Without resorting to obvious stereotypes, this is not about Siemens executives always putting their towels on the sun chairs by the pool first thing in the morning, or about them being ruthlessly efficient in penalty shoot-outs. Instead, it is a comment from Peter Löscher, the head of Siemens (and himself an Austrian), about the company needing more diversity to survive.
“The management board are all white males. Our top 600 managers are predominantly white German males. We are too one-dimensional,” he said in an interview with the FT. Although 80 percent of the company’s revenue comes from outside Germany, only 4 of 15 divisional heads are not German.
This highlights a wider issue in German companies according to the article, with not enough international managers and therefore not enough global culture being recognised. I can’t promise much ‘culture’, but if they want a non-German hand they know where I am …
You can read the full article here.