The powerhouse that develops digital entrepreneurs for companies – Mathias Weigert becomes the new CEO of Unternehmer-Schmiede

Berlin, August 22, 2016 – Mathias Weigert (45) is the new CEO of Unternehmer- Schmiede, a joint venture between digital consultant and company builder etventure and HR and management consultancy Kienbaum. The 45-year-old will also continue as a Director at Kienbaum. He has many years of experience in the areas of HR and change management.

Unternehmer-Schmiede is a powerhouse that equips managerial staff and specialists with entrepreneurial digital skills. It focuses on recruiting, selecting, developing and supporting digital entrepreneurs and their teams on behalf of publicly listed corporations, medium-sized enterprises and family-owned companies.

Making a success of digital transformation by selecting the right employees

Companies need new kinds of employees who have the specific competencies that are required for pushing through with and executing digital transformation. It is particularly important that staff in managerial positions have the foundational qualities required. These include digital expertise and change management skills, as well as an entrepreneurial mindset, a startup mentality, and plenty of corporate experience. Other important success factors are strong communication skills and the ability to think in an innovative, agile way.

“These ‘new’ employees are not available on the labor market at the moment,” states Philipp Depiereux, Founder and Managing Director of etventure. “Speaking from our own experience – etventure has grown by more than 100 employees in the last twelve months – we know that recruitment agencies are not managing to recruit these digital entrepreneurs. It was always necessary for us to train recruits in order to develop additional essential competencies. For traditional companies, this challenge
is substantially more difficult because they generally lack the digital ecosystem and the culture that we have. All in all, this means that Unternehmer-Schmiede has huge potential.”

Unternehmer-Schmiede’s business model combines the strengths of its two founding partners – etventure’s startup DNA and its experience in the area of executing digital projects, and Kienbaum’s wide-ranging expertise in the area of HR. This means that the package of services offered by Unternehmer-Schmiede includes more than just the recruitment of suitable candidates. The candidates’ profiles are also holistically developed by way of real-life, completely individualized on-the-job training. This training focuses on the challenges presented by the respective company’s new digital business. For this purpose, Unternehmer-Schmiede has developed a program that consists of targeted mentoring, coaching and training. The program forms and develops the skills needed for digital entrepreneurship. The success of this extremely modern approach has been demonstrated by the joint venture’s initial projects and by etventure’s experience of establishing digital units for companies such as Haniel & Cie, the SMS group, and Klöckner.

Mathias Weigert is an expert in leadership and in the future of the world of work

Due to his professional experience in both fields, Mathias Weigert can connect corporate businesses with startups. On the one hand, he has been working for various consultancies for the last 15 years. His roles at Towers Watson, KPMG and Kienbaum mean that he is a recognized expert when it comes to HR and change management within organizations. Yet at the same time, within the scope of various projects and initiatives, he has been continually supporting startups and helping them to grow.

“The clear promise we are making to the market is this: The digital entrepreneurs that we recruit and train will make your digital business activities sustainable in the long term,” says Mathias Weigert. After giving this description of Unternehmer-Schmiede’s mission, he continues, saying, “We provide companies with the assurance that, by selecting the right people, the substantial investments they are making in digital transformation will be rooted in the organization in the long term.“

Mathias Weigert is taking over from the two interim managers, Philipp Depiereux and Fabian Kienbaum, Managing Director of Kienbaum Consultants International. Unternehmer-Schmiede was founded in March 2016 and since then they have been managing the company on an interim basis.

Fabian Kienbaum: “The aim of the joint venture is that companies utilize the entrepreneurial experience of the digital entrepreneurs, which then enables them to realize their visions for the digital future. With Mathias Weigert on board, Unternehmer-Schmiede has gained an expert. Throughout the various stages of his career, he has already focused on the concepts of leadership and the future of the world of work. He is the perfect person to fill this post. He will be able to pull together the expertise of etventure and Kienbaum under the umbrella of Unternehmer- Schmiede and share this expertise with the world.”