Podcast “Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“
Folge #13: Kerstin Hochmüller
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Podcast Episode 13
Kerstin Hochmüller: “Openness makes us more crisis-proof“
CEO Marantec Company Group
Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Episode notes
There is one concept that Kerstin Hochmüller doesn't think much of at all - and that is the idea of the hidden champion, i.e. the world market leader working away alone in the provinces. This old principle of success of German medium-sized companies has had its day, says the head of the Marantec Company Group, a specialist for drives in garages and industrial doors. “The future cannot lie in secrecy“, Hochmüller says in the podcast “Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum.“ She herself prefers the term “open champion“: “Openness makes us more crisis-proof." By openness, the Marantec CEO means the willingness to share one's own know-how with others in order to develop entire business models from industrial products. But she is also concerned with the processes in her own company, where she wants to encourage her employees to make more decisions themselves. “I despise hierarchies when they relate to positions,“ Hochmüller says. “Decisions should be made by the person with the greatest expertise - not the person who has been with the company for 20 years.“ With this concept in mind, the East Westphalian company is developing new business models in which garages can be networked and also used as storage spaces, with digital access. Hochmüller talks about her collaboration with startups and the question of why you have to put up with chaos in the company sometimes - in the podcast - with Tobias Rappers, Managing Director of Maschinenraum and Capital editor Nils Kreimeier.
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Kerstin Hochmüller
Kerstin Hochmüller – born in 1967 – is CEO and shareholder of Marantec Company Group. Her professional focus has been on innovation and change processes in medium-sized industrial companies for many years.
After studying business administration at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld and further training in the areas of innovation and change management, she completed her MBA studies at DUW in Berlin, which is now part of Steinbeis University Berlin.
In 1999 she was co-founder and CEO of Kopfstand GbR and in the following years she was responsible for marketing strategy and innovation projects for various well-known companies and startups. In parallel, she worked as a trainer for creativity techniques and innovation management and accompanied numerous companies and organizations in their projects.
In 2013, she completed the generational change in the Marantec Group and has since been transforming the company into a network organization. In doing so, she is a pioneer and initiator of cooperative business models in the sense of a sharing economy.
About the Podcast
How can the origin and future of Mittelstand companies be courageously united? What are the challenges facing family businesses and what experiences do they gather in digital transformation? These questions are answered by “Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“, the interview podcast for German Mittelstand*. Once a month, Tobias Rappers, Managing Director of Maschinenraum, and Nils Kreimeier, Senior Editor of the business magazine Capital, talk to thought leaders and makers from the heart of the German economy and focus on the personalities and their motivation. *The podcast is in German.
For more episodes of “Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“ please click here!
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