Since 2022, Michael Sen has been CEO of Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, a global healthcare group that provides products and services for leading therapies with annual revenues of more than 40 billion Euros and over 300,000 employees worldwide, and is one of the most important managers in the global healthcare industry.
Mr. Sen was appointed to the management board of Fresenius in 2021 and CEO of Fresenius Kabi AG, a healthcare company and subsidiary of Fresenius with more than 40,000 employees. Prior to that, he was a member of the management board of Siemens AG after serving as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of E.ON SE. Mr. Sen began his career at Siemens and held various positions, inculding member of the management board and CFO of the company’s Health Care division.
Mr. Sen obtained his vocational training at Siemens and subsequently studied business administration at the Technical University of Berlin.
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Die CEO Leadership Series ist die Flagship-Veranstaltungsreihe der Technischen Universität München (TUM) am Campus Heilbronn (www.tumceoseries.de). Die Veranstaltungsreihe hat die Zielsetzung, hochkarätige Führungskräfte mit jungen Studierenden zusammenzubringen. Studierende erhalten dadurch einen frühzeitigen Einblick in die interessante Praxiswelt und in den spannenden Arbeitsalltag von erfolgreichen und renommierten Führungskräften.
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00:00 Teaser
01:38 Intro
05:26 Opening response
06:40 Childhood & school
09:44 University & vocational training
12:57 (Re)joining Siemens during university
15:34 Diploma thesis at Siemens
17:13 Corporate finance
19:34 Mobile
22:38 Senior Vice President, strategy transformation
26:11 Head of investor relations
28:20 CFO Healthcare
29:51 CFO of E.ON
32:28 Energy transition
34:35 Switching companies
37:08 IPO Siemens Healthineers
40:20 Leaving Siemens
43:05 Fresenius Kabi
46:21 Becoming CEO of Fresenius
52:56 Key(s) to success
1:02:43 #futurefresenius
1:10:07 Business model
1:14:59 Portfolio analysis
1:18:49 Legacy
1:20:41 ***Q&A***
1:20:46 Maintaining networks
1:23:30 Selling IVI RMA
1:26:24 Learning from failure
1:30:19 Affordable & good healthcare
1:33:04 Megatrends
1:39:33 Delivering state-of-the-art medical products
1:40:22 Implementing technological innovations
1:41:54 OpenAI
1:45:22 Overcoming challenges
1:47:18 Career advice
1:49:17 Leadership style
1:50:26 End
Music: Good Morning by MaxKoMusic
Is one of the things probably I would uh share with you um things will work out one way or the other probably they will not work out the way you initially planned it’s all about people and it’s all about networking and it’s all about folks who you meet I wrote this thesis
Wasn’t too bad because the at that time CEO HRI vonier read it and I I I received 5,000 D mark Deutch Mark for that one then something happened which I think was kind of like a pattern in my life my professional life that I was always exposed to to situations to
Topics where there was something special about the companies this is where I then fell in love with healthcare because this was one of the industries next to energy these are were my two favorite ones where where uh you would say you know with people getting older with more
People on the planet with critical chronic disease on the rise these are all Trends which drive this uh this structure if you have a business which is really strong out of and this is this is entrepreneurial or from a leadership perspective not an easy task if you have
A business which is strong out of a position of strength how can you reinvent yourself what is it like working with you hopefully nice right uh my leadership style is is that I try to be very open and uh and Candid dear students welcome to the CEO leadership series my name is Trang Wang Lee and it is an immense pleasure for me to present to you the CEO of frenos uh fenus is one of the world’s leading Healthcare companies it uh offers products and services for critically and chronically ill patients
And employs more than 300,000 people worldwide that have generated annual revenues of more than 40 billion euros uh Mr Mich Zen or Michael Zen has been CEO of Keno since 2022 he’s without a doubt one of the most important managers in the world in the global uh healthcare industry and is
Also one of the most prolific managers in Germany across all Industries having worked uh for three of the 40 companies that is the largest and most influential Blue Chip public companies in Germany actually indirectly he’s been involved in the leadership of four of them because freno medical care which been in
The duck uh list for for over 20 years uh is part of freno so he’s been involved in leading and running in a way four out of 40 10% of the largest uh public companies in Germany um Mr Zen uh was born in caution boy which is in
Germany close to uh mention gladbach in dof he obtained his vocational training at zens and then studied business administration at the Technical University of Berlin upon graduation he joined zans uh and worked in the corporate development corporate finance and information and communication mobile areas among others quickly Rose through
The ranks and became senior vice president of strategy transformation later senior vice president of investor relations and then CFO of Sean Healthcare sector uh after a few years as CFO he joined Aon the largest Energy company of Germany as CFO and after a few years as CFO at Aon he rejoined zens
And was part of the management board at zans the forand and among others he was responsible as CEO of Zan gas and power as well as chairman of zans Health in years two years ago uh frenos was able to hire him as the CEO of frenos kabi a
Major part of the frenos group and last year he became CEO of the entire fenus group uh it is an immense pleasure for me to have uh Mr Mich or Michael Zen here uh not only because he’s highly prolific very very successful but also because I notice he seems to be a
Centerpiece of our guest list within the COO leadership series he has directly worked with Dr Roland Bush and Joe keser the current and former CEOs of seans who will be joining us as well also with Dr Leonard bbom the current CEO of Aon who was here last semester and indirectly
With Dr L helish the founder of helos Clinic because a helos clinic in helos hospital is a large part of fros and so on and so forth so he seems to be kind of the connection Point amongst the CEOs and thus please help me and warmly welcome Mr Misha Zen
Well Welcome to our campus here missen it’s a great pleasure to have you here and before we jump into your leadership activities and your company fenus uh we would like to perhaps get to know you a little bit as a person as a human being
So can you perhaps tell us a little bit about yourself maybe starting with your childhood Youth and early school years yes thank you this working yeah thank you so much um I’m already humbled I was impressed when I when I got got in here because I saw this uh tremendous lineup
And when I when I look through uh through the chairs and everything it’s it’s uh tremendous to see how diverse International and Global you all seem to be uh that is for one one thing which changed when I think back like 30 years ago when I joined University so first of
All thanks for having me thanks for having me on a Friday afternoon I’m between you and at the weekend and and everything else um I’m humbled uh and uh on this Friday afternoon I’m doing something which I really like to do uh on our way here I said I was yesterday
In Madrid I was at iie at the business school over there had a look and I really enjoy you know having a dialogue with what I would call the Next Generation leaders and uh to really also learn from you um want to know what’s on your mind and we will probably have
Ample time um during the the discussion and the dialogue um thanks for the kind introduction and going back in history it feels like I’m a 100 years old right with with all the uh the the the steps you have been alluding to yeah how did I
Grow up uh as you can see if from the looks um my parents both of them are were born in India uh so they came to Germany at some point in time I was born in Germany uh in North Rin Walia as you
Said but I grew up in um let’s say in a world where when I reflect there were let let’s say three elements which kind of like shaped me and I I’m going to get a little bit also as to how from today’s perspective I perceived the world when I was growing
Up because as we speak um I believe the world is changing tremendously and we are currently at the brink of really talking about kind of like a new order um globally so I I grew up actually in in the northern part of Bavaria in Franconia noad by Kook this
Was right at the border at that time there was still uh East and West Germany and uh right at the border the Border was still there I could see the Turing AAL from from the The Garden of my parents very small City 15,000 inhabitants um and I’m now 55 years old
So if you go back 50 years the world was different uh it was not globalized my parents coming from India uh probably when they went to the supermarket um pepper was an exotic spice so the way I grew up is that I wanted to be like
Everybody else around me so there was no Indian food for example for me and my parents I didn’t get to know that I don’t speak the Indian language uh we spoke German at home uh they taught me how to speak English though and you know
My my mom learned how to make the famous potato dumplings the cluer because this is what I wanted to eat uh on the weekend it was a very cozy and comforting way to to grow up uh very very close friends uh in in a in a small City so a lot of
Friendship uh belonging trusting each other and that was great now as I said uh they came from India so in a way they did want to show me the big world my father was an engineer um he then that’s why I grew up there uh went to seamons
At that time um seamons had a huge Factory on the telecommunication side producing telecommunication cables and also the development of telecommunication cables uh um what what we have today glass fiber this was more or less invented there and he was at the end the head of development right after
That uh I went to Berlin I also studied like you at the Technical University in Berlin I had a fun time because when I went there um The Wall came down so I experienced the wall coming down in Berlin and I experienced how it is
Living in a city where on the other side in the former days it was East Germany and now the Wall came down and how two cities basically merged together this is a little bit of a glimpse of my childhood all right uh if we take it so very interesting very fascinating thank
You for your openness um if we take a look a step back a little bit um you decided to um study business administration was there a reason for that in particular I mean where you always somewhat interested in business and econom or was it just pragmatic yeah actually this was is one
Of the things probably I would share with you um things will work out one way or the other probably they will not work out the way you initially planned uh I did not always want to study business management economics on the contrary during my gymnasium I was more on the
Scientific site and my parents or from My Father’s Side this was more a medical doctor family he was the only one who did not become a medical doctor he became an engineer and so when I was very little uh and people asked me so
