Leading through transformation: making change work in restructuring or M&A contexts

Understanding the specific needs of a company and align D&I with the corporate strategy and culture are strengths of Michael Stuber. We are grateful about the pragmatic as well as inspiring collaboration and value the competent, flexible and constructive consulting services of European Diversity.

Michael Stuber is always proactive and supportive. He drives through initiatives and delivers material and ideas within agreed timelines. He also shows a careful and respectful understanding for the need to work within corporate budget constraints. He is consistent in the way that he demonstrates commitment to a project and offers sound objective advice in order for companies to understand how to win over the key stakeholders.

At TX Markets, we chose Michael Stuber to support us in management training with the technology leaders across our companies. Michael was awesome to work with, he created a structured approach that allowed us to have open and thoughtful conversations about many important and difficult topics. He led us to design our own approach in a collaborative way. With so much experience and knowledge in the topic, he was able to guide us on a journey that fostered open-mindedness, a feeling of psychological safety, and a business-focused approach that was not bound by politics or corporate-speak. This approach helped us tackle real issues: how we can build and retain a more diverse workforce and leadership to help accelerate our innovation and tech goals.

e-Diversity is a unique and entertaining instrument which quickly trains numerous employees while dealing with issues of Diversity and Anti-Discrimination. Adaptations for specifics of our corporation were completed within a short amount of time.

Michael Stuber proved to be an exceedingly competent concept partner through the creation and execution of the blended-learning-program of ,Managing Diversity'. With his essential combination of science-based knowledge and practical experience, working with them was extremely constructive, professional and enriching.

Michael Stuber significantly helped to further develop our Diversity & Inclusion strategy. Particularly valuable was the combination of experience and knowledge of different options and constellations. Cooperating with Michael Stuber in the strategy development was just as inspiring as motivating. It has helped to increase the top managements' commitment once again. We won't renounce the support of European Diversity Research & Consulting along the implementation process.

Last year we launched a change process in order to release new potentials. Mr. Stuber accompanied this process with great professionalism. His extensive technical and methodological expertise, his experience with countless other global companies, his clarity and openness as well as his holistic approach has convinced us. With 'head, heart and hand', he has helped us to bring the launch of this comprehensive process to success.

After a few years of internal work and insight, Michael Stuber's external professional perspective, profound expertise and long-standing experience have significantly helped us to analyse our situation holistically and with all dependencies and to redesign our approach focused on vision, strategy, processes and culture in a change-oriented way. With targeted interventions at various levels, we achieved a new quality of positive reactions in just over six months. In addition, the partnership was a great enrichment for my development and always a real pleasure.

Michael Stuber brought many important strengths to our programme of focus groups and workshops. Particularly important to us were their depth of experience in the German market; their ability to offer seamless service across Germany, the UK and Central Europe; the thought leadership offered by Michael Stuber as programme leader, and the fact that all aspects of the programme were closely managed by Michael himself, ensuring quality and consistency.

Michael Stuber provided us with extremely valuable input and expertise as we are consolidating our various programmes into a new global diversity strategy. His years of experience with other leading companies as well as their international perspective and thorough understanding of relevant models allowed us to develop a solid business-driven approach and build robust stakeholder buy-in.

At the beginning of our European activities, we developed, in cooperation with Michael Stuber, a regional Statement that highlighted the specific meaning of diversity for Motorola. Furthermore, Michael compiled a very effective and innovative presentation as part of an information package for our line managers.

Working with Michael Stuber was a great experience for me. It was the first time that I felt that an external organization understands very clearly the challenges of the business, finds the right approach. He speaks the right business language and is flexible enough to adapt to global frameworks and make sure that all regional initiatives are aligned to that.

I had the privilege of working with Michael as a part of the World HRD Congress 25th Anniversary Diversity and Inclusion program. Michael prepared a special kick off program for the event that was very inspirational and helped us start the day on the right note. His fact based insights are very impactful and an asset to any diversity and inclusion program by insuring that the bottom line impacts are visible and real. He is very dedicated to meeting the needs of the conference or program and to being able to customize and still beautifully maintain the integrity of his work.

