Georg Engeli

2. Business

 

This section outlines major responsibilities and experiences in:

1. Legal and financial services
2. Knowledge management
3. Strategic planning, marketing and communication
4. Special investigations and risk management
5. Personal note

 

Georg Engeli worked for over 17 years in international business, holding thematic and executive responsibilities in the following areas:

Legal and financial services

His work included responsibilities in the following areas:

• Corporate finance
• Corporate restructuring
• Commercial transactions and project finance
• Budgeting, controlling

Knowledge Management

In a world-wide firm he served as the member of a global steering committee and held the corresponding responsibility for a national market for the following areas:

• Introducing knowledge management as a new strategic area
• Developing and establishing knowledge sharing processes across divisions, internal and external cultures and management structures
• Designing and implementing trans-disciplinary learning initiatives
• Linking the knowledge management processes and their results to strategic planning at national and international level and to differentiated market needs
• Integrate knowledge sharing in key strategic initiatives, including merger preparations, due diligence, and new product and service lines.

Strategic planning, marketing and communication

He was responsible for building-up and leading the strategic planning, marketing and communication functions.

Special investigations / risk and crisis management / business ethics

He was responsible for the founding and operational management of a new department and its multinational client services in the following area:

• Special investigations in multinational corporations, associations and non-commercial organizations
• Investigating presumed irregularities including fraud, money-laundering, corruption, and other internal and external risks
• Shedding light on "black box" areas perceived by top management
• Structuring and leading the deployment of specialists, e.g. including internal and external auditors, lawyers, industry experts, IT professionals, HR specialists, economic and political analysts, historians, linguists, or state regulatory authorities.
• Developing and implementing Business Integrity programs
• Risk prevention, crisis and turn-around intervention
• Investment security programs (assets, knowledge, and people).

Personal note

Each one of these responsibilities made it necessary to leave the comparatively sheltered space of a desk, an office, a function or of proven knowledge. I must take the personal and professional exposure to novel fields and unknown territories. Extensive - and, in terms of volume, often extreme - travel merely symbolized the constant moving in and between different worlds.

This also represents a continued state of ignorance and curiosity - as a prerequisite of achievements and as their natural result.

The technical and managerial experiences are, of course, very valuable. But what lasts and remains alive is the experience of working together with others. I have been fortunate to witness and partake in dealing with fundamental dilemmas, tremendous uncertainties and undertakings that challenged the people involved far beyond our professional faculties. Always in the triple position of a boss, a subordinate and a colleague, I have experienced the genuine creativity of what the outside calls "business people" - people and their inner capacities and limits are the most precious experience. "Business" was the playground.