- Mathias Weigert, a Director at Kienbaum, is an expert in leadership and the future of the world of work
- Unternehmer-Schmiede combines recruitment with the structured development of skills profiles and networking between digital entrepreneurs
- By selecting the right people, the aim is that digital business activities are sustainably rooted in the company, which in turn means that the substantial investments made in digital transformation are secure over the long term
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.”
About the Companies
About etventure:
Under the guiding principle that “Only true entrepreneurs drive digital change,” digital consultant and company builder etventure identifies, develops and tests cross-industrial digital business approaches. With its four business divisions – Startup Innovation, Corporate Innovation, Teams for Innovation and Space for Innovation – etventure has mapped the entire value chain for innovative projects. Its corporate clients include Wüstenrot & Württembergische, Deutsche Bahn, Daimler Financial Services, Franz Haniel & Cie., Viessmann, the SMS group, Putzmeister, and the steel manufacturer Klöckner. etventure was founded in 2010 by Managing Directors Philipp Depiereux, Philipp Herrmann and Dr. Christian Lüdtke. The etventure team is made up of 200 digital experts and entrepreneurs, who are based at locations in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Essen, Stuttgart, London, New York, Paris and Zurich. www.etventure.com.
About Kienbaum:
Kienbaum Consultants International is an HR and management consultancy that places people at the center of its consultancy portfolio. The company specializes in impacting the people within organizations, which results in changes being implemented successfully. Kienbaum has business activities in the sectors of executive search, human capital services, communications, and consultancy in the area of organization and transformation. The interdisciplinary teams draw on decades of consultancy experience, well-founded industry expertise, and the application-oriented academic findings of Kienbaum’s research institute. Kienbaum was founded over 70 years ago in Germany. Today, it is managed as a family-owned company and a partner company. Along with its headquarters in Gummersbach, the consultancy has locations in 18 countries across four continents. Kienbaum. Inspiring. Different. www.kienbaum.de