What do you want to be when you grow up automatically say I’m want to be an MD This Is How They tried to convince me so when I was 15 16 17 I said the last thing I’m going to be is an MD because
My parents told me to be an MD uh and then I really honestly didn’t really know what to do and at that time at the tech Technical University in Berlin they offered something like a vit’s engineer so it was science and and management and business what you have today uh
Something together there were the first kind of faculties around Germany also uh technal University munin damad kwood this is where this whole thing emerged and since my father was at seens they at that time had this apprenticeship the vocational training called stous where you were exposed to the more business uh
Administration side and he said if you don’t have a clue of that one why don’t you do this first and this is how I got hooked up and and and the second reason why I went to seens is uh at that time I grew up in a very small City uh where um
Primarily there are small and medium-sized Enterprises a lot of familyowned businesses but there was this one big company in the old days he had 3,000 employees and whenever I traveled the world with with my family when my father used to you know take out his business card uh especially when we
Traveled abroad and said he works for semens I saw the eyes of people going up like this and then I said okay I also want to work there this is how I got there all right uh so you joined seamons after graduating uh from uh from the Technical University of Berlin and what
Were your first steps at seens what were you doing also there again when I I did the vocational training or the house building and um when I was finished with the house building I said never again I don’t want to work there because I worked at at at more on the factory
Side in those days with the benefit of hindsight it was it was great it was interesting I was in in uh power cables and gas turbin and everything but uh you know when you do the training you you’re at the end of the food chain uh so I
Said I’m not going to return there I’m going to go to university and I’m going to do my thing I also spend time in the US dur during my studies uh actually with seens because the one thing I I also wanted to work while I was studying
Uh also you know helped me live the life I was living as a student uh uh uh so I had a part-time job at seens and what then happened is and this is one of the things I would try to share with you it’s all about people and it’s all about
Networking and it’s all about folks who you meet and uh when I said never again then I was working part-time I had managers leaders who saw something in me who believed in me so I was a working student and at that time in the factory where I was working in the in the
Controlling department they had one of the first in those days was early ’90s first restructuring programs together with McKenzie uh and it was uh the restructuring of gas turbin this was when things like benchmarking were man uh mentioned for the first time so for example at that time we looked at
General Electric who were producing 30 40 50 gas turbin a year whilst semens in Berlin at that time was producing two three four gas turbines so you had a different cost position and and why is this and you went into benchmarking and into levers and those leaders already
Gave me the opportunity to also work with those teams so this is how how I I I you know knitted my network then I wanted to go to the US I went to seens in the US um there again a leader saw a lot of potential and and gave me great
Tasks so in my last uh years of university for the last roughly 2 years I was commuting back and forth every 4 months between New York and Berlin and I chose let’s say a professor where I wrote my thesis who at that time had a great reputation at the Technical
University in Berlin and concurrently in gon deed Gahan very very conservative um you know the whole business administration betri sft and everything actually emerged only after World War II before that there was no uh nothing which was similar studying like this and uh and he was great and he said you’re
Going to be my research assistant and you’re going to do your PhD and yada yada y I said no I’m not I want to work and so on so forth and then he said no look since you have been with seens I will call up the chief
Strategy officer of seens and will tell him that you should write the thes with him on a subject with seens and this is what I did um I wrote this thesis wasn’t too bad because the at that time CEO HRI vonier read it and I I
I received 5,000 de Mark Deutch Mark for that one that was good H and concurrently working in New York folks said I don’t care what your grades are once you’re finished you’re going to start working at vdpa plat at seens and this is how it all started all right all
Right right very very uh exciting story uh to to get in touch with the SE of seans that early already so when you um after finishing a thesis when you joined zens uh were you also part of the strategy kind of corporate Development Area I was very lucky because I started
With the thesis at the uh corporate Development Department H but the corporate finance department with those guys I was working in New York they equally wanted to be wanted me to be part of their team so they were almost f one another so I started there then
Moved over there and there again I had a great manager he was roughly my age I was you know late 20s uh so we we we clicked immediately and then then something happened which I think was kind of like a pattern in my life my professional
Life that I was always exposed to to situations to topics where there was something special special about the company so my first job was actually at that time the introduction of the Euro uh and uh this was a major major undertaking because uh in Inc Compass
What what is going to happen on the political side what is going to happen uh on the finance side uh in terms of financial markets what is going to happen on accounting uh what is going to happen to business strategy there was no blueprint there were bazillion of
Consultants running around how to deal with the introduction of the Euro but they had no clue because it has not been done before Simons was one of the Front Runners and I was part of that core team and that was one of the starting points uh and again in that starting department
Where uh where I had my first job the initial agreement was that I’m going to stay there for two years Max three years then I’m going to go to New York um I stayed there 5 and a half years because one thing came and led to the other all
Right what happened after 5 and 1/2 years then they said now you have been at corporate headquarters you need to be operational and and then uh you know this was 2001 so um after 200000 at that time you might have heard of the.com bubble uh so many many telecommunication companies had magnificent
Valuations uh and then the whole thing bursted and that had major structural ramifications on the businesses so also on the telecommunication business of seens uh at that time that famous Joe kaser became CEO of Seaman mobile and he took me with him so I had my first operational tasks there we restructured
The business we went into what you would call classically uh industry Dynamics uh why did it burst what happened there and I and he will tell the same anecdote I can tell you one anecdote at that time both of us were not the top board members a company knocked at the
Door of seen said do you want to buy us or do you want to make a joint venture with us and those guys in charge at that time said who are these guys you know let go we don’t talk to them this company was called
Cisco and uh we did let go and then they came with a structural technological shift which is IP IP technology at that time uh uh the telephone technology you know my father was a telecommunication engineer was on ewsd technology switching technology which was you know Blown Away by IP uh all based on
Software and Cisco was the big company one of the great things I’m going to tell you this anecdote when I was at the telecommunication business and we restructured China was the big Market at that time UMTS if you remember remember this was 3G now we’re talking about 5G
This was the introduction of 3G uh a major major step and there was a standard in in Europe a White Band CDMA uh then there was a standard in uh in in the US and China was still in the making and they wanted to Tender 3G uh but they wanted to Define their
Own standard TDS CDMA and uh it was pushed out one year after the other it was pushed as long as I was there I was pushed up three and a half years and we join Venture at that time with a company I was part of that joint venture team for technology
Transfer this was a small joint venture small company nobody knew this company was called Huawei okay so so can you uh tell us a little bit about your story with Huawei then yeah then they they we did the technology transfer China tender 3G they created their own standard and when I
Left Sean mobile to go into my next step I said now gentlemen it’s over at that time it was mostly gentlemen uh it’s over because one of the customers vone in the Czech Republic was taking Huawei as their vendor of choice so I said you know what
This means this means they are in Europe this means they are with a global account which is vone and which means they’re there okay all right so and how how long have you been working in that area so to speak and roughly roughly four and a half years four and a half
Years yes and then you became SVP um yes then again something happened which is not in the textbook which no HR people would tell you to do because you know I did my operational topics um but still in in in in Germany so usually according to textbook according to HR procedures
They would have said now you need to go abroad into a regional company because Z is a global company uh but uh it didn’t happen again coincidence people networking at that time a gentleman called Claus Kleinfeld became CEO of seens and uh his chief strategy officer
Was Joe ker and he again took me with him and uh and I told Claus at that time look according to textbook according to hi I should go BR somewhere and he said yeah you should you could but I’m telling you I’m being the new CEO we going to change this company
Tremendously you want to be part of that one yes or no this was in 2005 and I said yes and so I joined this group this is where I became and this this whole thing strategy transformation was newly created they didn’t have a strategy transformation Department because we at
That time already thought about not only the what to do on strategy I.E mainly portfolio but also the how how do we implement it what do we need to change coherently and at that time we created I think we were the first company at that time in in at least in Germany really
Talking about the mega Trends we we we even coined that phrase what it means that we said Mega Trends in specific Industries are Trends which are structurally which you know don’t go in Cycles but which have structural secular growth drivers and we had a lot of uh academic folks also around us uh
Advising us and we we at that time on a very academic level said actually there’s only one or two Mega Trends which is more people on the planet and people getting older and everything else can be derived out of that one driving the structural shifts on specific
Industries this is where I then fell in love with healthcare because this was one of the Industries next to energy these are were my two favorite ones where where uh you would say you know with people getting older with more people on the planet with critical and
