Dr. Bernd Geier | Founder & Managing Director
Foundation and development of marenas
In May 2008, I was standing in front of the notary, who wanted to know what I wanted to call my consulting firm: ‘marenas’ – that was the result of intense discussions at a bar in Munich’s Schwabing district the night before. The sea and the sandy beach – el mar (e) las arenas – here, entrepreneurial vision and fluid inspiration for finding a name flowed together into a common goal. But at least it’s a nice vision, right?
The first few years of a start-up were just as you would imagine them to be. A backyard office with leaky windows, cold in winter, hot in summer, a second-hand coffee machine, office furniture from the DIY store on the one hand – demanding, first global customers in the automotive industry with questions about process management and classic project/programme management on the other. With half a dozen employees, we wanted to show from the outset that high-quality consulting and delivery are the keys to success, and we faced the tough competition – successfully. Some of our customers from back then still trust us today, even though their questions and challenges are no longer comparable.
As a small boutique consultancy, we were forced early on to join forces with other consultancies in order to be able to tackle complex issues at all. Out of necessity, we learned early on how a successful consulting ecosystem works – and what is important. Much of it seems so simple and self-evident at first glance – but the effort involved should not be underestimated: Honesty, appreciation, resilience, transparency, the ability to let go, delegation, humour, mindfulness, tolerance of ambiguity… all values that have become part of marenas’ DNA and are evident today not only in our collaboration with many partners, but also in our interactions with colleagues and customers.
Today, we are one of Germany’s most award-winning consulting firms – a medium-sized consultancy that has made a name for itself in various industries. This fills us with pride, but also with a great deal of energy to achieve even more. We have just entered into an important strategic partnership with the DataArt Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning and see disruptive changes coming to German and international industry, for which we need to find answers today. And to quote Pippi Longstocking and conclude:
There are still so many exciting things out there just waiting to be discovered.
The future starts today – make it happen!