Takeaways from Janina Kugel, former Labor Director and member of the Executive Board at Siemens

Janina Kugel is likely one of the most visible female managers in Germany. She first worked as Chief Human Resources Officer for Osram, a Siemens subsidiary. In 2013, the then CEO Josef Käser (Joe Kaeser) brought her to Siemens and put her in charge of personnel strategy and leadership development. This meant she was responsible for 372,000 Siemens employees.

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Janina Kugel: Main takeaways

In February 2015, Janina Kugel was appointed Labor Director and joined the Siemens Executive Board. At 45, she was the youngest board member. At the same time, she was the mother of twins.

Kugel stands for fresh, innovative ideas, an open and flexible approach to people, and standing up for the ideas she represented on the board. She positioned herself in front of employees to explain why a site had to close if necessary, answering questions even in difficult situations. She has also always championed women and careers.

In 2018, she was named “Prima inter Pares” by a jury listing the 100 most influential women in the German economy, an initiative of Manager Magazin and Boston Consulting Group. In January 2020, she left the Siemens Executive Board at the end of her contract.

Today, Kugel sits on supervisory boards at companies like TUI, the Pensions-Sicherungs-Verein, and Finnish company Konecranes. She continues to advocate for equal opportunities in career development.

On October 22, 2025, the Wirtschaftsjunioren Lindau-Westallgäu invited Janina Kugel to the “Lindau Economic Talks.” She came across as warm, empathetic, and grounded, without any arrogance.

Below are the key takeaways from her talk and the discussion moderated by Daniel Müller:

Germany as a business location

• Germany needs immigration into the labor market, but the national debate is not helping.
• Young people today are much more open than before. They dare to say things I would not have said at that age.
• Minijobs, contribution-free health insurance for spouses, and joint taxation for married couples are not helpful for the German labor market.
• We must reduce the number of young people who leave school without a qualification. In the future, we will need more, not fewer, qualified workers.

Takeaways for professionals

• A major challenge is that a lot of work involves corporate politics. In a leadership role, about 30 percent of your time goes to politics, and only 70 percent to actual content. Unfortunately, this is unproductive.
• Make sure you sleep enough. I slept about 6 hours during my active career. You can function like that, but you are constantly tired.
• My personal mantra is: “It will be fine.”
• Reflect on what you failed at. Only then do you understand why something did not work out.
• I always saw coaching as my personal luxury.
• I am very structured and organized, both at work and in private life. My husband sometimes gets annoyed when I send him an Outlook invitation for private appointments.
• I work a lot with lists and send myself emails whenever I do not want to forget something.
• To every 30 year old I say: Listen to what you want, not to what others expect.
• You can change every decision in your life: job, partner, house. Only children are permanent.

Takeaways for leaders

• As a leader, you must like people and be willing to engage with them. You need empathy and the ability to take others along.
• Leadership does not mean being louder, it means being clearer. You must set a clear direction.
• Managing is easy when things go well. I spent most of my career restructuring, which meant laying off people. You must communicate clearly in those situations.
• A leader must lead by example and drive cultural change. Present your ideas yourself. You can send others to announce bad news, but that is cowardly. Stand there, explain your decisions, and tell people why.
• Leadership needs a new mindset with more horizontal collaboration. When you trust people and involve them, they give back a lot. People are intrinsically motivated to achieve something.
• Leaders should give feedback and receive feedback. Both matter. Feedback should be about strengths as well as criticism.
• Create platforms for honest dialogue where little is filtered out. Build systems that enable real communication. (Kugel introduced HR Cafés at Siemens for global digital exchange.)
• Broad networks deliver better solutions than discussions within a small leadership circle.

Steering the economy

• Changing economic structures means building new things and reducing or changing old ones.
• When making analyses, ask tough questions and take employees along. Explain why change is necessary, especially in uncertain times.
• We must decide what still needs to be done manually and what technology can take over.
• When AI is used, you must ensure that the data AI learns from is free of bias. That is how we build a better work environment.
• Always give people the chance to develop and upskill.
• For parents, flexibility at work becomes extremely important. (Kugel introduced more flexibility at Siemens.)

Courage is great!

• You must have the courage to do things differently, even if they do not always succeed.
• Big changes usually happen when you step outside your comfort zone.
• The German word “zumuten” contains “Mut” (courage). If employees are asked to accept pay cuts so others can keep their jobs, leadership must do the same. Only then is it seen as fair.
• I love the mountains. The older I get, the more I enjoy spending time without meeting anyone.

Many of these insights are also presented in Janina Kugel’s inspiring book published in February 2023:

„It’s now: Leben, führen, arbeiten – Wir kennen die Regeln, jetzt ändern wir sie“

 

Photo: ©Siemens, 2017

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