Catherine von Fürstenberg-Dussmann clarifies her origins and her current state of mind with the most concise of greetings: "Hi!" she belts out beaming at the start of the conversation, with CEO Wolf-Dieter Adlhoch at her side. Two hours later, she will continue to admit in a good mood that she has "already had a few CEOs" in the company, but that just didn't fit.
Uwe Marx
Editor in business.
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"And why should you continue something that doesn't fit?" With Adlhoch, she has "finally found the right person" to lead the Berlin-based Dussmann Group. With her, the former wife of founder Peter Dussmann, who died in 2013, in a central role. As the main heir and chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Peter Dussmann Foundation.
"I became the CEO overnight, even though I didn't intend to," says the American, who was once a student in Denver, an actress in London, a model and married Peter Dussmann in her late twenties in 1980. "But I wanted to fill this new role actively and not passively from the beginning." This is also the case in the conversation at the company's Berlin headquarters, below the well-known Dussmann cultural department store with all its books, films and events, above the modern offices of this building service provider with a turnover of around 2.3 billion euros and 65,000 employees. And in the decision-making committees anyway: "I bear responsibility for this company," she says. "I can't just sit on the Board of Trustees and listen." It's no different in board meetings.
"I would call our business complex, not complicated"
The fact that Catherine von Fürstenberg-Dussmann is operationally tightly involved has recently been pushed into the background for a short time. There was mainly talk of the inheritance dispute with her daughter. A court hearing in Berlin, which was in favor of the mother, had brought this long dispute back into focus. It was about an amended will by the already ill Peter Dussmann and the question of who is entitled to what. There are a few more facets to this unpleasant family history, but Catherine von Fürstenberg-Dussmann essentially keeps it this way: The day-to-day business in the company is not affected, so there is nothing further to comment on. She speaks as an entrepreneur. Not as a mother, widow or participant in the proceedings.
Private matters don't have to flow into the company as well, it's complicated enough. Even if CEO Adlhoch disagrees: "I would call our business complex, not complicated." The so-called facility management, with which Dussmann became big and bigger and is mostly associated – i.e. building technology, cleaning, security, greening and so on – is just one of several business areas. "Food Services" is another, catering for companies, daycare centers, schools, seniors, patients.
"We are now a technical company"
This is where the more than one hundred retirement and nursing homes that Dussmann operates under the name Kursana come into play. And sometimes very prominent customers. The company is silent about them, but pictures are circulating on the Internet of Elon Musk biting into a so-called Gigaburger at his Tesla factory in Grünheide – fried in a Dussmann food truck.
In order to take complexity to the extreme, Dussmann is now also active in technical plant engineering under the name "Technical Solutions", which includes planning, construction, maintenance and repair, for example for electrical engineering, elevator technology, refrigeration and air conditioning technology.