Meet our experts! Today: Ellen Hitschler!
Our startups are, of course, experts for the circular economy. Nevertheless, they could also profit from exchange with other experts. That's what we are offering our Green Alley Award finalists in our so-called expert sessions! In these sessions, circulareconomy as well as startup experts provide hands-on advice and the startups will get the possibility to enlarge their network and to profit from knowledge of other experienced professionals.
Today we introduce our expert Ellen Hitschler, who is Chief Country General Manager at DS Entsorgung, which is a Landbell Group company. She has been working in various leading position and can give advice on how to set up a company and how to implement and structure administrative and financial processes. Find out more in her interview!
What is your professional background and how will it help you to be a startup advisor for the Green Alley Award finalists?
I have been working in different kinds of environmental and waste management companies for nearly 30 years. In this sector I had the chance to contribute to setting up and building companies, implementing processes, restructuring companies, or selling them. This helps me to ask the right questions to find out, where the startup might need to put more focus on or where to optimize structures and processes.
Most of the things you have to consider when starting a business, you don’t learn in any school. So, generally speaking, in what way could entrepreneurs profit from mentors or advisors like you?
Entrepreneurs can ask any questions and I will try to help them with my practical experience. They can profit from reports about major mistakes and how to avoid them or about successes and how to gain them. And they can discuss processes or optimization alternatives as well as their pros and cons with me.
When founding a startup one can have the perfect idea and the best conditions but still fail to be successful. As execution is key, what are you as an expert looking for in an entrepreneur, his team and his business idea?
The entrepreneur not only needs to be convinced of his startup idea, but he also needs to have the grip or willingness to push it through against all obstacles. Quite often there is not “the” easy way to realize a business project or opportunity. If an entrepreneur shows tenacity and persistence, he will overcome a longer lean spell and be less affected by it. Together with a team of similarly convinced colleagues with complementary skills, this increases the chances for a success story.
The Green Alley Award is all about circular startups. In your opinion, which are the key challenges for a circular economy in Europe?
One of the key challenges is to bring all relevant parties with the necessary qualifications together at one table! One example for the missing piece is the electric car and its battery – everybody was enthusiastic that it had been invented and entered series production. But only when the first cars inflamed and the fire could not be extinguished, producers realized that nobody had spent a thought on that part.
If you had the chance to start your own business, what kind of startup would it be?
It would be something with sports and the environment….