Meet Klaus Reiter, Wintec’s industry engagement director

What are education to employment networks and just how do they fit in to the role of a tertiary education provider? That’s where Klaus Reiter our industry engagement director comes in. By engaging with employers and industry partners, we bring real-life stories into the classroom and our students gain real experiences in the workplace.  

This is a recently created role at Wintec. Why has it been created?

We want to ensure that Wintec graduates are work-ready and have all the attributes and skills necessary for long-term success in their chosen career. Engaging with industry is an important part of this. Wintec is already well connected with employers and communities, and we work closely with industry to design our programmes, but we want to do even more. That’s where I come in.

So what exactly will you be doing in this role?

I provide strategic leadership on how Wintec should engage with employers and communities. I also represent Wintec wherever opportunities for collaboration with employers and communities arise and pave the way for new and better engagement.

What’s your vision for the future of Wintec?

We want to create education-to-employment networks that enable much greater collaboration between employers and Wintec. This will lead to more opportunities for our students and graduates and it will provide our employers with the talent they need to succeed in a fast-changing world.

We want employers to be even more involved in our teaching and learning and Wintec staff to be more involved in industry and our community. We want to provide more work-integrated learning and on-the-job experience for as many students as possible. I believe that our teaching partnerships will design new types of qualifications that combine learning in the workplace with learning at Wintec.

Those are some big ambitions. How do you plan on achieving them?

They are big dreams, but we are committed to making them reality. To start with, I’m focusing on cultivating Wintec’s current industry engagements and involvement, identifying best practice and optimising our processes. From there, we will grow our networks and develop and formalise collaboration agreements. Step by step we will increase the time our students spend in work-integrated learning, starting with a few selected programmes and then making changes across our entire portfolio.

I will certainly need a lot of help with this. Help from committed employers, help from businesses large and small who take a leap of faith and offer students to learn from them in their work places.

What excites you most about this role?

I’m excited about breaking the chains of current thinking about what and how we teach. I’m excited about finding opportunities for collaboration and I am excited about making our graduates more employable.

How has your past work experience led you to where you are now?

After graduating with a business administration degree in Germany, I had a career with German Rail encompassing quality management, business process reengineering, ergonomics, professional development, adult education and teaching.

After emigrating to New Zealand more than 20 years ago, I managed the Auckland Business Centre for the Open Polytechnic of NZ and then managed Wintec’s Newmarket campus.

I am a Hamiltonian since 2010, first leading Wintec’s School of IT, then as Director of Wintec’s Centre for Business, Information Technology and Enterprise. In this role I changed all our programmes in Business, IT and Tourism and created new qualifications that focused on producing work-ready graduates with the skills and attributes needed for tomorrow’s jobs. I built up a team of experts who arrange industry projects and internships for our degree students. I am particularly proud of leading our development of postgraduate qualifications up to master’s level. All this was made possible due to the strong support of our industry partners.

All the while I continued learning and gained an MBA from Southern Cross University in Australia.

What keeps you busy outside of work?

I am fortunate to be happily married, with a 17-year-old son. I love the outdoors so always try to get outside on the weekends. In summer I love camping or you’ll find me at the Hamilton Yacht Club at Hamilton Lake. I also chair the board of trustees of Hillcrest High School.

Tell us something interesting (and non-work related) about yourself…

My wife and I are from the same small village just north of Frankfurt, from an area that was famous once because Elvis did his military service there! I was once a red soldier, but not what you might think. During my first year in New Zealand, while waiting for my residency to come through, I volunteered as an extra in the open-air performance of Verdi’s opera Aida. I was one of the ‘red soldiers’ in the triumph march.

Want to know more and get involved?

Please contact Klaus at klaus.reiter@wintec.ac.nz, connect with him via LinkedIn or give him a call on 021 803 459.