Executive MBA
Leadership Insights with TUI CFO Mathias Kiep
Leading people and organisations can be challenging enough in fast-paced environments and operational interdependencies spanning the globe. Add opportunities for unprecedented growth or an international crisis to the mix, and leadership is likely to face its ultimate challenge.
Mathias Kiep, CFO and Board Member of the TUI Group, faced both of these challenges within a 3-year period. While preparing for the company’s strongest year in history, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. With stakes in hotels, cruise ships, aircrafts and travel experiences, the TUI Group’s operational complexities skyrocketed overnight and were followed by months and months of lockdowns, travel warnings, travel bans and restricted reopenings, making the pandemic the first black swan event of Mathias’ career.
Speaking at ESCP Berlin Campus to a select group of 80 VIP guests, Executive MBA and Executive Master students, he talked about his own struggles - both external and motivational - as a Chief Financial Officer in a volatile, unpredictable environment.
“The pandemic taught me acceptance”, Mathias said. You cannot fight something that’s so much bigger than you, but once you acknowledge the situation you are in, and are willing to deal with everything that it brings along, things will get easier.
Highlighting the importance of communication and strong leadership, his advice to the group was: “Get everyone to the table, from decision-makers to junior team members.” This will create ownership in people, and reduce redundancies and misunderstandings in communication, since everyone knows what is expected or needed of them. In fact, in his experience at TUI, talents who accepted the situation were able to use it as a way for growth, as the exposure in this situation was something out of the ordinary.
Going hand-in-hand with communication and leadership, he concluded his speech by raising the importance of strategy, operation, and finance departments needing to fit and adapt their approaches regularly to the complex, fast-paced external environment.
The evening was rounded out by closing remarks from ESCP Campus Dean Prof. Dr. Frank Jacob, and a networking event in the Forum, where the new cohort of the Executive Master in Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership held an exhibition with their artworks from the Improbable workshop.
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