Vita
Beginnings
Born in 1972 and having grown up with the two formative cultures of Germany and Sweden, I was sensitized to different values, behaviours and logics almost in the cradle. After graduating from high school and studying business administration, I started working as a junior sales manager in a multinational Swedish company. This experience in a silo-like company, which made little use of the creative power of its own employees, was very irritating to me. Recognizing this unused potential and the underlying possibility for change in the joint work of people motivated me greatly to do things differently and better myself.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Based on this motivation, I founded my first company at the age of 24, for which I was awarded the title of Founder Champion of the Year 1999 by the Federal Ministry of Economics. This has been followed by more and more start-ups to this day, for which I have received awards from Stern and McKinsey, among others, as part of the start-up competition.
CORPORATE EXPERIENCE
In 2000, I went back to a corporate group, Deutsche Telekom AG, to understand how cooperation can be organized differently and better, even in large structures. As Senior Manager Corporate Development, I was jointly responsible for group strategy and M&A strategies. Once again I realized how suboptimal the traditional way of corporate management is and how little the power and resources of the employees are used to move the company forward. In the CEO I found a strong advocate who shared my view of the organization. He gave me the opportunity to train in organizational development and to use the know-how across the group in so-called post-merger integration projects, where usually a lot of know-how and innovative power is lost.
EXPERT FOR CORPORATE INNOVATION
In 2005, after 5 instructive years, I decided to leave the group and the opportunities it offered behind me to work as an independent management consultant based on my know-how about organisations, people and processes.
In this field of activity, I have since completed various training courses on the topics of systemic organizational development, change management, communication, psychology, agile project management and agile business management. Since then, I have been advising entrepreneurs and corporations on the development of innovative strategies and the design of change processes, which often entail a change in corporate culture. I am passionate about researching and publishing on the innovative power and need for change of companies in today’s times of upheaval. I also contribute my know-how in the form of teaching and training assignments, including at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and Leuphana University Lüneburg, where I am a guest lecturer, at Daimler AG and Deutsche Bahn AG.
Honorary
Through my own school experience, the resulting awareness of the formative influence of school as well as the birth of my daughter Linnea in 2003, I founded the “Bilingual Montessori School Ingelheim” as an honorary board member, which implements the principles of learning represented in the systemic approach. The school is now a four-form entry secondary school attended by around 350 children and has a staff of around 50.
Private
In my private life I live with my husband Karsten and our two children Linnea and Victor on a historic vineyard in Bingen on the Rhine. In addition to my professional activities, I am above all a family man with a large circle of friends and love long hikes in the Alps, lively discussions with as many different people and opinions as possible, philosophical literature, yoga, the archipelago of my native Sweden – and last but not least a cool glass of Riesling.