Chronic disease on the rise these are all Trends which drive this uh this structure but also on energy when we said the the need for energy energy consumption is going to grow and at that time I can tell you we thought we have it we have the blueprint we were flat up
Out wrong flat flat out wrong with a couple of years at that time we said there’s going to be an energy supercycle based on gas and uh therefore at that time the company was ramping up the production capacities on producing gas turbines when I was uh the designate uh CEO of
Seens energy we said the market now has over capacity on gas because now we with Renewables and everything which is happening kind now so in a way yes there was a super cycle in the other way we were wrong this happens all right and you were uh SVP um for strategy
Transformation for two years or so two and a half years and then uh then then there was this so-called first of all this was another what I said situation or or disruption when Claus Kleinfeld took over so this was very interesting after Euro telecommunication Now new CEO new strategy new transformation
Seens at that time had a compliance crisis was one of the largest compliance crisis in in corporate Germany so also learned a lot there K clous had to leave or left didn’t have to leave he left uh on on his own and a new CEO came in the
First outside CEO for Sean completely different uh different ball game and um he wanted me to become the head of investor relations joea became CEO CFO so this was also a nice co Co incidents uh and then I was the head of investor relations and on his first week Peter
Lusher was the CEO of seamons in his first week he did a deal at that time was before the financial crisis so the markets were all up hedge funds were all you know overconfident a lot of activists around and uh we wanted to sell one business which was the automotive business of
Semen for a lot of money so people saw a lot of um share buyback dividends and so on so forth and the new CEO takes that money and buys a healthc care company for triple the trading multiple of semens and on his first two weeks the share price collapsed by
15% uh so this was my first day as investor relation H and then I did this for one and a half years only one and a half years but very very intense because we needed to regain the trust for the company but also to gain the trust for
The new CEO and uh needed to explain to the market why this is still a smart move and after one and a half years um there was again change at uh at Healthcare at that time the sector was called Healthcare and uh then the company said uh since Michael is so
Connected to Capital markets and to strategy let him be the CFO of healthcare and this is what I did and even today I would say I was there for roughly eight years this was probably one of my best teners because I was very I was at that time I felt I was still
Very young they gave me a lot of again freedom to to operate I was by title the CFO but the CEO at that time who uh I adore but he was more on the academic side he was a professor uh for for more medical research so you know really how
To lead a company maybe restructure transform a company he gave me a lot of freedom and I was there for eight years you were you were not at the top rank you were one beneath the group or the corporate board that’s also good because you’re not always on the radar also on
On public side and it was a great time eight and a half years there was um you can read it in the newspaper we introduced something like a so-called agenda 2013 with this one again we restructured the whole healthc care sector we we sold a couple of assets and
Concurrently invested in a couple of assets and um then I left then I went to Eon you you uh left for Eon how did that happen Mr Zen I mean did they was there a head hunter calling you up was it the CEO ofon calling you up or again yeah he
Did call me up but again a lot of things happened but not as I initially planned it and this is my my big tip for you life is not a straight line it’s not a straight line will never also probably on the private basis but on the professional basis it’s not a straight
Line as long as the direction is the right one but the direction is also a function of what you personally want then you will be fine and uh what happened I can share this with you because you can even read it publicly in 2013 Joe caser became CEO of seens and
In two newspapers in German hles blot and in the financial times there was and Michael S is going to be the new CFO of seens it didn’t happen it didn’t happen someone else became the CFO of seens and they had good reasons and argument why
This is the case and I said okay fine and then they said something else will come up and then there was some Shuffle that academic Professor he he at at Healthcare he left and I did not become the responsible board member for healthcare or the CEO of healthcare
Depending on what what you want and again as you said networking um not a head hunter very powerful people in corporate Germany talked to the CEO of eon at that time Eon said they want to split themselves into two companies and he said look there’s a smart guy uh and
Told the COO you should meet him so I met the CEO of eon and he said you want to join and and the chairman obviously of eon at that time vanav vening uh and he said you want to join and I said yeah I’m I want to join and that was a
Fascinating Journey because that was very important for for me as a personality because I left seens as I told you I was second generation seens um I know the family quite well and everything this was my world this is so big this company so Global you can live
Three professional lives in there but it was very important and and starting somewhere new and Leo Leo bbom uh he was a colleague at that time um getting to know new folks and uh uh and and and maybe same age and maybe even some competition and and also being exposed
To a different kind of industry where I knew the industry as a vendor uh and Eon was fascinating because a couple of years before Eon was the number one in the Ducks it has had more than 100 and 100 billion market cap but then came the en vend and that whole thing
Collapsed so I became the CFO my predecessor who was Marcus shank who then was at Deutsche Bank and investment banker he was called in as a CFO because Eon had 60 billion of liquidity on their balance sheet and didn’t know where to invest it when I came there was
Nothing there was nothing a stressed balance sheet we wanted to split the company in what you know today unipa which was in the newspaper last year when uh with the terrible war in the Ukraine and and and and and the gas uh because unipa was was running all the
Gas pipelines we were also investing in northstream by the way by the way I was I was against North stream too but not of political reasons because at that time I was the CFO and I said we have no money uh uh but we we did it at the end
Of the day so we split it we we built uniper we built Eon and I was this was fascinating at that time exposed highly with German politicians at that time we struck the the deal on nuclear waste for the final storage which still has no
Real solution so um we we gave if you so wish all the liabilities in our balance sheet to the German government uh and had to give money on top to them H and and that deal was a very complicated one not only in financial terms not only in
Contractual terms but this was how to deal with politicians how to deal with a societal consensus because only if the German Society accepts this deal uh it would go through so these were the two years almost two years at the okay how was and you mentioned uh kind of the
Different uh ways of the business were run uhon versus seens how was it as a leader from a leadership perspective I mean transitioning from a company that you knew very very well to one where maybe people were not that familiar with you and vice versa I mean was it
Difficult was it very smooth uh were there particular challenge no it is it it has its challenges because you know especially if you there are folks who do it differently you know they have every three or five years you change the company especially in the Anglo-Saxon
World and and then you get used to you get in a way more agile than when you stay all your life at seens BASF or what have you so it has its challenges because at seens I knew where to call whom to call uh um and and how the whole
Thing works at CM at Eon I did not have that so at this moment I learned two things that I had to rely on my own personal leadership instincts so uh since I already were was an executive for a couple of years I created some sort of a gut feeling some
Sort of an instinct uh because if you are then confronted with decision making which an executive does all day right uh you can look at facts you can look at numbers you can ask for another analysis and another assessment but what is your leadership Instinct and Simmons was
Perfect because I’ve seen a lot and the second thing is was my external network to be a little independent from the company you’re in so may it be Bankers may it be Consultants may it be other Executives may it be mentors where you can use and utilize that Network in
Order for me to you know get to better decision making and when I get to better decision- making then it’s about acceptance and everything and concurrently how to behave in a new and different context if you’re the new guy you know don’t open up your mouth too
Too big and so on so forth but also do not go into the corner be too too shy and shy away from conflict so how to deal with this reading personalities at that time the CEO of of eon he was The Godfather we were all the Leo and all
Others we were were the younger ones and he was the big guy so how to deal with that one how to deal with your colleagues who may or may not be competitors and and that was a an experience I wouldn’t want to miss okay what were the things the projects that
You were in a way most proud of or the biggest projects that you were doing as a member of the management board at seens obviously the the IPO of of seens health and years um uh first of all then became Sean healthineers and uh uh they as I said they didn’t really know
What to do so I went into the board and the supervisory board and said if you have a business which is really strong out of and this is this is entrepreneurial or from a leadership perspective not an easy task if you have a business which is strong out of a
Position of strength how can you reinvent yourself at Eon it was different at Eon after the en vender we were against the wall it was tough it was hard but from a direction point of view maybe I wouldn’t say easy but pretty clear because you want to get away from
The wall right so you need to take that direction on the healthy thing it was they were very successful so how do you reinvent yourself out of a position of strength and at that time as you said I became chairman and I said I have uh two
P and then they gave me the Third P I said I am paranoid I’m embedded paranoid and then the CEO and the board said what what does it mean I said you run your business operationally I will always come with what disrupts your business what changes your business model what
Erodes your business model that is the paranoia and at that time we already talked about uh artificial intelligence for example we talked about uh minimal invas invasive surgery image guided surgery uh so going from for Imaging equipment going which is mostly used in Diagnostics going more into therapy
