Last week you got to meet Horst Dufner of Solar Promotion GmbH. Now it is the turn of Thomas Häring of GoodWe Europe to answer our six questions:
1. How are you personally – and as a company – coping with the corona crisis?
Personally, it was a quite difficult time as we were among the parents who had to deal with closed childcare and two parents working pretty much full time in a home office environment. This was extremely challenging when trying to balance work, support for your partner and giving the needed focus for your child. Basically, this ended in a way that we worked permanently whenever we had a free minute, from getting up in the morning until going to bed.
From a company standpoint this was or still is a major challenge as we work in multiple countries, also in places where Covid 19 created severe problems such as in Italy, Spain or South Africa, and you are just never sure of your decisions and finding the right balance between safety and business needs. I tried to involve the team here and come to “modus vivendi” that can work for all team members.
2. What are you enthusiastic about, apart from your company?
I have always enjoyed traveling a lot and spending time in other countries and cultures, so this comes quite handy in my current position.
Besides that, I still love alternative live music concerts and I have a strong passion for my soccer team, TSV 1860 München. Somehow, I got infected with this blue virus as a boy and I guess it will be in my blood all my life no matter in which league they play. If I find time, I still love to read books, particularly contemporary American writers, like Anthony Doerr, Jonathan Frantzen or Jeffrey Eugenides.
3. What social media account or podcast makes your life better?
I am not an extensive user of these platforms. LinkedIn is probably the best platform here for me. There is only one Podcast that I really listen on a regular basis, but that is really a good one: Steingart’s Morning Briefing. This really gives you a good daily insight on the major political, economic and social challenges in Germany.
4. Whom would you like to meet/have met?
For sure Nelson Mandela. He was for me the most impressive personality. How he led South Africa after being released from jail, is unprecedented.
5. If you could change one thing in the world – other than the corona crisis, of course – what would it be?
Life is beautiful, but life is not just and life is not fair. So if I could change one thing, then that the global world would be a fairer place.
6. What aspect of your company’s work are you most proud?
I am speaking here for our regional headquarters rather than the global company. I am very proud that we achieved in a quite short time, just in two years, this tremendous market success where we have started to partner with most of the distribution markets leaders in the EMEA countries and we are considered a strong and important partner for the success and growth of these partners. I think this is a considerable success for a brand which was hardly known two years ago in most of the European countries. This was only possible due to our proven product quality and reliability and due to the trust that the EMEA team was given by our Chinese headquarters. (mfo)
