Only those who are ready to sever ties and leave, may break free from crippling habituation; or so the translated verses of a well-known German poem go. And in the imagery of a journey and departure into new, exciting tasks, I see many parallels to my life over the past weeks.
I am Helmut Binder, 53, and the new CEO of Paessler AG.
In this role, I follow Christian Twardawa, to whom I will address personal words further below. But first, a few sentences about myself:
I studied Business Administration in Cologne and in Tokyo. After various management assignments in the electronics and telecommunications sector, I worked in the IT industry for 15 years and spent a lot of my professional life in international markets. The last 10 years I worked for two privately-owned mid-sized German companies. Before joining Paessler, I served as the CEO of the IT services and software specialist Materna, where I took over the CEO role from the two founders.
I enjoy the individual culture and processes in privately-owned companies, because agile teams with the freedom to innovate usually develop the best outcomes. And I’m happy to encounter precisely this culture here at Paessler. Of course, my time in Japan also had a strong influence on me. For instance, I like the way in which people do business in Japan. There are attempts to include everyone in a team-oriented and transparent manner, and thorough preparation is followed by consistent implementation.
Talking to Dirk Paessler, the founder and first CEO of Paessler, is something I've done in great detail over the past weeks, and I could sense every second the passion that he feels for his work. He is not only the mastermind behind PRTG, but also a kind of company talisman to all those employees who worked for the company during his time as CEO. His successor, Christian Twardawa, took over Dirk’s role with confidence and success, pointing the way into the future. His departure on September 30th, 2019 corresponds to his personal life plans. When he announced his leaving, I was very moved by the authenticity of Paessler employees that showed how much everyone at Paessler will miss Christian. Personally, I want to thank Christian, mainly for giving me the opportunity to start my job in such a healthy, agile company, as well as my other board colleagues Dr. Marc Roessel and Steven Feurer and the team leads for their friendly welcome.
Paessler is a remarkable company and I’m looking forward to actively shaping its further success. In the context of changing requirements in the core IT monitoring market, Paessler will continue to be innovative and agile. The identification of new customer segments means an excellent basis for our development. For large environments (where customers want architectural flexibility in a single annual subscription license and access to premium support), we just announced the PRTG PLUS license. And new markets like the Internet of Things mean an enormous opportunity as well. The expansion of our offering into market segments such as environmental monitoring, healthcare and Smart City, allow us to contribute to some of the biggest global challenges of our time
But even in the pursuit of further growth we will certainly not neglect the ambition of our founder Dirk: to build the company we want to work for.