Talking about Robotics and everything so these are all disruptions um and then I said that uh we need to create a currency and I came up with the idea of the IPO and the IPO was also something which was not in the textbook no Banker nothing has ever done
That because uh usually you would do an initial placement minimum 25% we at that time ipoed 15% uh but the quantum was large it was roughly 5 billion and then the world suddenly gets very small if you have to place 5 billion in the market find investors because big F funds will will
Put in a ticket of really really big funds 300 400 million smaller funds much smaller and then you need to add it up to 5 billion was one of the most successful IPOs um I ipoed the company was worth 28 billion I left the company was worth 40
Billion and with that money they did the biggest acquisition in I think the corporate history with 16 billion uh buying Varian uh on uh on radiation therapy that I was very proud of and after a few years you were hired by frenos so was that something that you
Had a plan for in the long run or was that again something that uh you know happened out of the blue in a way it did again happen out of the blue This was um you know when I told you this happens once it’s you and happens twice shame on
Them also here I told you quite openly that they said maybe you can run for the big job um so I was running with Roland uh at least we were the two internal candidates and then um we decided to split Cen we decided to create Cen
Energy which was in Parts even my idea right uh it was a little bit the Eon uniper blueprint but in this case uh it took different turns and um um only a couple of months before it went to Market it was a spin-off not an IPO it’s a little bit different transaction uh
But has a lot of similarities a couple of months before I then left seens on very amicable terms uh but uh you could read that in the newspaper some people said Big Splash big bang big what have you because they said you know Roland is going to run the industrial piece you’re
Going to run the energy piece I was even prepared for running the energy piece I was traveling with German politicians at that time to to China to usbekistan to the Middle East because on the energy side your customer base is uh quite often state-owned utilities or the state
Is the big regulator uh so everything was working was prepared but I wanted to have specific things for the business where people had a different opinion and then I had to take a decision uh it was a disruption um I’m happy that again I have a lot of good friends uh a network
Friends and a great family so um in an amicable way I took the decision to leave um seens uh at that time covid broke uh in 2020 and I didn’t know what’s going to come next so uh for almost a year I was even in Garden Leaf so that was A disruption
Which um I think not many people have uh due to co um I had a lot of zooms and teams by the way also had it’s it’s it’s again different turns and positive sides I met people I never met before I zoomed with people from the valley and
Yad because I was contemplating what what is the next step um and fenus was also a coincidence also no head hunter nothing coincidence again people because they first of all asked me to join their supervisory board they wanted to have a healthcare expert so I joined their
Supervisory board and uh then they the supervisory board I was part of the supervisory board made a change on Zenus kabi which is one of the segments uh needed a new CEO and then they asked me and I said the same thing why should I
Do it and they said oh you will have fun and uh uh and the rest uh uh we’ll see so nobody promised me anything you could say in a way did I go a step back or was it a lateral move but I wanted to make
This move because I decided for myself I wanted to still be operational I told you about purpose frenos Healthcare even when I was in the supervisory board I was getting this big eyes about the topics we were discussing at Helios at kab I came from a medical
Technology site at kab it was more on Pharma biosimilar biopharmaceuticals infusion therapy celling gene therapy Helios um you know really applying care and I said I want to join that team moved with my family from Munich to Frankfurt which uh and and in a way was different than with Ion
At that time started new and when I joined fenus kabi especially as the CEO I had no baggage so I was not Michael sen who 10 years ago did this or 10 years ago or usually are you a finance guy or are you an engineer or what are
You this is what you talk all day at seamons but uh at at kab nobody knew me and I could start from scratch and that was in a way Al those one and a half years I only did kabi was a lot of fun um 8 billion business 40,000 people
Factories all over the world and I joined during the pandemic and kab does life-saving medicines which you need in the ICU which you needed uh during the pandemic proper full this the stuff Michael Jackson took too too much of uh and fall is is an anesthesia uh and um we are world number
One producer on proper fall and on other life saving saving medicines you need in the ICU and our factories were working our Frontline workers were working the supply chain was working and the supply chain isn’t that easy you need Cold Supply Chain there uh also we did the
Dent for for the vaccine in the US for fizer uh in a way it showed me how that private sector kept everything running and that was was a good feeling okay and somehow you you’ve been getting closer and closer to your family’s MD kind of uh
You know wish for you right I mean in a way even though you were in business it’s always somehow you know close to that that medical profession and getting even closer and closer uh after after a while you became CEO of frenos the entire group uh can you maybe walk us
Through you know how that came about and what your job is nowadays yeah fenus is um is really a great company and um before we ipoed Sean Health in years at that time we looked at what are the peers in the European market on the healthcare side and you know uh there
The Dutch guys meanwhile the CEO is also a friend of mine Phillips was there but there was only fia’s Medical Care and fras H now nowadays there are obviously more companies but we’ve always looked at it and I’ve envied it when my pre- predecessor was there Olf Mark Schneider
Who’s now running nestler and this was like an m&a machine it was growing bigger and bigger and it was a behemoth in in in healthcare uh but when I joined um I realized and many other people realized that for 6 years roughly six years the share price only took one turn
It went down and uh if it happens six years it cannot be only a bad quarter it cannot also not be only Corona uh so there must be something fundamental the second thing where fenus is really special and this is where I learned a lot still learning a lot if
You look at the shareholder base of fenus fenus is a public company so I have investors all over the world on Monday I’m going to go to Road Show into the US I’m I’m going to be in Chicago Boston New York and then I’m going to fly back so International shareholder
Bas all over the planet but we also have a foundation we have a foundation which has uh a meaningful share and we have a governance architecture construction which is unique only to Germany and three Ducks companies have that MC in damad hle in dorf and fenus in bomberg
It’s this kga structure it’s called General partner where you know as in Brackets the key shareholder you in essence call the shots uh and uh and the foundation it’s great to still have people in the foundation who still have had direct link to the founder fenus traces back to a pharmacy shop in
Frankfurt which is a couple of hundred years back Edward fenus we we we celebrated this last week but it really was founded after World War II by a woman by eluna she was adopted by by the fenus company uh family and uh she inherited that Pharmacy which grew bigger and bigger
Regionally bigger if you so wish and was completely destroyed during World War II and that woman uh with the help of other people surrounding her was building up a company and that company then was you know 30 years 40 years back which is only recent history maybe a mediumsized
Company couple of billion big and there were other folks who created this global company with a 40 billion and a 360,000 employees and in the foundation there’s one gentleman for example he’s 95 years old he’s he’s very very much still here and sharp and and I can have fantastic
Conversations with him and he knew eluna who created the company and that anchor shareholder who has a foundation for it’s by the way one of the largest foundations in Germany not everybody knows that and and supports a lot of medical projects and and and really World reputational medical projects research scientific
Research so they need the dividend for Zenus space and and that kind of like two worlds that you have on the one hand the international Capital markets which I think know quite well and an anchor shareholder who may have a different perspective on things and if you have
Somebody who’s 95 years old he might have different time constants he says you know relax it’ll get better or we will get it done but also and that therefore maybe in this from the outside world decision making on there and sometimes people perceive slow or Anglo-Saxon investors say it’s never
Going to change you know look at T K in Germany or something like that but they made that change they had that courage whilst in the past they have always been emphasizing stability so that’s why I said different time concent what is change really and but they felt the company needed a new
Leadership needed a clear Direction and they were brave enough to make me CEO uh almost a year ago and uh we’ll debate that in a minute and um I’m there now 13 months and that very conservative Foundation guess what in the course of 12 months we exchanged the entire management
Board all management board members are new yeah and it was by the way not done in a higher and fire I’m exaggerating now a little bit deliberately not in a US Anglo-Saxon higher and fire way we one after the other we debate it fit not fit reasons no reasons completely new
Management team this I perceive as a lot of trust and this is the how the journey started on what we now today call Future fenus all right before we jump into kind of the future um goals and aims of fenus um maybe two questions first of all can
You maybe let us know what a typical day as a CEO looks like you know it’s a bit personal but when would do you personally get up how long do you work and so on do you have free weekends and the second one is even though I have the
Feeling you’re very humble and down to earth but obviously needless to say you’re extremely successful having been you know in the Fon management Boards of some of the largest companies in Germany what were your success factors maybe lessons learned that you can give our young people here you know what made you
Successful yeah I mean what I tried to already share with you is um work on people work on networks work on relationships at the end of the day it’s all about relationship even if you run your own company um you need customers you need investors you may interact with
A regulator and you know I’ve also now become more mature and older when I was uh younger uh maybe a little bit older than you um sometimes people say sometimes you burn hot right I I wanted to get it done and and I said the facts are clear this is the
Way come on let’s go and um you know you learn that uh you know you need to take people along how does decision making work in large companies they can be as large as they can get can get can have 100,000 200,000 500,000 people at the end of the day only a few
