Podcast „Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“
Episode #34: Pia and Günter Albers
)
Podcast Episode 34
Pia and Günter Albers from ELA Container: "We like to act anti-cyclically"
Pia Albers heads the IT department & Günter Albers is a managing partner at ELA Container
Listen now on Spotify und Apple Podcasts.
Episode Description
There are many different ways to enter your own family business. Pia Albers from the container provider ELA has chosen the path through IT management. "It wasn't a decision you make overnight, but it feels like a very good one to me," says Pia Albers, who, together with her father Günter, was a guest on a recording of the podcast " Alles Neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum" at the Momentum conference for small and medium-sized businesses. "I don't feel like a subordinate because I have a lot of creative freedom." Father Günter is one of the managing directors of the company, which has developed a significant market with a rental model for containers: with 60,000 containers and 1,400 employees. For a long time now, the mobile spaces have been rented not only to construction sites, but also to kindergartens, schools or offices. ELA containers are also used for the security gates in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin. In the future - Pia Albers' department is also taking care of this - the units are to be better interconnected, equipped with more digital functions and made smarter. For this purpose, ELA has set up its own innovation team, costs that should pay off even in times of general crisis: "We like to act anti-cyclically," says Günter Albers. "When others cut budgets, we saddle up." The family business owners talk about possible competition, their own manufacturing and the question of how to get employees to Emsland - in the podcast - with Tobias Rappers, Managing Director of Maschinenraum and Capital editor Nils Kreimeier.
)
Pia und Günter Albers
Siblings Tim Albers, Liesel Albers-Bentlage and Günter Albers took over the management of ELA Container GmbH in the 1980s as the second generation. Günter Albers has been the managing partner (CEO) of the second generation in the Emsland family business ELA Container since 1996. Today, the qualified shipping merchant and business economist (HWF) significantly drives the company's expansion strategy. Following Tim Albers' retirement, the company has been managed by Liesel Albers-Bentlage and Günter Albers as co-leaders since 2023.
Pia Albers joined ELA Container as Head of IT in mid-October 2022 after more than four years in the IT and digital consulting industry. From her time there, she brings with her competencies ranging from app development and Robotic Process Automation to classic process and team structuring within the IT world.
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!
){kind=icon}
Contact