Katja founded CONSTELLATIONS in Shanghai in 2009 and now relocated to Berlin to develop the Berlin office; prior to this, she had been involved in strategic European-Chinese cooperation for over a decade, gaining wide experience as a manager and expert in various positions, such as:

• Chief Representative of the City of Hamburg in Shanghai , where she built partnerships and initiated numerous projects between the twinned cities (2000-2006);
• China strategy consultant for the head office of the Goethe-Institut (2006-2007);
• Manager for environmental marketing and partnerships at the Delegation of the German Industry and Commerce Shanghai (1999-2000).
• Consultant for the Asia department of the BMBF, German Ministry of Education, Science & Technology in the frame of the China cooperation evaluation (2008)
• Editor-in-Chief Europe China Cultural Compass (2011) on behalf of EUNIC – European Unction National Institutes for Culture
  Head of the Working Group “Business & Society” on behalf of the board of the German Chamber of Commerce Shanghai (voluntary mandate, 2013-2016)

In 2002, Katja was the first woman and first person from the non-profit sector to receive the Silver Magnolia Award from the City of Shanghai, an annual prize awarded by the Shanghai City Government to foreigners for their outstanding contributions to Chinese and international co-operation.

Katja graduated from the Bremen University of Applied Sciences with a degree in China studies, Chinese language and International Management (Dipl. Wirtschaftssinologin, equivalent to M.A.). She started her China encounter from the West of the country coming first as an exchange student in 1994 to Sichuan University in Chengdu, followed by an internship in 1996 in Huhhot, Inner Mongolia where she worked on a renewable energy project for GIZ . Katja completed an applied research postgraduate project on management theories with fieldwork in India.

Katja is a seasoned moderator with a strong ability to bring about the big picture. Further more, she has joined the Theory U training program for transformational learning offered by Dr. Otto Scharmer, MIT Lecturer and Founder of the Presencing Institute.

Katja is fluent in German, English, French and Chinese.