Swiss Post faced an organizational development process. The main task was to evolve our hitherto pursued focus into an integrated and holistic concept. Who could support us effectively with the necessary know-how but also with an instinct to win people? Michael Stuber makes the difference. With his background, his foresight and his empathy, we managed to position diversity as a business relevant driver.

It was a pleasure working with Michael Stuber. Indeed a resourceful and inspiring session with insightful analysis. I would recommend European Diversity to companies which are keen to capture and realise the value of diversity be it in the workplace, marketplace or consumer space and more importantly gender balanced leadership.

E.ON emerged from different companies, so that diversity is key to the integration of our group on the one hand, and it is part of our corporate identity OneE.ON on the other hand. In bringing together experts and concepts from the U.S. and Europe, Michael Stuber proved his competence in intercultural presentation and in facilitating our global development process. The expertise provides valuable assistance in the design and implementation of events and meetings.

Michael Stuber impressed me and my team not only with his expertise and abundant experience, he also quickly understands an organisation, its resources and pending challenges in a way that supports progress. He is a brilliant analyser with a holistic approach, an adaptive implementer and - when needed - an ambitious challenger. He detects contexts and causes, clarifies expectation, pinpoints objectives, makes his point clear, challenges, encourages reflection and opens up spaces to think and act. European Diversity is a go-to vendor when you and your company want to move the needle on D&I.

Nobody in Europe is more profoundly acquainted with Diversity as Michael Stuber. He creatively co-designed the ‘Diversity & Inclusion Switzerland’ conference and his facilitation was both energetic and empathetic.

The Diversity marketing approach provided by Michael Stuber represented the ideal support in order to adapt our products beyond clichéd measures for new target groups. The professional consulting helped us prepare offers for new segments that support our growth.

The foundation for the implementation of Diversity at Deutsche Telekom group is our group Diversity strategy and its key element, the group Diversity policy. Michael Stuber has been supporting us in a very professional way, always focusing on our specific business context when developing various building blocks of our strategy.

[His work] is creating a new kind of awareness and pronounced openness across all levels to actively engage in further cultural change. Michael Stuber facilitates this process with his critical view, strategic vision and with a convenient style all of which helps us to progress significantly. It is also a real pleasure working with him.

Michael Stuber is a passionate guide and role model in the space of leadership & culture. We first worked under his guidance on a bottom-up approach in which we engaged our supply chain operator population in a dialogue. Based on this population’s feedback, the need was very clear to create greater awareness around the topic with our line management population. Starting from the propelling performance principle and a framework of various biases, we trained our total supervisory population. In working with Michael, I appreciated very much his effort to tailoring messages towards our needs and his huge experience in what works and does not work in this space. He puts things in perspective, not only from a business point of view but also from a societal.

Michael has been a key enabler to organise our DEI journey. His experience and expertise combined with a very clear way of expressing his thoughts and recommendations have been highly valuable to define our DEI strategy and action plans as well as to prepare for senior management meetings. His investment in getting to know our organization and our HR processes allowed him to leverage the existing processes as ground foundations for further actions and define additional tailormade DEI initiatives. His interactions with senior management, through interviews, individual coaching or management trainings, were very relevant and impactful. It has been a pleasure working alongside with Michael over several months on diversity, equity and inclusion topics.

KfW goes through a holistic modernisation process. This also includes corporate culture and in 2012 the KfW Executive Board approved a gender balance concept as one key element of this renewal process, which was honoured with the German Human Resources Management Award in 2013. I thank Michael Stuber for his professional support in the design and the adoption of that KfW framework. He combines high technical and methodological expertise with authentic persuasion. With this skill-set he has consistently focused on the alignment of our gender balance concept to the sustainable cultural change process. At the same time, he also recognised requirements in other areas at KfW and hence contributed to a credible integration of gender balance in the overall modernisation.

Michael Stuber identified key business priorities in each of our operating companies and proposed relevant linkages with future D&I initiatives. He also showed the need to tie D&I more closely to our identity and embed it in our shared culture as well as HR processes and tools. Going further, Michael's expertise guides us to additional key considerations by uncovering and subsequently addressing hidden biases and dynamics through focus group interviews.

