Das with the build-up of tension works very well. “Some sad news today”. Verena Bahlsen begins her Linkedin post on Monday with this short sentence, and one immediately wonders what else is pregnant with meaning and sadness. After all, everyone found out on Friday that Bahlsen had found a new boss in Alexander Kühnen and that the 29-year-old great-granddaughter of founder Hermann Bahlsen was retiring from her active role in the biscuit company. What follows is a very personal farewell, with some startling confessions. “I was often ashamed when you could see me anxious, overwhelmed, or insecure.”
By Tuesday afternoon, around 3,000 people had given symbols of applause and approval to the long post, which would certainly have been two typewritten pages, and the photo, and more than 200 people had commented on Verena Bahlsen’s confession. “I had goosebumps reading it,” writes one and begins to talk about his failure as an entrepreneur. “Respect” is a common word in the comments.
More openly than one reads when managers or even family members say goodbye to positions of responsibility, Verena Bahlsen reports in detail about her excessive demands. “I was standing in a wheat field with our boss and had a panic attack,” she writes verbatim and goes on to say that she cried in meetings, that she was unfriendly or impatient and cold and hard in the wrong situations. All of that, “those shitty moments”, may have created a more intense relationship with her colleagues, she reflects and thanks her for the way she was carried, in her struggle to find her role properly: “You have me so much taught.”
With a wink, the biscuit heiress then explains that this step is a small one for humanity, but a movement of tectonic proportions for herself: “My identity is inseparably interwoven with Bahlsen, the tradition and the brands.” And then the young ex- Entrepreneur used the career portal exactly for the purpose for which so many use it: to find the best starting position for the future.
Her apparently intensive practical experience since 2015 is based on considerable theory: she studied business management at King’s College in London and then “media, culture and communication” at New York University. The offers should not come too quickly, writes Bahlsen. It takes her a few weeks to go surfing, sit on the beach and be highly unproductive.
