Two years ago, the company, which then had 40 employees, moved a few kilometres away from its traditional headquarters in the Bickendorf borough of Cologne to neighbouring Hürth. Since 2008, Tina Gerfer has been in charge of the specialised machinery manufacturer. “My grandfather started to prepare me for my role at the head of the company from a very young age. I not only learned the meaning of social responsibility from him, he also taught me how important resilience and persistence are. But sadly, he already died in 1982 and everything first went differently from what he had planned. As only one member of the family was allowed to be active in the operational business at a time, my uncle then took over management.” Tina Gerfer decided to enter training at the European Academy for Languages and Economics (EWS) in Cologne and then worked in the equestrian equipment industry. “Unlike what is typical for a family of academic scholars, I did not want to study. I have always been fascinated by people and absolutely wanted to learn languages. This is still an asset today: I often speak Spanish and English with customers, almost more so than German.” Her day usually starts at five o’ clock in the morning, the Managing Director says. “This is when I read and respond to emails. As we have customers from all over the world, I can reach some of them best in the early morning, depending on their time zone.”
She has never regretted taking the step into management. “The industry we work in is like a family, and I love the sweets and confectionery industry.” The move from Cologne to Hürth, however, did not come easy. “To my surprise, this step was emotionally difficult for me, although our company in Cologne was housed in a pre-modern, old building. But during the move, for example, I found a secret compartment that had belonged to my grandfather where he had kept, among other things, a painting of his home town Wernigerode. He had to flee from there after the second World War because he was threatened by deportation.”
In 2013 the continued survival of the medium-sized company was at risk. “At that time, we had a large order for five machines of the same design, but only a weak equity ratio, so that financing became very difficult and I had to enter into personal liability. In the end, we decided on insolvency proceedings under self-administration and had to accept a CRO (Chief Restructuring Officer) from outside as an interim manager on the board. This was a hard step to take, but I would always make the same decision. During this time I learned that insolvency proceedings under self-administration is not a stigma, and that you should be open about it. To my surprise, all our customers were very understanding. We received a large amount of trust, also because we found out that my grandfather had in turn helped many of his customers in similar situations. We then managed to settle all obligations within the following two years. And – something that was very important to me personally – we could keep all our employees; we did not have to let anyone go. Not a single customer or supplier jumped ship, either. The entire proceedings really were a chance to make us more attractive, too, for a takeover.”