Ms. Schmitt, please summarize your first 99 days as the new Executive Board Member for Sales & Marketing at Dornbracht in one sentence.
My first 99 days were inspiring, dynamic, educational, intense and exciting. I really enjoyed interacting with the team and also took on overall responsibility at Dornbracht – a company whose products and brand heritage are unparalleled.
What impression did you get of the company in the first few weeks?
Dornbracht has a strong brand with a large international presence, especially in architecture and interior design. Our products are unique and are manufactured with great dedication by our employees. The entire team welcomed me warmly and infected me with their spirit – their enthusiasm for the brand and the products. This inspires and motivates me every day and is the ideal starting point for working together on something great!
What surprised you the most?
The pride in the brand and the attention to detail, for example in the products and the associated quality, can be felt throughout the company. That is very unusual.
What hurdle did you not expect?
In my opinion, the sanitary industry has one of the most complex and heterogeneous target group structures – from end users to architects and designers to property developers, investors and hotel operators as well as specialist retailers and tradespeople. There are also two- and three-tier markets, i.e. a large number of decision-makers who have very different information needs in the various trading, planning and construction phases. We are active in over 125 markets and have 20 of our own branches in a wide variety of cultures. This makes positioning and communication very complex in marketing and sales.
How does the corporate culture at Dornbracht differ from that in your previous places of work?
The corporate culture at Dornbracht is one of solidarity, very cooperative, inspired and, above all, international. Due to the close ties to the architecture and design scene, creativity plays an important role. For me, it is an incredibly exciting and pleasant mix. In the future, I would like to use this as a basis for promoting exchange and transparency within the company, creating places for encounters and thus creating a culture in which intrapreneurship, togetherness and ingenuity are central anchors.
What were your first change measures?
I am currently still in the induction phase and want to get to know every corner of the company, want to know what decision-making processes and processes look like and be able to understand why things are the way they are. To do this, I am talking to long-standing employees, but also to colleagues who have only been part of the team for a few months. This is the only way I can take on different perspectives and viewpoints and get a comprehensive picture. That takes time – and I owe this time to the company and the entire team. Because Dornbracht has an incredibly strong foundation that we have to handle carefully. In my first 99 days, a lot has changed for me in the company, as I took over management in July. We will build on the solid foundation and help the brand to shine again. And I am incredibly excited about that!
What further plans do you have for the Dornbracht company?
At Dornbracht, we are pursuing a clear, profitable growth strategy, which I will continue and expand. This includes sharpening the brand positioning as well as the areas of market expansion, product development and technical innovation, partnerships and cooperation, digitization and digital transformation. Topics such as employee development and corporate culture are also particularly important to me, as are sustainability and CSR.
What were the first concrete steps along this path?
The most important step for me was the exchange with the entire team. The insights from these discussions have provided many starting points. We are already working on various topics to find new ideas for innovations, products, processes and structures, for example. Of course, we are also refining the mission statement and strategy in the process.
The topic of AI is a good example. Here we have defined new use cases and already implemented some quick wins. In marketing in particular, given the complexity of the target groups described, this results in many exciting new solutions.
If you could wish for something: What would one say about the combination of Caroline Schmitt and Dornbracht?
That it is a successful symbiosis that, in line with Dornbracht’s potential, has led to a strong luxury brand with increased global relevance and market share gains. And that we have enriched and delighted customers, partners and employees alike by creating added value.
This interview was conducted in writing.
Anna Lena Hartmann
Anna Lena Hartmann (alh, born in 1997) has been a working student at absatzwirtschaft since August 2023. Raised in the green heart of Germany, she now lives in Leipzig to study German. Before that, she spent several years at the law faculty of the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. Her broad range of knowledge and interests cover topics such as sports, business and health.
