Manager outlook: This is what 2023 will be like

SAccording to Forbes magazine, she is one of the 100 most powerful women in the world: Belén Garijo, CEO of the pharmaceutical and technology company Merck . In fact, the Spaniard thinks outside the box of her company – and her forecast is: “2023 will be a very challenging year.” You are on the brink of a global recession, inflation is shaping consumer demand and increasing costs, rising interest rates are an additional burden. But pessimism is not Garijo’s thing: “Science and technology will continue to be a decisive factor for human progress in the future.”

Of course, the Dax group she controls should play an important role, especially since Merck is active in dynamic and promising markets. The 62-year-old manager and doctor not only gives hope to herself, but also to patients. She expects “major breakthroughs in personalized patient care, digital health, advances in the lab of the future.” Right in the middle: the family company Merck, almost 355 years old.

“2023 will be a year of change for me”

It could hardly be more turbulent – ​​one could also say: chaotic: Helen Giza has been at the helm of the dialysis provider since St. Nicholas Day FMC, subsidiary of the Fresenius health care group and listed as such in the Dax. The 54-year-old manager must revitalize the troubled company, which sees itself as a global leader in kidney disease products and services.

It is understandable that Giza says: “2023 will be a year of change for me.” For the turnaround at FMC, the operating model is being changed instead of regionally with two global areas. And personally? “After the pandemic, I enjoy having a personal exchange again.” As a working mother, the New Work model of home office and online meetings as well as personal presence suits her well. For her, it was “the ideal opportunity to do justice to my roles as CEO, mother and wife”.

For Evelyn Palla, 2023 will be “a year of upheaval for local public transport”. The South Tyrolean should know that, as she sits on the board of directors German train, responsible for regional transport. The 49-year-old does not only understand the 49-year-old to mean “upheaval” with the 49-euro ticket with which Germans will probably also be able to travel on DB regional trains from April. Above all, she points to technical advances: “While many people look to the USA when it comes to autonomous driving, we in Germany are already one step ahead.”

The technical and legal requirements are there “to integrate autonomously driving vehicles into our local public transport”. What does that mean specifically? “This is above all good news for the 55 million people who live in rural areas and don’t have a bus stop in front of their door.” “People will also be able to travel in rural areas in such a way that they no longer miss their own car.” The goal: good train services, supplemented by buses, self-driving cars, electric scooters and bicycles. “And connect everything in such a way that they are always part of our everyday lives with ease and reliability.”