Christian Scherer: If only everything were that simple...

Christian Scherer, Körber site: Markt Schwaben, Germany 

I’m 41. And I’ve been with the same company for 25 years. 
I started at 16 as an apprentice.  

Back then, we were a small family business. 
90 people. 
Short lines of communication. 

If you needed something, you simply walked into the boss’s office. 

In the beginning, I built machines and got them up and running.  

At some point, I was asked: 
“Can you imagine working in sales?”  

I was 24. 
No experience in sales. 
None.  

Still, I said yes. 
Because I wanted to learn.  

And suddenly, I found myself in negotiations worth millions. 

I must have done something right. 

Because not long after, I was offered responsibility for sales in India. 
The fastest-growing pharmaceutical market in the world. 

Later, the US was added. 
The largest pharmaceutical market in the world. 

I wasn’t even 30. 

India on one side. 
The US on the other. 
Two continents. 
Multiple time zones.  

I learned a lot. 
And I invested a lot of time. 

At some point, I realized: 
This wasn’t working for me anymore.  

Too many flights. 
Too little sleep. 

So I decided to step back from India 
and focus on the entire American continent: 
from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. 
In 2011, we became part of Körber.  

I come from a mid-sized business environment. 
A world where offers were still corrected with a pen. 
We had folders full of machine templates. 
If something changed, it was adjusted by hand. 

When I started modifying offers digitally directly with the customer and sending them out the next day, that already felt like progress.  

With Körber came new opportunities. 
International reach. 
Networks. 
Structures. 

Some see that as a contradiction. I don’t. 

I’ve always tried to combine the best of both worlds: 
the speed of a mid-sized company 
and the capabilities of a global group.  

Together, they’re unbeatable. 

And no matter where I work, my mindset stays the same: 

I stay close to the customer. 
If I truly understand their problems, I can see where solutions emerge. 

And I deliberately look beyond my own industry. 
The pharmaceutical industry is conservative. 
Many changes start elsewhere.  

Automotive. 
Tech. 
Consumer.  

If you look there, you often understand earlier what will eventually happen in your own field. 

But regardless of what changes, at my core, I still work the same way I always have. 

Curious. 
Pragmatic. 
And with a clear mindset:  

When an opportunity comes up, I say yes first. 
The rest usually figures itself out along the way.