People make the decisions for the top top guys and even if you’re in the ranks those guys with whom you interact directly your boss or the next level or the next level these are the ones where you have visibility and they have hopefully visibility they need to know you they
Need to know what you’re capable of obviously this is more on the content side uh not only on the academic side but what kind of person are you are you obnoxious or are you taking people along are you respecting the other people’s perspective uh and it is depending uh
We’re also not talking about a happy camper culture sometimes there are situations where you not only need Clarity but you need to drive things with a little more force and sometimes not and this is what you need to learn uh and and you will learn and then work
With people along with people and uh if they make decision help them make the right decision if you feel this is right for you the second thing is you to be at ease with yourself um the the the disruptions especially the last one no matter if I what happens
Tomorrow if I’m not the CEO of Venus I’ll still be Michael sen and that is important I’ll still be Michael sen I will have my friends I will have my family my my wife our son and and and and many more uh friends and um they are
Friends because we are who we are and not uh what our profession is and that is important and that was a that was a big thing when when I left seamons for the second time in the first two weeks my telephone did not stop ringing and at first I was like
Man he is calling or she is calling really big names from International companies but also ducks and so so I said man this is this is amazing they’re really interested in how am I doing and so on so forth forget it they were not interested in how I was doing they were
They were nosy they were curious they were like you know what is happening this is like tabloid what was there big fight and did did you not get along with Roland or with Joe or what what happened there so this is this is also the second
Thing is this is this is this is fun and you know that rationally rationally it’s all clear but getting through the experience when I was a board member in irrespective which company you also work with a lot of Consultants be it magment Consultants or head hunters
Or or or bankers and as long as you are there and you have the the wallet you are the greatest for them and they you know they are all over you and then you see how many people still call you h i I know that Jamie Diamond gave
An interview the other day that uh when I think it was when he was in his late 20s he was fired from a job and he said the telephone didn’t ring yeah so what what you then see is um who is really a friend or who really cares about you and
I talked to one German politician I will not tell his name you can probably triangulate the name he was a very young politician uh he was the defense minister once and I I during that time I talked to him and I said I’m going through this experience but you must have had
A much worse experience uh in those days he said no no no Michael I’m going to tell you you are getting the privilege now to see who is behaving in which Manner and this is how I see it because the positive examples are there were a
Few folks who cared a few folks who are older than me uh more mature ex CEOs and chairman and who said how are you doing and for example it was Co and I stopped at Simmons went into the garden Leaf he said Michael you know
What you need to do you need to behave like an athlete because you know I had a complete staff I received 250 emails a day and and everything was organized everybody organized everything for me and the next day was on my own I Reed three emails instead of 250 you I I
Receive three emails and then like an athlete you need to slow down because if you’re full with energy the energy you know physics it’s 100% it needs to go somewhere and and then you can do Sports and and other things the day how does it
Look like as as a CEO it’s a lot of communication a lot of of also hopefully listening and learning because at the end of the day it is decision making you are making decisions and by the way nobody can behave like an omnipotent CEO the decisions here according to
Corporate German law need to be taken by the management board so you need to prepare decision making if the board meeting happens it’s actually already done uh the material is there so how do you get to a decision if you want to instill change even in in on
On the management board level with the supervisory board with my foundation on future fenus I introduced fundamental change fundamental change and I needed months to take the foundation along really intense discussion by by the way they also told me they had the feeling that they were part of that journey and that’s
Something different than confronting somebody and say Here’s 5 kilos of PowerPoint read it and then we’re going to take a decision the second thing is stakeholder you know um I’m I’m I’m always on stage in a way that’s why I love this one because this one for me is
More relaxing but I’m always on stage if I walk through the aisles if I go to the Cen or what have you and out of whatever reasons I don’t smile you know somebody says hello and I don’t see him or her and I don’t say hello and I really don’t
Mean it then why did he not say hello what what what’s wrong what kind of a-hole is this right and and so on so forth so you’re always on stage stakeholders I need to you know codetermination unions are as important as investors as the biggest resource we
Have our own people how do I motivate them how do we tell them what we’re going to do and this is this is actually the day of a CEO and you’re actually always on uh there’s 247 and therefore one should try to have space not to have
24/7 because at least I don’t know any person who can stand that uh so you need your time where you relax you need and relaxation can be different things sleeping on the sofa or chatting with my family or having a walk do some sports do something for your mind for your body
For your soul all three of them and um I still have room for improvement on that one I can work out a little more uh maybe can eat healthier food um especially when I’m traveling and my wife is not with me and and not observing what I’m eating
Uh but this is this is and and and still have friends you need you need a room where I can talk to and you know I may not be the CEO of whatever but Michael S and I ask people what do you think about that or I ask them a totally different
Story a different topic as to I don’t know what how would you choose the curtain in the in the in the living room all right um I’m sure there are some questions on on those topics as well that is you know live as a CEO so uh
Let’s maybe move on to um future fos so what we teach our students is as a company it’s uh can be quite beneficial to have a you know vision mission and kind of goal post clear goal post and you certain establish one with future frenos so can you maybe elaborate a
Little bit on that what that means yes I can only um emphasize what you say when when I was um more in the academic arena also studying the stuff I said well vision mission and da da and there was one one uh um executive at that time who
Said yeah when if you have a vision you should go to the physician uh and uh but but whether you call it Vision or Mission or what have you what I really believe especially in today’s world that institutions and it in my view the same holds true for governments
Or even institutions like the EU you need a narrative you need a narrative a narrative which Sparks something especially when you’re convinced that you have a great base and you have potential if you’re not convinced of that then you can let go so I took over I mean I I had the
Choice do I take over frus and because they asked me uh do you want to take it over and what is it you would do or how do you think about it and I said what is it I can I will do I I can’t tell you
Yet I need to go through a process but I am convinced that we have a lot of potential we’re in the healthcare space Healthcare Mega trend is growing is something people need is in my view with the pandemic we have seen is system relevant healthc care is in our moral
Compass which is the stgs health care is a matter if we do it on a global scale we can talk about Health Equity do people have access to healthcare do people have access to afford medicine everywhere not only in in developed countries so it’s it’s it’s
A great topic with a lot of potential so it is about how can we tap into that potential so we need to have some positive elements and whether we want to call it Mission or other things and and the purpose is very clear and I mean we I don’t need to do a
Workshop on purpose like many other companies do let’s do a workshop on purpose this is Healthcare we do good things for people we can only do a workshop how do we craft it and and I crafted it saying advancing patient care uh and and I really mean all three words
Because everything is around the patient and I’ll come through the strategy in a minute but uh everything is around the patient and and the care is really the human care which is different to the companies I’ve worked before when we are at Helios or Kiron salute in Spain Kiron
Salute is the biggest Hospital chain in Spain it’s by the way one of the if not the most modern hospital chain in Europe we care we deliver care there’s the human to human element and the advancing should be that we want to talk about Innovative things about the Next
Generation so advancing patient care is our purpose so we need a narrative on the future fenus we had a narrative we we we are crafting a narrative I once said that when I was at still at seens and at uh preparing for the energy I was
Giving a keynote with one other CEO in front of the Eon economic Ministers of the EU in Finland and I said EU needs a narrative needs a positive narrative why would want to people want to join you know this is uh this is what I’m meant to say before when I grew
Up this was a great I grew up in in the greatest decades because borders were Vanishing the world was getting smaller globalization no borders anymore one currency in Europe the European Union the biggest peace project after World War II I I spend a lot of time in in in in
China in the US traveling the world when I was 18 you know people had something I don’t know whether you still know that an inter Rail ticket they bought ticket uh for at that time it was I think 80 Deutch marks and you could travel all
Over Europe because you know uh and and when I traveled first when I got went skiing to Austria you need to to show your passport and yada y this everything was gone and now the the world is changing and therefore you need a narrative this vision mission and our
Purpose is is advancing care and our narrative is with the businesses we have we want to build on three leading therapy platforms because if we want to be impactful on a patient’s Journey patient Journey hopefully we will have more prevention going forward but there’s something called the Continuum
Of Care which is prevention diagnosis treatment and then postacute uh which comes after the therapy and 70 to 80% of the patient journey is still in the therapy space and we don’t talk about sneezing cuffing and stuff we’re talking about serious disease patterns talking about cardiovascular disease we talking about
