How much progress can the world stand?

About limits, chances, new thinking and the creative solutions
in tomorrow's management

Keynote-Speaker Daniel Goeudevert at the DESMA Open House 2008

How much progress can the world stand? This question is being posed by Daniel Goeudevert as keynote speaker at the DESMA Open House and he is going to elaborate on his view of the outlooks of industrial society under the dictates of dwindling raw materials and increasing environmental issues. He is also looking at the imminent change in technology and paradigms in a steadily changing world and at challenges and markets of the future. Among the demands resulting from this for elastomer industry, Goeudevert counts the environmental protection, the social factor and modern moral understandings. He cautions against short-winded location hopping à la Nokia - not only because higher salaries are sooner or later being fought for in low-wage countries as well - but also due to the great willingness to change employer within the well-trained staff in the Third World. Here he identifies new demands on enterprises' management. "Innovations are still crucial" says Goeudevert, "but the people are the most important factor. They are much more important than the product".

Ideas for a new mindset

Contrast program: Daniel Goeudevert as guest at the DESMA Open House 2008   Abstract »

Personal data of Daniel Goeudevert

Remarkable lateral thinker, colourful personality, business visionary - so far nobody managed to pigeonhole Daniel Goeudevert, since the French automotive manager and business consultant does not fit into any pattern. The career of the sixty-six-year old started off with studies and degree in literature at the Sorbonne in Paris followed by a job as university lecturer for literature. In the mid-sixties he switched over to the automotive industry, within a few years he marched through Citroën and eventually was appointed Chairman of the Board of Citroën Germany. In 1975 he became Chairman of the Board at the German Renault AG, later Export Director Europe of the company. From 1981 until 1989 he acted as Chairman of the Board at the German Ford Werke, then he resigned and founded a German counterpart of the Harvard Business School. In 1991 Goeudevert returned to the executive floor of the automobile industry and as Chairman of the Board for the model division he stirred up the management committee of Volkswagen AG. There his dedication to the human side of the business, to the development of eco-friendly cars and the expansion of public transport encountered so much resistance that he left the group in 1993. Since then, he has been committed as lecturer, advisor and author to creative management approaches. Goeudevert's autobiography and other of his books hit the bestseller lists, he was decorated with the French Legion of Honour and the German Federal Cross of Merit and holds an office at European environmental protection and economy foundations and at the UNECSO.

Foto (c) Claus Sautter

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