Your word is our word.

What an encounter with an entrepreneur taught me about responsibility, trust and leadership.

I was 27 years old and had already taken responsibility for a significant international business. I was responsible for around EUR 70 million in revenue. For someone of my age, this was an extraordinary level of responsibility – and I was very much aware of it.
The company was part of a large, owner-managed group. The senior shareholder was a highly influential entrepreneurial figure. For someone at my level at the time, a personal encounter with him was anything but an everyday occurrence.
One day, there was a knock at my office door.
I could not see who was standing outside. I opened it – and suddenly the senior shareholder was standing in front of me.
At that moment, I became rather uneasy.
I knew that one of my decisions had led to a problem. At 27, carrying a level of responsibility that was exceptional for my age, several thoughts went through my mind. One of them was:
This could be it.
He came into my office.
No lengthy introduction. No accusations.
Instead, he asked me three questions.
“Did you make this decision?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you make this decision?”
I explained that, based on the information available to me at the time, I had been convinced that it was the right decision to make.
Then came the third question:
“Would you make the same decision again today?”
My answer was:
With the information available to me at the time – yes.
With the information I have today – no. Of course, I would make a different decision.
He listened, nodded and said:
“Your word is our word.”
That was effectively the end of the conversation.
That sentence has stayed with me to this day.
It was only as I gained more leadership experience of my own that I began to understand how much had happened in those few minutes.
He had not asked me who was to blame.
He did not want justification or excuses.
He wanted to know whether I stood by my decision.
Whether I could explain why I had made it.
And whether I was also prepared to recognise that new information could lead to a different decision.
That encounter shaped my understanding of responsibility and leadership.
Leadership does not mean never making a wrong decision. Anyone who carries genuine responsibility will, sooner or later, make a decision that turns out differently from what was expected.
What matters is how we deal with it.
For me, this means giving people trust and allowing them to take responsibility. It means expecting them to stand by their decisions, to explain them openly and to reassess them when circumstances or information change.
And it also means not leaving people alone when a decision made in good faith leads to a problem.
That is what I learned from this encounter.

Give trust. Allow responsibility. Stand by decisions. Accept new insights. And find solutions together.

EXECUTIVE MEMO NO. 02

Loyalty reveals itself in a crisis.

Why long-term business relationships prove their value precisely when times become difficult.

It was during a severe economic crisis in one of our international markets. One of our long-standing business partners found himself in serious financial difficulty. A major supply operation for this market and port was at stake, while the economic conditions had changed dramatically within a very short period of time.
At first, there was no immediate commercial reason for us to intervene.
Our invoices had been paid.
We had no outstanding receivables from our partner. From a purely commercial perspective, we could simply have observed the situation and waited.
I saw things differently.
My thinking was:
If this partner survives the crisis, and if we stand by him now, at the very moment when he needs support, he will remember it later.
Not because of any contractual obligation.
But because a business relationship proves itself precisely when times become difficult.
I brought this idea to the management team.
Eventually, we decided to support our partner with EUR 100,000.
Measured against the economic challenges he was facing, this amount was probably little more than a drop in the ocean.
But its symbolic value was considerable.
Our decision carried a clear message:
We believe in our partner. We believe in this market. And we will not turn our backs on him when circumstances become difficult.
At the same time, we decided to take another step.
While many market participants were reducing their activities, we did the opposite.
We stayed.
We continued to attend important trade fairs and even increased our presence there, investing further in personnel and marketing activities.
In doing so, we sent a clear signal to our partners and customers:
We are here even when the market becomes difficult.
People noticed.
Particularly in international business, I have repeatedly experienced that long-term relationships are not built solely on prices, terms and contracts.
People remember who was available when times became difficult.
They remember who kept their word.
And they remember who was prepared to sustain a relationship even when short-term commercial advantage was not the priority.
Our partner survived the crisis.
And he did not forget our decision.
When the market stabilised again, he committed himself with extraordinary dedication to our joint development. Together, we succeeded in significantly expanding our position in the market.
Of course, our support at the time was no guarantee of this success.
We did not know how the market would develop.
We did not know whether our partner would actually survive the crisis.
There was a risk.
But entrepreneurial decisions are rarely made with complete certainty.
Sometimes you have to decide which relationships, which people and which markets you trust over the long term.
For me, this experience therefore has little to do with sentimentality.
Loyalty and commercial thinking are not opposites.
On the contrary.
Long-term business is often built precisely where reliability does not end at the first problem.

Loyalty and commercial thinking are not opposites. Long-term business is built where reliability does not end at the first problem.

EXECUTIVE MEMO NO. 03

Sometimes you have to be there in person.

Why markets and people cannot be fully understood from behind a desk.

Throughout my career, I have worked in many international markets. Some were straightforward, others complex; some were politically or economically challenging.
I learned something quite early on:
A market often looks different from a distance than it does on the ground.
Figures, market analyses and reports are important. They show developments, scale and economic relationships.
But they do not show everything.
They do not show how a retailer actually presents a product. They do not show why a customer chooses a competitor instead. And they often do not show what a business partner really thinks about a situation.
That is why I wanted to see markets for myself.
I wanted to speak with the people working there. With partners, customers, employees and decision-makers.
Sometimes these conversations took place in an office.
Sometimes at a trade fair, in a shop or in a warehouse.
And sometimes in the evening over a meal together.
Particularly in international business, I have experienced that some of the most important conversations do not take place in a conference room.
Once the official part of the day is over, the conversation often changes.
People speak differently. You get to know one another. You begin to understand what concerns the other person, what expectations they have and, sometimes, what worries they have not expressed in an official meeting.
This does not mean that personal relationships replace commercial decisions.
But trust changes the quality of a business relationship.
For me, honesty is part of that as well.
If something was not possible, I tried to say so clearly.
If a problem arose, I did not want to manage it from a distance.
And when a situation was important, I wanted to be available.
Over many years, this approach has led to business relationships that extended far beyond individual transactions.
You can analyse a market.
You can develop strategies.
You can create presentations and compare figures.
But at some point, someone has to go out and experience how that market actually works.
For me, international business was therefore never simply about exports.
It meant taking people, cultures and markets seriously.
And sometimes that means something very simple:
You have to be there.

You have to be there.