26 October 2023
Enkelfähig Summit 2023: Jumpstarting new entrepreneurship
Premiere at Haniel's Enkelfähig Campus: On September 7 and 8, 2023, the Enkelfähig Summit took place there for the first time. The goal of the event: to bring together leading family businesses; investors and innovative founders to explore new opportunities, forge collaborations and transform the future of business - towards an economy that also takes social and environmental responsibility.
Enkelfähig Movement officially launched
The Summit set itself apart from other events of this kind. Initiator Thomas Schmidt explains: "It is quite deliberately not a sustainability event, but an event for decision-makers who come together to exchange ideas in a protected space." In other words, a safe environment where like-minded people can work out how to combine sustainability and profitability in the 21st century. With this common mission, the Summit also marked the launch of the Enkelfähig movement. Behind it are numerous players from German business – including Haniel, communications service provider Publicis Groupe, startup incubator Anthropia, IT service provider Arineo, family-owned company Reckhaus, auditing firm PwC and HR consultancy Board Partners – as well as individual supporters such as author Anders Indset, Adriana Nuneva, Chief Digital Officer at CWS, and Monika Schulz-Strelow, founding president of the "Frauen in die Aufsichtsräte" (Women on Supervisory Boards) association. They are all united by the ambition to accelerate this change – and to scale it. The Enkelfähig Summit was the perfect opportunity to win new supporters and lay the foundation for raising the new movement to a European level in the future.
One campus, two events
Parallel to the Enkelfähig Summit, the Anthropia Festival took place on campus. The festival is hosted by Germany's largest incubator & accelerator for impact startups and aims to create a place for exchange on social, environmental and economic issues. Dirk Sander, co-founder of Anthropia, on the decision to hold both events at the same time: "These are two very different generations, and we want to start a cross-generational movement." This seems to have succeeded: Around 200 decision-makers from established companies and more than 300 start-ups took advantage of the two days to share ideas, thoughts and inspiration.
To be continued
The mix of keynotes – including presentations by Dr. Eckart von Hirschhausen, Moritz Ritter and Dagmar Nixdorf – solution and experience talks, as well as an innovation space, was well received by the participants. Thomas Schmidt is optimistic: "The response has been incredibly positive. I am convinced that we will succeed in bringing enough people and companies with us on this journey." The next stop will be on July 4 and 5, 2024, when the Enkelfähig Summit returns to Duisburg.
