to create a Toastmasters Club

I’ve been a member of Toastmasters International for more than nine years now. I’m convinced that it is one of the best (and indeed the cheapest) ways to improve one’s public speaking ability.

About two years ago I wanted to do something new: found a so-called Advanced Toastmasters Club that is geared entirely toward experienced speakers.

First meeting of the Advanced Toastmasters Club in Frankfurt

The first informal meeting took place in November 2016. A little less than a year ago, on 6 July 2017, eight other people and I created Professional Speakers Frankfurt as a registered association (“e.V.”), and I became the Club’s first President.

Since then, the Club has grown in members to 20 and meetings from one per month to four—two face-to-face meetings and two online meetings. In May we chartered, which means that we became an official Toastmasters Club.

I’m incredibly proud of what we have achieved together. There’s still a lot of work to do to make our Club genuinely excellent, but we have a solid foundation with a growing and dedicated membership. We’ve come a long way!

July marks the beginning of a new Toastmasters year. Last week we elected a strong new Executive Committee, led by Michael G. Parker as President. It will steer our Club into its next phase.

I will remain on the Executive Committee for another year as the ex officio Immediate Past President. My primary focus, however, will be on my new role as Area Director of Toastmasters Area F3, which includes four Toastmasters Clubs: Professional Speakers, Esprit de Corps Toastmasters, Darmstadt Toastmasters, and Rhetorik-Club Bergstraße.

by on

The winners of the 2017 BSc Instagram and Snapchat competition

For the second time, we ran a photo and video competition during the introduction week of the BSc in Business Administration at Frankfurt School. In addition to regular Instagram photos and videos this year we also included Snapchat and Instagram Stories (which didn’t exist last year).

[Read more…] about The winners of the 2017 BSc Instagram and Snapchat competition

by on

Frankfurt School BSc once again excels in CHE/Zeit ranking

Frankfurt School’s Bachelor of Science in Business Administration once again came out at the top of the recent ranking by CHE and Die Zeit, Germany’s most important university ranking.

We excelled in almost every measured aspect in the categories “BWL” (management) and “Wirtschaftswissenschaften” (business and economics).

The only notable exceptions had to two with facilities (rooms, IT, library), but hey—we know that it’s a bit cramped at times at our current location. That’s why we’re moving to our brand-new Campus in the summer!

by on

Register now for SAT and ACT tests!

Students who want to start their undergraduate studies in Frankfurt School’s Bachelor of Science in Business Administration this year and who would like to take one of the standardized tests should hurry up. SAT and ACT only have one test date each left in this cycle!

College Board offers the last international SAT on 6 May. Students can register here until 7 April. ACT‘s last test date is 10 June and registrations are possible until 5 May.

Of course, you can take the Frankfurt School admissions test instead. You can either come to Frankfurt for one of the regular Assessment Centers days (see my calendar for the dates) or sit the test abroad. We offer this possibility for a fee at the offices of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Goethe Institutes.

by on

Frankfurt School’s BSc Advanced Study Phase gets new time structure

From spring 2018 onward, two things will change for the Advanced Study Phase (that is, semesters 6 and 7) of the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at Frankfurt School.

Thematic areas of the Bachelor of Science Advanced Study Phase at Frankfurt School

First, we will introduce a structure of four quarters, which means that we will divide each semester into two quarters with seven or eight weeks of classes followed by an exam week. We started this system in 2015 with the first semester. Through the additional mid-term exam weeks we reduce the number of exams at the end of each semester and allow students to concentrate on fewer topics at a given time.

Second, the summer semester will start one month earlier than before, namely at the beginning of February. We do this to satisfy frequent requests from students who wanted to have more time off during the summer. Employers often require a three-month minimum for internships, and until now Frankfurt School students only had two months off in the summer. Many students felt that they were missing out on attractive internship opportunities.

The new time structure will look like this:

  • Q3: weeks 6 to 12, exams in week 13
  • Q4: weeks 14 to 21, exams in week 22
  • Q1: weeks 36 to 42, exams in week 43
  • Q2: weeks 44 to 50, exams in week 51

There will be thirteen weeks off in the summer and six in the winter. In case you are wondering what the week numbers mean, we follow ISO 8601 which defines week 1 to be the week with the year’s first Thursday in it.

The concrete dates for 2018 are the following:

  • Q3: 5 February – 31 March 2018
  • Q4: 2 April – 2 June 2018
  • Q1: 3 September – 27 October 2018
  • Q2: 29 October – 22 December 2018
Time structure of the BSc Advanced Study Phase

Each course will run for eight hours a week either on one day (see figure, slots A to E) or on two consecutive days (slots F and G).

While the changes bring a lot of advantages to many students, some are also struggling with them. Depending on where they spend their semester abroad, some students might want to do internships in February and March. It will, therefore, be possible for all students, independent of their concentration, to skip the first quarter of the summer semester (Q3) and only return to Frankfurt at the beginning of April.

You can find all the details in this document that we prepared for the 2015 intake, the first to study with the new time structure.

by on

New Advanced Toastmasters Club launches in Frankfurt

First meeting of the Advanced Toastmasters Club in Frankfurt

On 23 November 2016 fifteen experienced Toastmasters met at Saalbau Südbahnhof in Frankfurt to start the new Advanced Club for the Rhine/Main region.

