A conversation with Juergen Maier CBE
We spoke with the amazing Juergen Maier in October 2023. The event was hosted at Social Refuge, the newest queer space in Manchester, and sponsored by Crowe UK. You can watch it back here.
In October 2023 we welcomed Juergen Maier to the Pride in Leadership stage. Juergen is former Chief Executive of Siemens UK, industrialist and advocate of social value (see his bio below).
He spoke passionately about equity and inclusion, and gave us insight into leadership at the highest level of big business.
Watch it back:
Photos from the night
Browse the gallery on Flickr here
Huge thanks to Crowe UK for their support!
About Juergen
Industrialist, Chair of the Digital Catapult, Co-founder of vocL and former Chief Executive of Siemens UK.
In his various roles, Juergen Maier supports the drive for the green re-industrialisation of the North of England. He advises tech start-up and scale-up businesses which are a key part of the industrial ecosystem creating the green 4th Industrial revolution.
Juergen joined Siemens in 1986 as a graduate engineer with a BSc in production engineering from Nottingham Trent University, on a Siemens-sponsored graduate programme. Apart from to his very close friends, Juergen remained closeted during his student years. He did however join the LGBT+ activist movements fighting prejudice against AIDS and later in the 1980’s against Section 28, a homophobic piece of legislation introduced by the then Conservative Government. Whilst it wasn’t great, the lack of social media, made it easier for Juergen to lead such a double life back then, and he was never spotted by his employer on Gay activist marches!
He remained closeted at work for his first 20 years at Siemens, fearing it would affect his chance of career progression. When he did come out at work, he was already holding senior positions, and used that privilege to help start an LGBT+ inclusivity movement within Siemens. When Juergen became Chief Executive of Siemens UK in July 2014, he asked his senior team at the annual leadership conference, if they felt, there were people in the organisation today, having to live a closeted life, like he felt had to, for 20 years. The silence in the room, was a clear yes to that question. This started a movement, with Juergen determined that everyone working at Siemens UK could bring their whole self to work. Juergen now views this as one of his proudest achievements in his career, way beyond all the wonderful orders and projects he helped deliver, for UK’s industrial infrastructure, although many of them are quite spectacular.
Juergen decided to step down from his corporate career in December 2019, to focus on broader industrial and social value creation projects like vocL, which he has co-founded with the purpose of empowering business leaders, especially future leaders, to be better communicators, be morally brave & focus on creating value for society.
He was awarded a CBE in the New Years honours list 2019.
