Impact Story: Siemens Energy

The Client

With 91,000 employees in more than 90 countries, Siemens Energy is a leading global energy technology company. An estimated one-sixth of the world’s power generation is based on the technologies of Siemens Energy – a spinoff of Siemens AG that went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in late September 2020. However, Siemens AG remains its largest shareholder, with a stake of around 35 percent. With its service business and its 67 percent share in the listed company Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Siemens Energy is operating along almost the entire energy value chain.

The Challenge

Preparing managers at Siemens Energy for the global energy transformation

Siemens Energy (SE) is gaining its independence at a time when energy systems worldwide are fundamentally changing, according to CEO Christian Bruch. Four fundamental game-changers are currently having an effect on the company: growth in demand, decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization, all of which require Siemens Energy to define its operations in this highly dynamic context. Its 150 years of experience as a global player in the energy supply industry is helping it to maintain a leading position in existing markets. However, in order to become the “most valued energy technology company in the world” – as announced in its vision statement – new pillars of growth, such as carbon-neutral hydrogen technologies and digital platforms, require managers to venture into uncharted territory. They must establish a culture of corporate entrepreneurship in their teams that allows for experimentation while providing psychological comfort and safety.

In addition, the spinoff from the parent company implies direct exposure to capital markets. Even managers focusing on engineering challenges have to communicate financial performance indicators, operationalize the corporate strategy, and steer their respective business units with a data-driven mindset.

The Commitment

An intense co-creation process culminated in the program Leading People and Business

Even before the corona pandemic hampered international travel, SE Learning – together with Sebastian Zippler and his team at Siemens Energy – envisaged a hybrid training program with in-person and online learning. Building on extensive experience in co-designing executive education programs, SE Learning planned for the first session to take place at ESMT Berlin. However, the lockdown required that the training be conducted entirely online.

The SE Learning team and ESMT created a customized leadership journey that prepares managers to tackle present and future challenges. With 41 people – from Dubai to Houston and representing almost all business segments – the first run of Leading People and Business took place in November/ December 2020. Since then, two more cycles have been successfully completed, covering the Western and the Eastern hemisphere. Future sessions will be made available to all leaders within the company, thus creating opportunities for participants to connect and collaborate across professional hierarchies and silos.

The Learning Design

A four-week learning journey combines live online sessions, individual course work and reflections, group projects, workshops and simulations, and an executive keynote

This virtual program is designed to foster understanding and help participants internalize the interplay of strategy, finance, innovation, leadership, and transformation. Siemens Energy managers will learn to improve their leadership capabilities and better manage the performance of their teams while envisaging new pillars of growth and boosting innovation. The program equips them with a hands-on toolkit to master future challenges in three fundamental areas:

• Direct exposure to capital markets
  
  Which KPIs are relevant? What are the implications for the strategic leadership of your business unit?
• Business model innovation
  
  How can everyone contribute to making the company more customer-centric and agile? How can networks across business units and departments enhance your innovation capabilities and create synergies?
• Leading the digital transformation of the company
  
  How does each participant’s role as a leader change in a digital world? Which best practices of communicating in global virtual teams can they establish and promote? How can each manager become a visionary ambassador of change?

Enriched by the experiences and expertise of Siemens Energy managers, the training offers the latest insights from renowned ESMT faculty, who utilize online workshops, simulations, group work, and discussions to illustrate how participants can translate these insights into their daily managerial practices.

Impact

Managers are prepared to steer Siemens Energy to the next level of its development – as the most valued player in the energy technology market

Participants left the training equipped with new insights and tools to:

• understand how capital markets evaluate companies’ strategies and why financial performance creates strategic opportunities;
• experience how every manager can contribute to strategic alignment and financial performance;
• learn how to fuel the innovation pipeline, find new business models and pillars of growth, and manage innovations – today and in the future;
• comprehend how digitalization can enhance customer-centricity;
• grasp the difference between technical and adaptive change and why times of change require adaptive leadership;
• build an effective network across silos, empower high-performance teams, and provide psychological safety;
• communicate in virtual teams.

But the training does not stop with the ceremonial closing event: Leadership is “an unending journey,” as stated in the keynote from the Chief of Strategy & Technology and Innovation, Vinod Philip. He said that it is just the beginning of the engagement with LPB alumni via exclusive expert talks, panels, and events of the ESMT Alumni Network.

41 people from 10 nations participated in the first run of the Leading People and Business program. They represented almost all areas of Siemens Energy.