I am often asked what drives an engineer to lead companies through crises. The answer does not begin in a lecture hall or a corporation, but in a mid-sized engineering company in Lorch – my parents’ business.
Early lessons in my parents’ company
I gained my first sales experience at Paul Andrä KG, a manufacturer of machines for professional building cleaning. Already as a schoolboy and later alongside my studies, I worked in sales there – for ten years, from 1988 to 1998.
What you learn in a family business is not in any textbook: that every euro counts. That customers are people, not lines in a revenue report. And that in the end someone always stands up personally for the result.
An engineer by conviction
I studied mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, today’s KIT. Engineering shaped the way I think: break problems down into their components, treat causes rather than symptoms, test solutions against reality. This mindset still helps me today – on the shop floor as much as when looking at the balance sheet.
Bosch: discipline, markets and the world
In 1998 I started at Bosch in Stuttgart, first as assistant to the head of sales, then as team leader for the Volkswagen Group with Audi as key account for common rail. This was followed by almost five years in Milan and Turin, where I was responsible for technical sales to Italian customers and negotiated annual prices with manufacturers such as Fiat and GM. After that I managed the business with Chinese manufacturers from Stuttgart and Wuxi – revenue in the Chinese market more than tripled during this time.
The corporation taught me processes, discipline and a sense for quality. Working abroad taught me to listen – and that there are very different, equally good ways to solve the same task.
Consulting: companies in crisis
In 2009, in the middle of the financial crisis, I moved to Struktur Management Partner, a consultancy specialising in restructuring. For almost nine years I guided mid-sized companies through difficult phases – automotive suppliers, mechanical and plant engineering companies, metalworking businesses. From 2011 I headed the Automotive Industry Centre, produced an industry study together with the Institut für Automobilwirtschaft and developed tools for assessing suppliers’ business models and future viability.
In consulting you learn to recognise patterns: crises almost always announce themselves early – the signals are just rarely taken seriously. And you learn that good concepts are worthless if nobody implements them.
From consultant to CEO
That is exactly why in 2018 I switched sides and took on responsibility as CEO of SCS Stahlschmidt Cable Systems – a supplier of Bowden cable systems with sites in Europe, China, Canada and later Morocco. What followed was the construction of a new plant in Tangier, the realignment of the European production network, an international investor process and finally, as Managing Director of Suprajit Germany GmbH, the integration into the Suprajit Group.
As CEO you bear the consequences of your own decisions – towards shareholders, banks and customers, and above all towards the people in the company. This responsibility changes your perspective. You become more humble and more determined at the same time.
Why the Mittelstand today?
With FAERBER Verwaltungsgesellschaft, things have come full circle for me. Today I work again for the kind of company I grew up in: mid-sized, often owner- or family-managed, technically strong and internationally active – and often in a phase where experience, pace and clear decisions matter.
What I bring is not textbook knowledge but what I have experienced myself: on the shop floor, at the negotiating table and in the boardroom. And the conviction that has stayed with me since my parents’ company: in the end, what counts is what gets done.
I achieve the most where I can take on long-term responsibility: as a CEO who does not just steer a company through one phase but develops it over the years.
About the author
Friedemann Faerber is Managing Partner of FAERBER Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH in Stuttgart. A mechanical engineer by training, he spent more than eight years as CEO of international automotive suppliers and almost nine years as a restructuring consultant. Today he is available to industrial companies as CEO and managing director – permanently, on an interim basis or on an advisory board.
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