Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Klaus Kompaß

35+ years of experience in vehicle safety topics

Studied safety engineering, specialising in traffic safety, graduating as Dipl.-Ing. from the University of Wuppertal 1985

1985 - 1986: Scientific assistant at the Westphalian Mining Union Bochum, Institute for Operations Management in Mining. Main subject: Accident analyses in the German coal industry.

From mid-1986: Crash test engineer at BMW AG in Munich, 1989: Head of the airbag laboratory and occupant simulation and later head of the vehicle safety pre-development department. Among other things, project manager for the world's first head side airbag, which went into series production in 1997.

1999 - 2003: Joined Autoliv GmbH as Head of Development for Autoliv Germany, later Autoliv Central Europe, at the development sites in Dachau, Elmshorn and Havant (UK). Member of the management and authorised signatory.

2003 - 2008: Returned to BMW AG in Munich in the role of Head of the Electrics/Electronics Division.

From 2005: took over as Head of the Driver Assistance Project House

2008 - 2020: Vice President Vehicle Safety for the BMW Group (BMW, Mini, Rolls-Royce). Responsible for all topics of passive safety, active safety, functional safety and safety in use, later also for the safety aspects of automated driving.

Lecturer (since 2005) and honorary professor (2015) at the TU Berlin, lecturer at the HTWG Konstanz (2014 - 2019), lecturer at the TU Dresden since 2019. Lecture series on vehicle safety (passive safety, active safety, safety aspects of automated driving).

Winner
- of the Fraunhofer Airbag Award,
- the US Government Award for Safety Engineering Excellence,
- the Body Innovation Award,
- the FISITA Academy of Technical Leadership
and other awards.

FISITA Vice President Europe

Since January 2020: Freelancer, consultant and collaborator in various safety-related projects and companies.