There’s a time for everything

Many of you will know the words from Ecclesiastes: For everything there is a season. My time at KWS ends this December, and that marks the start of a new chapter in my life.

Since I can’t say farewell to all of you in person, I’ll try to express a few final thoughts here.

Many highlights have stuck in my memory – wonderful encounters, unique occasions and experiences in so many countries I’ve been able to get to know, always coupled with the challenge of developing or creating new business models. Yet there were also lowlights, even painful disappointments, but in hindsight they were just as important a part of my life-long learning curve – although I can honestly say that I could have done without them.

I’d like to share one lesson I have learned with you: A powerful energy flows from trust and the delegation of responsibility. That has always inspired me, not only when I started my career at KWS in 1986 as Head of Sales for a number of small markets in Europe and for China and Japan, but also later when I had the honor of taking over as head of the Corn Division and then as head of the BU Corn Europe/Asia, focusing on China, in the past months. Delegating responsibility, but also shouldering responsibility – that’s a core component of KWS’ brand essence “Make Yourself Grow.”

I’ve always tried not to take myself too seriously, but to give employees room to develop and opportunities to succeed and to support them in that.

Another – really trivial – principle that has always guided me is that you need to focus on customers, not just in terms of the constant question of what service they will ultimately pay us for, but also thinking every day where we can improve our supply chain, what our strengths are, and how we can stand out from our competitors – always from the customer’s perspective.

Our customers and employees are spread far and wide over many countries. They sometimes have different values and different cultural roots. Respecting that became more and more important for me as we expanded our international activities. After all, it’s people in all their facets that ultimately sustain our business.

I have mainly devoted my entire career at KWS to one crop: corn. You may therefore well appreciate that I wish KWS every continued success with this wonderful plant in particular and hope it keeps contributing to the KWS Group’s growth, naturally together with all the other crops that help farmers worldwide operate profitably.

A future with many new challenges awaits us. I wish you the expertise and passion needed to overcome them, the ability to accomplish the coming changes quickly, an appreciation of the benefits of an open corporate culture, and the luck you need – although you can influence that a bit by your everyday actions. Stay optimistic and healthy in these exceptional times.

Best regards,
Dirk Augustin |