Ben Parsons (left) and Steven Feller

We discussed many ideas of what the club could do, how it should be set up and so on. A highlight was the humorous speech given by Steven Feller. He was about to compete in the District level speech contest and used this opportunity to get some last-minute feedback and suggestions. The very extensive and in-depth feedback he received from participants was a great example of what the club will be able to provide to its members.

The next meetings will take place on 5 January and 2 February, also at Saalbau Südbahnhof. If you would like to know more about the Club and its purpose, click here.

by on

Trump is everywhere – Why Europeans should not be complacent

Yesterday morning, I had a deja vu. For the second time in five months, I woke up to a global reality that I thought would be impossible. The first time was when voters in the United Kingdom decided they wanted a Brexit and to end the country’s more than four decades of membership of the European Union. Yesterday we learned that populist Donald Trump would be the next president of the most powerful country in the world.

Donald J. Trump
Photo: Michael Vadon (CC BY SA 4.0)

In both cases, I was convinced it would be a close call, but reason would ultimately prevail. Reason, of course, for me would have meant for the UK to stay in the EU and for the United States to elect Hillary Clinton. Both things have not happened.

Faced with the unthinkable some people, in particular in continental Europe, become arrogant: Those dumb Americans again, they say. Really? Not so fast! Despite all the differences the people who elected Trump are the same as those who voted for the Brexit. They are the same as those who vote for the new right-wing party AfD in Germany, for Austrian presidential candidate Norbert Hofer and Marine Le Pen in the next French presidential elections.

We witness an obviously very aggrieved group of white voters with lower socio-economic status who feel that they pay the price for globalization and technological progress and who feel threatened by immigrants (in Europe in particularly by Muslims, in the US also by Latinos) and by changing cultural norms, including things like gay marriage. Their anger turns against the political and economic elites, and it is immune from reason or arguments.

We underestimated the size and the determination of this group of voters. In particular, the pollsters were humiliated. How many times had we heard over the past couple of weeks that there was “no mathematical path to the presidency for Trump”? Well, it turns out that there was more than one and it wasn’t even particularly close. Forecasting models that rely on assumptions of past behavior fail when the underlying dynamics shift.

A US-specific problem is the arcane way to elect the president via an electoral college. Let’s not forget that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. The system allows an outcome like this, but it violates the fundamental principle of equal weight for every vote. It effectively gives voters in swing states outsized influence and renders other votes in “safe” states completely worthless.

The US will now have to find out what a President Donald Trump actually means. The mood I witnessed in New York and Boston was between somber and utterly depressed. I’m attending a conference at Tufts University and Anthony Monaco, the president, told us that they even brought in therapy dogs to comfort distressed students. In the meantime, the rest of the developed world, and in particular the Europeans, should not be complacent. If Trump can happen in the US, it can happen anywhere.

by on

Frankfurt School Bachelor student wins Zonta Award

Recently, Anja Unger, one of my Bachelor students who is currently in her last semester at Frankfurt School, received the Jane M. Klausman award from Zonta Club Frankfurt. This award is given to female business students to strengthen the potential of future women business leaders.

Zonta Klausman Award
From left to right: Annegret Gratzki, Anja Unger, Matthias Catón, Susan Georgijewitsch

Anja received the award during a session in the fancy Villa Bonn, where Zonta Club Frankfurt holds its meetings. Ironically, it’s the seat of the Frankfurter Gesellschaft, a club where city notables hobnob and which only last year started to accept women as members (although I don’t know if they’ve admitted one yet).

The Club kindly invited me to attend (I was the only man present!), and it was a very nice evening. Anja is a worthy recipient of the award and was very humble when she accepted it. Probably even a bit too humble for my taste. Why is it that women are often reluctant to speak about their accomplishments while many men boast about things when they’re completely clueless?

I hope that Anja will serve as a role model for future generations of female students. Many thanks to club president Annegret Gratzki, vice president Susan Georgijewitsch and all the other members for choosing one of our students!

by on

Starting in 2017: New Marketing Concentration in the Frankfurt School BSc

Analyst at meeting table

The Frankfurt School Bachelor of Science in Business Administration is growing! Not only did we welcome yet another record intake of 268 new students last month, but we’re also expanding our program. From 2017 onwards we offer a new Concentration in the field of Marketing, which raises the number of Concentrations to eight.

Marketing is a core function of modern companies. Some even say it is the essence of business. It’s an exciting and very diverse field to work in and an area that is constantly evolving. New technologies offer possibilities that were unthinkable not long ago. Companies can use Big Data to analyze their customers’ needs and communicate with them through social media platforms. At the same time, these technologies have empowered consumers and resulting in entirely different demands for marketing departments.

As with all Concentrations in Frankfurt School’s BSc in Business Administration program, students will get a solid foundation in all areas of management plus in-depth knowledge of marketing and sales.

The Concentration will be entirely taught in English, which means that it is attractive not only to German students wishing to pursue a global career but also to international students who don’t speak German.

Here’s the draft curriculum. You can also check out the dedicated page on Frankfurt School’s website, where you can apply as of now.

by on

Remembering 9/11

Fifteen years ago today the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed literally in front of my eyes. I was in New York City working as an intern on Betsy Gotbaum‘s campaign, who was running for Public Advocate, the city’s second-highest elected office.

Despite the traumatic events of that day, the three months were an unforgettable experience, and I’m glad to have met so many great people, many of who remain friends until today.

To commemorate, here are a few photos I took before and after 9/11.

New York - before and after 9/11