Oncology uh uh neuro disease neurod degenerative diseases and so on so forth so during that patient Journey where are we the most impactful and we are the most impactful on three platforms which uh we call the farmer the the specialized farmer platform because what we do with fenus cabi is specialized
Medication for critically and chronically ill patients uh in icus in trauma in oncology in anesthesia uh so specialty Pharma targeted medical technology on infusion therapy on cell and gene therapy so it’s about medical devices and technology and then full service provider like we have on Helios and uh on Kiron salute when
You see the oncology expertise for example we have oncology I.E cancer right um how you can apply the latest stuff on scientific program progress which obviously has regulatory approval because on on cancer you need many disciplines working together this is really mind-blowing and these are our three platforms so we have the purpose
We have the vision and that is the strategy and the strategy in essence is nothing else than where to compete and how to compete or where to compete and how to win at the end it is about setting priorities mhm all right uh speaking of priorities
Um it seems to me a little bit of an almost classical of course it’s not always classical but um diversification strategy type of thing where um you’re focusing now especially on frenos kabi and frus Helios whereas you’re managing the other you know vamed and uh and FMC
As as more like portfolio Investments so and and we’ve learned all the advantages diversification as well as the risk you know economies of scope and so on and so forth so um can you maybe tell us a little bit of your approach there um second ly change often times U makes
People a bit wary so to speak so how would you deal with that I mean I know you have very high engagement Employee Engagement uh indices are there other ways you trying to gge that trying to help people you look at venas this is probably the most comprehensive and the most thorough
Change in my up until now professional career you know this were really great points like I said healthy years out of a position of strength at Eon it was about surviving and we did it and uh at here when I say for six years the share
Price has taken one turn then the share price is only a reflection of what is happening inside so when I started I did um Kick Kickstart an organizational health check which is an engagement survey kind of thing the first one globally and um the results were sobering really
Sobering we were uh subpar under all standards under all standards so that means the morale was bad um and uh why would the morale not be bad because uh if you’re great students here um and you want to start somewhere you tell me whether you would have wanted to join
Fenus um if you have only read in the press that um they again didn’t deliver and that the share price for 6 years is down and probably the in in other magazines in more expert magazines you will have read that they lost here and there and there and here so the morale
Was not good um I didn’t feel talents were joining us and uh so we needed to tackle everything by the same token and this is important for diversification and m&a and everything as I said this was an m&a machine the business model from a group perspective so the
Corporate perspective was that in a low interest rate environment which we had for the last decade and that is that is a real issue there are real experts out there professionals not coming from University having 10 or 15 years of experience who have never experienced a normal interest
Rate environment and low interest rates you know can lead to misallocations Bubbles as we see for example in the real estate business but it also as you can see at fenus because the business model is we’re going to get cheap money the cost for money was nothing and everybody who can only spell
Growth is going to get growth and the money so in a way you’re trying to buy growth but at the end of the day you need to think about Capital efficiency right it is how much money you put in and what is the return you get and that led to the balance sheet
Being clocked up with Dept and the earnings and that’s why the share price for six years because the earnings for the last six years also only took one turn and that despite of the fact that we’re in the healthcare business and many businesses were growing but then I did the classical things benchmarking
And everything but maybe not growing to the extent they should should be growing so there must have been many things and I said the business model for example this getting the cheap money is wrong and is dead we’re not buying growth anymore earnings anymore we need to deliver earnings by restricted Capital
Because the the depbt we had on our balance sheet was already here this is like you have three houses you have a loan or credit with with the bank and you’re thinking about buying the fourth house but maybe your employer said I’m going to cut your salary in
Half so if that happens you’re in big trouble right so we changed the business model and I said and then last year same time the terrible war broke out so we knew we’re going to go into a high inflationary environment inflation is really really high so we needed to
Change almost everything we said the business model as we had it is dead new business model on the corporate management around the CEO there’s going to be clear portfolio development corporate strategy development Performance Management talent management ESG because the biggest resource I told you is the next
Generation of talents we didn’t have a succession planning nothing introducing everything so on the more hard stuff which probably is what what you’re also teaching I did a classical portfolio analysis uh fren 40 billion in revenues I did not look at how it is organized and whether it’s called Helios or kab or
What have you I dissected this thing in 28 business units the business units obviously had a very specific Market a very specific competitor profile a very specific technological profile and then I plotted those uh those those bubbles and it’s a classical 2x two you can name
The aess whatever you want to but at the end of the day one is Market one is your competitive position and then you look at how your your businesses are currently maybe if you probably you have the data how it was for years ago and then becomes the the the nice thing what
Do you think the portfolio will look like in 4 years there you have to derive it outside in what are the trends in the markets and how will the businesses evolve and what we then found out is you know um maybe we we had star businesses
In the past which were catering a lot of cash returns um those cash returns ain’t coming anymore and that’s why you know we are in the situation we are so Focus was needed if you have a clocked up balance sheet Focus you might have read two weeks ago that we are selling our
Fertility business fertility business you know for parents who want to have a baby they can go to a clinic and then uh it’s with IV and so on so forth so this is and this is not a disease by the way it’s a totally different business a niche market but the fertility business
Is also very attractive it has high growth rates our Market position wasn’t too bad but we decided to find a different home because it would have abs absorbed a lot of capital going forward because the only way you can grow there in volume especially is by acquiring
Clinics because other than that this a very local business the organic growth is limited and that’s why we said it needs to find a different home and then we said what is core and coincidentally it was K and Helios and um this was the portfolio exercise we did the same
Exercise came to the same results coming from the clinic site saying if you are on that patient Journey where are the Strategic points where you are not a commodity but you’re really having a clinical impact on the patient and you come again to the assets of K and Helios
And that’s why we said this is core then the way we wanted to manage is I said we need to we need to simplify we need to simplify the structure those businesses are cor that’s why we call him operating companies all other businesses like for
Zenus medical care we got 32 % so 32% actually according to corporate governance you can only manage them by arms length that’s why I call them investment companies at fenus Medical Care I will also be the chairman but I’m in an investor I don’t want to deal with day-to-day operational
Topics I will give them goals targets guardrails I can exchange the man not I but my team we can exchange the management team and then we’re going to be an active investor if we become an activist then it’s too late all right uh mren you’ve accomplished so much you
Have big plans ahead of you and um please allow me one last question before we hand it over to the students um in a few decades when you look back at all the things that you’ve accomplished by then what Legacy do you want to have uh Left
Behind yeah as I grow older I um I would have answered that question differently maybe 10 years ago H now I’m not that um let’s say Legacy is too strong of a word there’s so much happening in the world the world is changing and maybe I have
I’ve also experienced a lot of change myself a couple of years back I would have said I’m very proud because twice um it was said that we have written industrial history in Germany withon and uniper you know when uniper was in the in the news I was watching and I said
Man this is my baby I I created uniper and the new Eon and so on so forth and Sean healthy years being such a huge player in the market we somehow created this by iping this and so on so forth but then the world keeps spinning and uh 10 years from now
Maybe new guys in the company and some somebody says yeah well that Michael S guys did this and this and this and they said who and and therefore Legacy probably is too big of a word um what what I’m interested in is um that I want to hand over that business which I’m
Running today with passion to the Next Generation in a better shape and fit for that future which is then coming and if I will have deepened the purpose which have which is advancing patient care then I’m happy all right sounds very good very Noble and we wish you all the
Best and thank you for this very interesting discussion thank you very [Applause] much hi um I’m Camila from tum uh and from previous guests we learned that uh throughout their career path some of the important things were hard work diligence ethics a pinch of look but this was the first time that networking
Was truly emphasized and coming from a family that works in HR this is something that I’ve been hearing all my life so my question for you is how do you maintain the network you built throughout your career first of all thanks for for the question I think that’s also a question of Personality
That there will there will never be a recipe which can be copied by by everyone uh on Career Development and so on everybody will have their own unique kind of story the only thing we can do is share our story so that all of you
Get get the learnings out of that one I think a big thing is empathy uh and and and it depends on the personality some might be more quiet but still a great guy uh people love to hang hang out with or talk to and so on so forth others are
More more outgoing uh but but empathy be be there even that’s why I said even when I have a busy schedule uh I should take care of my friends do I ask how they are doing and uh Al that quite honestly I probably can do better there
