I see myself professionally, as a ...
... real entrepreneur. That's already included in the word entrepreneurship: I do things. I love getting things moving and putting them into practice. For me entrepreneurship means taking action and not just waiting for the world to come to me. You can initiate changes that you want to see in the world.
My options for exerting influence are ...
... big, yes, absolutely. It was a great opportunity that I was able to take over our family business. This has both advantages and disadvantages: although many things are already set in stone that you can't easily change, there is also a strong basis for implementing things and initiating developments. I don't have to start from scratch and can build on what I've already achieved.
The generational change in our company took place ...
... challenging but successful. You often hear that the older generation doesn't give the younger generation enough freedom. With us, it was exactly the opposite! I was completely thrown in at the deep end because my father withdrew a lot. That was a tough time, of course, but today I am infinitely grateful to him for that. I learnt so much during those years that I would hardly have been able to learn otherwise. The generational change in management was a huge challenge because many people doubted me. However, my father clearly backed me and my decisions. We fought our way through it and this experience allowed us all to grow.
For me, challenges mean ...
... to go through downs alongside the ups and still always look positively towards the future. Basically, my gut feeling was always reliable. My father and I had a deal: if I get up on Monday morning, look in the mirror and hope it's already Friday or Saturday, then something is wrong. And that was never really the case for me.
In ten years we will be living ...
... hopefully completely different and better. I hope that technology will make our lives much easier and that many diseases will have disappeared. Basically, I am convinced that the world will get better because I am an extreme optimist.
I am particularly proud of ...
... how the companies have developed and the modern, future-orientated culture we have brought into the company. I say ‘we’ because I have not achieved this alone. We achieved our positive developments and our successes as a team.
My favourite project ...
I have two children and even more companies (laughs). There are days when you're more proud of one child and then more proud of the other. But every child is unique and has their own particular strengths and weaknesses, and it's these differences that make a family unique.