With the end of the business year 2011/12, Nils resigned as a managing director effective 31 March. Dr. Tobias Thomas and Michael Johner, the two current managing directors will continue to run the operations. The management team will operate in close contact with Kshitij Nerurkar, Chief Operating Officer, eLearning at TIS Mumbai.

The company was founded thirty years ago as "Unicon" with the advent of personal computers and the vision to bring the professionalism of pilot training into management education. Prof. Dr. Bernt Högsdal, Nils' father, was one of the founders.

"Handing over what used to be our family business after thirty years is a big step, but I am very confident about the abilities of the current TOPSIM team", Nils says. Since then TOPSIM has become the leading brand for management simulations not only in Germany but also in other countries around the world. More than 2,000 customers rely on the standards, and estimates are that more than 100,000 students and corporate employees participate in TOPSIM simulations each year.

As part of the strategy to internationalize the activities, TATA Interactive Systems acquired TOPSIM in 2005. "A key goal in acquiring TOPSIM was to add to the range of our learning solutions and also to take TOPSIM beyond Germany. Winning the prestigious Brandon Hall Gold Award recently for a solution created by Nils and his team is an example of TOPSIM successfully going international", says Sanjaya Sharma, CEO of TATA Interactive Systems.

The thirtieth anniversary of TOPSIM will be celebrated at the annual users meeting hosted in Meersburg on 27-28 September. "I am looking forward to this annual event, and I will continue to stay associated with TOPSIM while teaching at the university", says Dr. Högsdal.