Uh and some of them maybe call me more than I call them uh but uh when I talk to them I tell them that I really appreciate that they called or cared and so on so forth so it’s it’s it’s empathy you and and the
The the great gift we have in life as we move on I told you I grew up in this small City in Franconia I I had this summer 30 years of abitur I went there it was like U almost like in the old days we were like
Hugging each other and so on so forth but then again life went on it’s not that I hang out with them every day and so on so forth uh and I got to know many more people this is this is what I really which drove me when
I went from noad to Berlin when when I went from seens toon or now to fenus everywhere I I went I took two three four five six friends with me and maybe in 10 years out of those six friends it will only be two friends
But net net I was winning and that was the great thing so with empathy I guess uh hello Mr sen uh first of all many thanks for your great Insight uh my name is zumar I’m from tum and originally I also come from India um earlier this year I was reading that the
Kabi manufacturing plant in Halden Norway was acquired by the pran group as well as uh aragos Pharma and um well it said that it is well known for its um strategic location in northern Europe as well as its um quite Advanced uh technology um earlier you mentioned uh
Selling off the IV business so perhaps this could have been one of the main reasons but um from a strategic management point of view could you perhaps provide some more insights about the acquisition yes on uh uh I told you about the portfolio view the portfolio obviously was also too broad yes you
Need to diversify when I’m I’m being asked are you putting or placing your strategy around synergies I said no way because you know even analysts or investors ask me oh what’s the Synergy between kab and Helios I said forget about me placing any bets on Synergy as a corporate strategy I would
Also not believe in that one if there are synergies and a few are there this will never be relevant enough uh but if we take Synergy as the only argument then I will end up with a company which caters Man’s Shoes black leather size 42
Only in Germany you know what I mean you get you get too narrow because you know as as soon as you have a brown shoe there’s maybe or maybe not synergies with that one the strategy is placed and bet betting on do you have the relevant competitive position in a market with
Which has runway for growth which has an attractive profit pool which may have barriers for entry which is a strategic relevant point on the patient Journey H and uh depending on how much Capital it does need and do we have capabilities and competencies and if we have a lot of
Businesses like that and we have the domain know how to to manage them then then we’re in there now I told you that uh uh they have been doing in the past a lot of Acquisitions uh and never cleaning up those Acquisitions so the hen thing
Which you are referring to is at kab we under one program which we called increasing competitiveness especially going into this High inflationary environment was optimizing our manufacturing line in essence we had too many manufacturing lines too many manufacturing lines doing too many things some of them being undercritical and therefore we needed to
Reduce the footprint and in this case um we found a different owner in Halden and uh happy that we did the deal if not it would have gone the other way then we would have maybe closed it good evening I’m Maria Karen Joshua from Tom so um certainly while considering
The bigger picture you know it’s our success that basically shapes the image of who we are but personally we know that it’s our failures quoting Tim Ferris he basically said that failure isn’t always durable and sometimes when you look back you realize that you know
Like oh maybe that helped me shape who I am and you can trust your instincts and that’s one of the most like two important things that you mentioned like trusting your leadership instincts so sorry for the the cliche question but my question is like um how has failure or you know apparent
Failure set you up for later success or in other words to fail better and do you have like a favorite failure of yours yeah thank you that’s a very good question and I try to convey this very indirectly because uh what I I think quite openly shared with you was um a
Lot of steps by networking and luck and stuff and and and luck is always where opportunity meets preparation as we know it’s also a cliche thing but it was also you could have seen this as a failure uh and and then the question is what do you
Do out of that one or what I meant with it didn’t work out the way I initially planned in a way is a a failure uh and then what kind of consequences you draw out of that one on the one I said I was ready to change that’s why I went to Eon
Uh and uh and because um I felt you know this would be another failure if I had stayed there on this seens energy thing I didn’t plan to uh to leave uh seens and the company and um this is another turn which was different and I I have a
Lot of failures uh uh during my professional life where you’re right uh that especially with the benefit of hindsight you you learn more and um and and with the benefit of hindsight I’m for example grateful and thankful the turns I took which at that very moment I could not always
See but other people help me to see that and that’s why I tried to say it will it will all be good with all of you it will all be good will all make your way depending on what you also want right as long as the direction is clear and so on
So forth and if I were to give you another word of advice in today’s world what I’m trying to do even with businesses is in a world which is so dynamic as we currently see it the best thing is to have options and to create options and and
Creating options there’s a heart side to it but there’s also a mindset side to it if you know if I was at that in 2013 um when I did not become the CFO of seens I was obviously maybe disappointed maybe maybe not devastated but disappointed and so
On forth and 3 years before 2010 to 2013 I I would have said this is what I want to become in life well today uh I’m happy uh it took different turns and that’s why try to keep your mind open and have several options don’t make your
Target too narrow because the world is too Dynamic and there are many things we do not have in in our control which may make us fail or not fail but not fit that other thing there’s a different kind of failure like a professional or in R&D and development
And so on so for there it’s of course fail fast and and all that stuff but this is more the personal stuff hello my name is Robinson I’m from from Tom first of all thank you for your presentation I wanted uh to pick your mind on a problem I’ve been working on
How would you go about building a healthc care system that is one affordable two good that covers a large uh population thank you well if we get that one we will have the Nobel Prize uh but uh but look uh I I think that’s a great cause to work on
And that probably time we don’t have too much much time but uh this is this is one of the big questions uh where why why I’m also in healthcare on on a global level depending on where we are in the globe too many people do not have
Access to to Health Care Systems and uh to medicine or to Affordable technology so there are ways to to do that with digitization with artificial intelligence with uh affordable medicine you know in in our business I see I see three paradigms uh one Paradigm is uh the biological Paradigm the other one is
The tech Paradigm and the other one is the data Paradigm and one of our businesses is biopharmaceuticals biopharmaceuticals are so so to say kind of the next S curve of generics but based on Biologicals for state-of-the-art drugs with which lose exclusivity from the originator and can now be produced in a similar fashion
But at a at a lower price uh and that obviously provides more access to state of thee art medicine from a Health Care System point of view I I think um depending on a country technology can play a big role technology can play a big role uh things
Like biopharmaceuticals can play a big role and then obviously that there needs to be a will of the government uh to provide access to to many as many people as you can uh therefore it is in one of the SGS but this is a very you know the
Way you phrase it is is very generic we need to talk country by country how we can do that we we we can talk about even in the United States uh uh giving people more access to at a more affordable cost to state-of-the-art Medicine we can do
That for Bangladesh we can do that for Nigeria we can do that for Australia uh but that’s why I say Healthcare is system relevant this is what I try to preach to politicians so I have no answer to that one uh but we we need to
Work on that one that’s that’s what I call Health Equity hello my name is k and um first of all thank you for being here here with us and um as you emphasized in your talk there are a lot of U Mega Trends in healthcare business
I wonder in your opinion which ones are most exciting or relevant to your business and how your company has taken steps on those regards thank you thank you um I don’t think the beauty within healthc care is that so many things come together at the end of the day for that
Purpose of improving the lives of patients or saving the lives of patient it is science and scientific progress is it is societal Trends it is regulatory the question of uh Health Care Systems it is people who deliver care and it’s not only the physician it’s also the
Nurse and and and other people Frontline workers who really deliver care and this all comes together um therefore I believe there is not one single Trend we Define three paradigms which I just phrased the biological Paradigm the technology Paradigm and the data Paradigm which have the biggest impact
What We Believe on the healthc care system combined with the businesses we have that we can ride on these Trends this is exactly the strategy then uh and and Biologicals it is it is clear I mean every everybody talks about data and artificial intelligence but there are
Folks who say this is going to be the centy of biology you know the first one was the first Industrial Revolution and then uh uh electrons and digitization it’s already done now biology we are only learning how humans are working on the biological level on the cell level there’s great scientific progress
On that one you know we already know how to uh sequence a genome and I met Greg Venter for example who who cracked the the human genome and then we think oh now we have it all and we have the cure for everything we are just at the
Beginning of everything because on all what we know is um the the the key elements of of the three uh umine and and and what have you and somebody told me this is like only having letters of an alphabet but we have not put words together we have not written
An essay we have not written anything so uh uh think about things like Gene editing where you can manipulate u a gene in order to cure something that was a regulatory approval the other day for Cle cell animaly uh think about cell and gene therapy uh what we do in our
Clinics at Helios on oncology 10 years ago lung cancer was lung cancer we only knew the name of that disease obviously we we could diagnose it and so on so forth today we know lung cancer can be categorized in roughly 20 to 204 uh different categories each of them
Can be individually targeted it treat it have individual maybe genetic predispositions or behavioral predispositions so there’s a lot of um progress on that one going on and the same holds through on Immunology that we we find out that we have cells our immune system fights uh malicious cells
