Finalist

Male Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year Award

Brian P. Rüeger

Finalist of the Male Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year Award

Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) - Switzerland

"Where science and business create value and many new jobs."


Engage on social media

@imm_zhaw
(Institute of Marketing Management Twitter Account)
@zhaw
(University Twitter account)
@sml_zhaw
(Twitter account School of Management and Law)

Have a say and vote for this entry to win the People's Choice Award!


Registered vote
500 points per vote

Provide your email address and click on "vote". You will then receive an email that enables you to verify your vote by clicking on a link.

 
Social media vote
1500 points per tweet. 500 points per retweet. 250 points for a like.

Support this entry by engaging with it on Twitter. Tweet or retweet using the following two hashtags to support this entry (use both hashtags in the same Tweet). Also, if you "like" an existing Tweet with these hashtags, the entry gets points.
#ACEEU_Awards
#2023Entry440

Live voting at Awards Ceremony
7500 points per vote

Join the Awards Ceremony online and vote live for this entry. Register here and we will send you a reminder and streaming link closer to the event.

The Award Ceremony for this entry (award category "Male Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year ") will take place on 27 June 2023, 17:30 to 18:30 CEST.

Summary

As Head of the Institute I have implemented and proven my entrepreneurial competencies and leadership across all my university activities, as well as throughout external activities by leading by example and enabling companies, students, employees, scientists, start-ups and entrepreneurs to develop strong entrepreneurial competencies and leadership.
Over the past 10 years I have grown the institute from a handful of employees to a lighthouse organisation within the ZHAW. Today the institute is a very healthy, highly profitable, modern and dynamic scientific organisation having a very strong impact on realizing science to business transfer but also working in the other direction from business to science. The vision of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences is to become the “Entrepreneurial University of Switzerland”. I have implemented this vision in the most radical way by not just talking about entrepreneurship but by doing and by proving entrepreneurial success in multiple cases. The leadership approach used is strongly guided by the principles of servant leadership. This results in the fact that the institute of marketing management is set-up and run like a start-up company, students are supported to have an entrepreneurial impact, start-ups are supported with innovation cheques (instrument from the Swiss government for the promotion of economic development, Innosuisse), employees are supported to generating new ideas and launching spin-offs and finally seven labs are used as platforms for co-creation and dialogue between science and business, resulting in value being generated on both sides, unleashing the potential in connecting science and business.

Key People


Members of the institute of marketing management
Employees of the IMM
Institute of Marketing Management,  Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)



Prof. Dr. Jean-Marc Piveteau
Dean
ZHAW,  ZHAW



Prof. Dr. Reto Steiner
Dean
School of Management & Law,  ZHAW



Dr. Catherine Crowden
CEO & co-founder
Start-up > 12 employees in 2 years and profitable in 18 months,  BMQ Partners AG



Thomas Gautschi
CEO & entrepreneur & founder
Start-up > 60 employees in 5 years and profitable in 12 months,  Anex Ingenieure AG


Acknowledgements

Further acknowledgements are made to Prof. Mireille Troesch (my former boss and sponsor at the ZHAW) and to Marc A. Woog (my co-founder of bmd wireless AG, my first successful start-up).

Images

IMPACT STORY

Impacting lifes

Prof. Dr. Frank Hannich (Deputy Head IMM, ZHAW): “Brian leads by setting an example and by having a very strong business instinct in everything he does. He loves to help employees to grow und students to have an impact within or outside of their company. With the lead of Brian, the Institute of Marketing Management has grown from a small 5 FTE unit to the leading and unparalleled Swiss marketing institute amongst all Swiss universities.”
Dr. Catherine Crowden (CEO BMQ Partners AG): “Brian has supported and encouraged me to start BMQ as CEO more than two years ago. He trusted my capabilities and has helped as co-founder, core investor and president of the board of directors to develop and implement a strong vision, mission and strategy for BMQ. Brian is a people person, fast thinker and a great strategist. Our start-up has reached profitability already in our second year of operation with 12 FTEs.”
Thomas Gautschi (CEO Anex Ingenieure AG): “As president of the board of directors, Brian has helped us from day one to grow up to 60 FTEs in just five years with four different subsidiaries across Switzerland supporting every phase of our business and showing competences needed to reduce company risks as well as to grow in a very structured way. With also investing in our company, Brian has demonstrated strong personal commitment as well as involvement and a high level of trust in our capabilities. With Brian, Anex has become the most modern engineering company in our field of operations in Switzerland.”
Sandro Graf (Head Customer Experience): “Brian has implemented the idea of using labs as a platform for dialogue and co-creation with companies outside the university. The service lab has helped more than 100 companies to generate new ideas by using the design thinking methodology. Today it also serves as role model for six different new labs within the Institute.”

LEARNINGS

Lessons learned

I am a big fan of the servant leadership principles: empathy, healing, self-awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people and building community. Amazing what can happen, when you put trust instead of control, maximise bottom-up and minimize top-down, allow more outside in than inside out, demonstrate passion to help, empower your employees, trust in what they could become and develop a strong purpose together with the employees for the whole organization.

FUTURE PLANS

What's coming?

As we move forward into a world that is much more complex and dynamic, it feels like we have a lot more before than behind us. Science organisations and businesses must cope with the VUCA world. Both could be brought closer together where boundaries between science organisations and businesses start vanishing. To get there, the institute will connect many more dots between science and business. We will further grow our competences, increase our absorptive capacities and collaborative capabilities. The ecosystem will become more complex and more fascinating. Our labs will work as facilitator for more co-creation and more dialogue. We must also rethink the way we teach today, how we can increase on the job training as well as learning and the impact of students overall. There is so much more potential when science and business jointly unveil value and there are many more jobs that will be created on both sides. The result will be a rich landscape of collaboration, of innovation and student empowerment.


KEY STATISTICS

19.5%

Average growth rate per year over the last 10 years

> 1.6 million Euro

Profit generated in 2021 by the Institute

> 6 million Euro

Turnover in 2021 by the Institute

> 100 jobs

More than 100 new jobs created in the last 5 years inside and outside the Institute and the ZHAW

> 42 FTEs

Grown to the largest and leading institute of marketing in Switzerland

7 Centers

Built 7 different centers with a marketing focus

7 Labs

Built 7 labs as platforms for co-creation and dialogue between science and business

483 students

483 students in further education in marketing only in 2021

> 500 businesses

Connected more than 500 businesses to science in the last 5 years

> 1’000 community members

Grown the largest marketing community for lifelong learning in marketing in the last 2 years

Satisfaction of 8.3 (scale 1-10) and NPS > 60

Highest satisfaction level. The employees of the institute are measured twice a year on their satisfaction level and net promotor score

2024 © ACEEU. All rights reserved.