Panel hosted at Waterkant Festival by Evgeni Kouris, Founder New Mittelstand, Co-Host Zebras Unite Berlin

Abstract

Combining purpose and profit, while doing good for people and the planet sounds like a challenging job. Startups founders from the so called Zebras Unite movement and family business entrepreneurs from the New Mittelstand movement believe this is the only way to do business. In this panel we want to explore some questions around how to start, grow, make decisions, deal with ownership and survive for generations as a business, while building a good company.

Panel participants

Dr. Nadine Kammerlander 

Professor & Director Institute of Family Business & Mittelstand

Nadine is a professor of family business and leads the Institute of Family Business and Mittelstand at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management. She has a PhD in management and a master degree in physics. Her work as a strategy consultant as well as her roles in various committees, associations, and boards have provided here with in-depth insights in the German Mittelstand. 

Jakob Berndt 

Co-Founder Tomorrow Bank & Lemonaid & ChariTea, Chairman of the Board SOS Mediterranee

Jakob Berndt is a co-founder of Tomorrow Bank. Prior to this, he was the founder and managing director of the social business “Lemonaid & ChariTea”. There, they successfully brought together development cooperation, culinary delights and Zeitgeist – and won numerous prizes for it. Today you can find the premium soft drinks behind the best counters and bars in more than 15 countries. From now on, his motto is,”Organic and Fairtrade. Now also as a banking app”. The aim is to bring the complex topic of “sustainable finance” to people in a simple and honest way. Because it’s far too important to be a niche subject.

Questions discussed during panel

• Let’s start with your personal journeys and how you arrived at this panel

  • Why do you do what you do?

  • What is a Zebra and what makes it special?

  • What is Mittelstand / Family owned business and what makes it special?

  • What is the difference between a Zebra and a Startup?

  • What kind of research have you done concerning startups and Mittelstand? 

  • Which parallels or connections do you see between both? 

  • Where do you see that Mittelstand or Startups have each to evolve to keep the resilience and relevance for the future? 

• Let’s talk about the future and why you are both part of this panel. New Mittelstand vision is to create a new, more conscious, purpose-driven type of Economy.  

  • How realistic do you think this vision is?

  • What is the best side of Startups?

  • What is the best side of family-owned Mittelstand?

  • How do combine the both best sides in one company and still be able to compete with other companies? 

  • What needs to be done to strengthen collaboration? 

Let’s play a “Purpose Patterns” game

leaned on the book “The Purpose Economy” by Aaron Hurst, inspired by the work with The Bahlsen Family (special thanks to Alan Don Jones for sparkling the idea for the game).

Who you work to impact? (Select one that rather fits to you) 

• Individual: one person at a time

• Organization: one team or decision maker at a time

• Society: one policy or law at a time

“Are you a doctor, hospital administrator, or policy-maker?”

How you achieve that? (Select one) 

• Community-oriented: generate resource and advocate through a community

• Structure-driven: use leadership, policies and procedures to bring about change

• Human-centered: find answers by looking at how humans and social groups feel

• Knowledge-driven: analyse and build upon data and research to find answers

“Do you need support from communities, policies, people or research?”

Why you do what you do? 

• Harmony: without intervention, all groups and societies will move from order to disorder. It is only with intervention that we can be a moral society.

• Karma: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Kindness, honesty and hard work will (eventually) bring good fortune; cruelty, deceit and laziness will (eventually) bring suffering.

“Do you believe in entropy or a moralistic version of Newton’s laws of motion?”