The Heinrich W. Risken Endowed Chair was created in 2008. Following the retirement of Prof Dr Wolfgang Ossadnik in the 2018/2019 winter semester, the endowed chair was renamed from Corporate Management and Accounting to Controlling.

The chair was endowed by Heinrich W. Risken, Chairman of the Executive Board and main shareholder of heristo Aktiengesellschaft, based in Bad Rothenfelde. heristo AG is one of the top-selling companies in the German food industry and one of the largest European manufacturers of pet food. It is run as a family business.

Controlling is understood to be the business management function that organises the planning and control calculations (= internal company accounting) in the company and accompanies or specifies their concrete use in order to support object decisions and management decisions. Students should be able to recognise and understand interrelationships, analyse problems and select and apply suitable instruments to solve them. They should thereby acquire the competence to act on their own responsibility in order to be able to deal with business management decision-making problems on the basis of their own sound judgement.