But cancer cells for example are somehow under the radar and and therefore can can grow now if we take our own immune therapy immuno cells many manipulate them uh and get them inject them back into the body they can attack cancer cells and that is called cell and gene
Therapy just an example how how fascinating that whole biology topic is technology obviously is clear if you go to a hospital what can be connected with what uh um I mean a couple of years back you went to the hospital or maybe sometimes even today you go to the
Hospital you get in there you know you get that paperwork and they said can you fill out that form and then you go to the next Department how tall are you what’s your weight and you fill it out again and you fill it out again and you
Fill it out again so uh connectedness but not only connectedness like this but I bought um one one one year ago an infusion pump which is smart which has smart software in it uh which is connected to the drug library and and it’s very precise for example when you
Have ped pediatric small kids and they get an infusion which uh which has medicine in there that you can really manage that and that is all being somehow controlled by software that is connectedness and data artificial intelligence if you ask me if there’s one really major application field it’s going to be
Healthcare uh but there I I would say it’s augmenting uh um the the phys physician either to be more efficient or to get to better clinical decision making if I take my old company and now care delivery together a radiologist what does a radiologist do a radiologist looks at
Images and I would always go to a radiologist who has a lot of experience because he has probably seen a bazillion images and not to the one who just left University maybe he he or she oversees something but if we have the data and have artificial intelligence then we may
Come to better clinical decision- making we just kickstarted a a pilot project uh with a large language model uh with Chet GPT uh or CET GPT like um the discharge letter of the doctor you know when you go to the to the physician you get a discharge
Letter that takes roughly 3 to 4 hours a day from the doctor and they always have these terms nobody understands what the hell they have right in there right and and we tried this for a cardiovascular disease with an llm model and the pilot worked let’s see whether we can scale
It hello there sir my name is Andis I’m from tum uh my question is what strategy do you use to deliver state-of-the-art Medical Products uh but at the same time affordable to customers thank you yeah that’s that’s that’s for example the biopharmaceuticals as I said biopharmaceutical
Are uh like generics but based on on on biological processing this is bioreactor so we have living cells which are which you are growing and uh there there’s great medication um out there on oncology and the immuno disease patterns and this is what we are catering this
Will bring down the price for by the way Health Care Systems tremendously and make it affordable hello my name is magdalina Pina thanks for your impressions it was very interesting my question is how does withus plan to integrate technological innovations in the future thank you yeah technological innovation will play a
Major major role but um what I’m always um where I think is the spice is technology is one thing but how does technology get applied there’s there’s a whole route from having a technological idea or product or what have you until it is really getting applied AI for
Example what I said in if we use it into our clinics I’m convinced that it will never substitute the human because we call it the human to human touch or human AI because we’re dealing with people and when we deal with the patient we are
Dealing with him or her at one of the most vulnerable moments and uh I I don’t know whether you want to have a machine telling you this and that and that and this or you want to have the human touch there’s still a lot in in in human interaction which which cannot be
Substituted so technology plays a very big role but it’s always the application of te technology whether it’s on medical devices what I call Medical Technology whether it’s on Pharmaceuticals or even on care delivery so it does play a major role but the more interesting thing is
How does it get a applied and does it get accepted hello my name is Peter yazan I’m from to and I wanted to ask the question regarding the recent management crisis in the open AI company and uh where the company was on the brink of collapse and I wanted to ask the
Question so in your opinion being a CEO yourself is this a positive or A negative development that in some spheres in technological sphere in this case that the board of directors loses some power and on the other hand the CEOs gain this uh power thank you yeah obviously I cannot uh I cannnot
Uh uh make any comment on that particular case because I’m not involved by any means I don’t I don’t know more than you do reading reading the newspaper uh but reading the newspaper obviously it is um how should I say uh Wherever Whenever you have turmoil that’s why I mentioned my board went
With us in even exchanging the entire management board um I think companies who have stakeholders who have customers who in our case have patients um all those stakeholders want to have some sort of stability and reliability which does not mean that you cannot instill change when change is
Necessary there should be change when change is overdue it’s also not good but whenever there’s turmoil whenever newspapers already write about it it’s never a good thing uh you should try to calm things down you should not try to uh you know uh carry different arguments into the media sometimes this happens
But then uh people need to you know take their responsibility to calm that down in general and that’s why I talked about relationship ships and empathy and so on so forth no one no one is alone even if you are one person company you will probably want to have customers or have
Suppliers or may have a bank so we all have people and stakeholders around us and I believe in a good corporate governance I cannot tell you whether it’s good that he or she or the board or the CEO who Whoever has more has more power but there needs to be a governance
Where there is a balance uh I run a public company with one Foundation as a key shareholder so I’m acting on their behalf I’m not acting this is not my company I’m acting on their behalf I need to take decisions which are in the best interest of those who own the company
That may not always be easy because um you may you know step on somebody body’s foot but there needs to be also a governance body which has some oversight which in our case is the supervisory board so strong boards I and I am a chairman myself and
Was a chairman and ran boards myself I believe in a very good and constructive but sometimes challenging dialogue between those who manage and those Who oversee and if that that works usually these are the successful companies hello I’m sufian from habon University graduate school U my question for you
Would be what was the biggest challenge for you at frenos or even at another company and how did you manage to overcome it yeah I I don’t know whether it was the biggest challenge there was a lot of of challenges but the uh at fenus
Now it’s not it is a challenge but I I’m not afraid of that challenge is that we have this really comprehensive transformation at resus with future fenus from all the data we see from all the the dialogues I have with with people stakeholders but especially with employees they all really appreciate
That there’s now Direction and and and Clarity and everything but uh the biggest challenge will always be when we have a couple of hundred thousand people who need to follow the direction that we get all people on board H now I’m also not naive that’s what I said in my first
Leadership meeting I would wish to have everybody on board I know that not everybody will be on board uh the easier part is those who really do not want to be on board because either they will find a different home or you will make them find a different home that’s easier
The worst thing is those standing at the sidelines and chatting and it’s like German soccer everybody knows how to best play soccer and no more than julan nagles man uh uh but uh this is the these these folks at the at the Seline so the the the challenge is always how
To get as many people and the relevant people along the journey and to create that momentum that you then somehow then have a critical mass or a critical momentum that it starts running by itself hello this is sadim n from Tom Mr Zen my question for you this diverse P of innovation
Career what you did you do to influence it or which approach did you choose to make it happen yeah well I mean look for opportunities that’s why I said if you go through through the pattern there were obviously I was always um there when it was very Dynamic uh either it
Was a crisis situation which needed some form of leadership and I told you when when I was younger I was probably not the top leader but I was in the team around the top leaders who were just dealing with that crisis situation at that time the telecommunication business
Or in in in the in the Eon uh uh example or where there was a major change or disruption early on the Euro uh and so on so forth or even where you know healthy out of a position of strength reinvent yourself there was no crisis
There but maybe I I tried to not make a crisis but the paranoid example was to say if we don’t do that day after tomorrow we might have one and uh I’ve been always obviously looking for for for things or like a magnet I was there
Where these things emerged um I was at the beginning of the week I was in an investor conference uh and one investor had had a one-on-one with me and we went through the fras and he’s then when I walked out he said yeah well you loves
Challenges you will do it so this is it’s about your personality if uh if you rather want to have uh tasks where uh it’s more more gradual and so on so forth then there’s also nothing bad about that one uh but I was looking obviously for these kind of things to
Maybe display my strength hello my name is edka fun from also hyon and I’d like to know from you what was your leadership style or what is it like working with you hopefully nice right uh my leadership style is that I try to be very open and uh and candid
Yeah sometimes people say you see it whether I’m smiling or whe whether I’m moody or what have you that this is also what you have to work on that’s why I said as as a CEO you’re always on stage uh to be open and candid very of
Authentic thereby and uh you know very collaborative I try to display that I was never alone uh neither when I needed people nor when I’m in the lead and doing something I never did stuff alone was always with with folks around me H and therefore a very collaborative uh
But I would also say um having Ambitions uh and wanting to shape something so a leadership position where where I have the room to create something to shape something thank you very much uh for being so open and and responding to all of our questions and for this wonderful visit thank thank [Applause] You
2 Comments
Vielen Dank für das hochladen dieser spannenden Interviews! <3
My congrats to the organization offering these important meetings with CEOs. In fact a great way to foster key insights to the students to apply in their career growth.
All the best!