Transition to CEO

Hartwig, maybe taking a step back and exploring the transition to CEO, what was the biggest challenge for you, in that transitionary period?

The biggest challenge was that I couldn’t prepare for it. That sounds funny, but you have to look back a little. When we were sent to Asia, at the end of the 80s, we could prepare for that. We read a lot of books; we asked a lot of people that had lived there. We could read into things. When we shifted from Asia into India, we could, again, get a lot of material that we could access. We could talk to people that had lived in India, that were still living in India and they could tell us the things to keep in mind. You could prepare yourself.

When, ultimately, I was appointed to a member of the management board, that was really great. But again, there were some people that could tell me, this is how it goes. Other members of the management board, as well, they could say, this is how we do it and this is how we communicate with each other. The moment that, out of this management board, you are promoted to CEO, everything changes. There’s nobody that really can tell you how it is. Suddenly, you have to take lonely decisions. You don’t have consensus decisions. You are not being asked by your CEO, what do you think? You have to ask them what they think, but then you have to draw your own conclusions and you have to live with that. That’s something that you can never prepare for. You have to decide and you have to live with your decision and you have to go through with it.

The consequence of what you are doing is something entirely different to being a board member, being a member of something.

How did you deal with that?

I was, basically, being thrown into the water. I was a member of the management board and, suddenly, the majority owners came up and said, look, we want to have a change and we want you to run it. How do you feel about that? The funny thing is, when I heard that idea, for the first time, I felt very honored, but I tried to reject it. I tried to say, look, I’m really comfortable in what I’m doing. I’m a trader, by heart and I want to keep trading; CEO is such a big thing. There were lots of politics and all that.

Ultimately, though, I took it and, ultimately, what I did was, I surrounded myself with the best people I could find. I’d got a lot of people that I’d felt were not up to the task. I surrounded myself with the best people, particularly to cover those loopholes that I had in my knowledge and experience. I was relatively young, so I surrounded myself with people who knew better; professionally better. Not than the CEO, but in their respective fields. These people, they helped me a lot in getting things done, the right way. So, surround yourself with the best people you can find.