A native of Germany, Ulrich has studied, lived and worked in the USA, France, Switzerland and Kenya. He runs a consulting boutique in Germany working mostly with Private Equity firms who invest in European financial technology. Previously, Ulrich worked for McKinsey & Company, a German wholesale bank and a Swiss software provider. He is a trained industrial engineer and also a graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Ulrich serves as a volunteer in his local community and also on the Board of Trustees of AFS Intercultural Programs. In his spare time, he is a dedicated musician and an enthusiastic cyclist. Ulrich and his family live in the Frankfurt metropolitan area in Germany.
Ulrich Voss will facilitate a workshop titled, “Strategic Planning for Young Entrepreneurs.”
Social Entrepreneurs not only face the same economic realities and organizational challenges as conventional businesses, but need to navigate complex stakeholder as well as social and legal boundary conditions. Strategic management is therefore a key skill and method for social entrepreneurs.
In this hands-on workshop, we will introduce a pragmatic framework for strategic management and bring it to life with a case study. We will look at “Tisch & Teller “ (“table & plate”), a social department store run by a charity in Germany. It pursues multiple social objectives: It wants to bring back long-term unemployed people into the regular labor market by providing a meaningful and qualifying job. It collects donated household goods, gets them into shape and sells them in its department store which is open to the entire public, but provides substantial discounts to people in social and financial duress.
We will work through the framework step-by-step and illustrate how “Tisch & Teller” can be managed strategically. We will cover topics like sales & distribution, products & services; personnel and non-personnel ressources; operations; stakeholders and governance.
No prior business knowledge is required.