Michael Stuber worked with us at Arup Ireland to review our current programmes. We found Michael to be insightful, organised and very knowledgeable. Michael’s great strength lies in his face-to-face communication skills and his ability to communicate complex topics to any audience. Michael is able to quickly pick up on themes and underlying issues that may be more difficult for those working ‘in the business’ to see. His findings acted as a catalyst to the next step of our journey.

Michael Stuber is one of the few consultants who approaches D&I from a holistic organisational development perspective and can advise and accompany an international corporation. His broad experience and organisational diagnostic competence help us to identify what is really important or effective. His participative, strategic and future-focused style quickly creates constructive conversations in the organisation and nurtures fast and sustainable change. I have always greatly appreciated working with him as he brings smart thinking, profound experience and a soul to his projects.

European Diversity supported Evonik in three strategic projects. Michael Stuber's expertise, his experienced and critical perspective on the specifics of our company and his in-depth understanding of the relevant issues had a major impact on our work. This applied both to cultural, process and strategic analyses as well as the resulting approaches and recommendations. Our joint work is characterised by an equally forthright and trustful dialogue, which leads to constructive reflections and valuable progress.

Michael Stuber's bias workshop for our Management Team provided a deepened understanding of the scope and relevance of D&I beyond personal perception. With impressive inspiration and an adequate piece of humour, he facilitated a constructive dialogue to shape our approach to further integrate and leverage D&I in our company so that it contributes to the business. Specific insights in Unconscious Biases and pragmatic mitigation enable us to continue to be a corporate role model for D&I.

Mr. Stuber supported us very well with his extensive experience. His 'Propelling Performance Principle' helps us to move the topic of Diversity forward within our organisation. We thank him for the good cooperation.

With his competence and experience, Michael Stuber has significantly contributed to the successful development of an Infineon Diversity Network. In three workshops with the entire network and through intense collaboration with HR, we succeeded in clarifying roles, design strategies and define actions. Michael Stuber's external perspective and his ability to capture and address company specifics were major assets in the constructive development of solutions. His refreshing, to the point humour is a welcome added-value.

Michael Stuber has been supporting our continental council since January 2012. Their international experience and knowledge of the external market was hugely valuable to our business and HR members of the committee. As a consultant, Michael Stuber has helped us finding effective approaches, also in the restructuring of that committee to make it more action focused as well as aligned with business and corporate frameworks. We are grateful for the support and look forward to continue working together in our efforts to increase diversity across the organisation and help drive engagement through inclusion.

As part of our Global strategy, Symantec has created councils led by a local champion at our sites throughout Europe. Michael Stuber has assisted us in preparing and carrying out successful work meetings with our local partners while effectively acknowledging European and national specifics. He has shown professionalism, expertise and responsiveness to our diversity needs and has contributed to the success of our initiative in Europe.

Michael Stuber provided us with insightful and professional support in the consolidation of our new Diversity and inclusion strategy. His experience and proactive, holistic approach helped us to take a different look at how we do things, and build a solid business-value driven approach to reinforce our relationships with the stakeholders and position D & I differently in the company.

In the summer of 2018, SBB successfully introduced 'D&I for management teams', a new format reflecting a holistic D&I approach. The co-conception with European Diversity has proven very successful. Using a train-the-trainer approach with detailed qualification of the facilitators, the offer consists of a learning process, tied to business priorities in each field and focusing on the specific D&I contribution to achieving their objectives.

At HSBC, D&I is a business-lead initiative and as a pan-European committee of managers we were glad to have European Diversity's external perspective and input. Michael Stuber's business acumen and his striving for individual solutions helped to advance the regional D&I agenda taking into account business and country needs. We look forward to continue our collaboration in the future.

As part of the implementation of our diversity targets at Deutsche Telekom, Michael Stuber led through workshops for professionals and executives in the area of ​​recruiting and talent service. The Gender & Diversity models and the interactive discussion on the topic were very effective and appropriate for the target groups and helped to establish a positive understanding as well as to create new approaches to further implementation.

We found the Team Leadership Journey a valuable experience (as) it made us recognize we all have biases, and allowed us to reflect on this truth. Then, the Leadership Journey process gave us a format to create an actionable plan (as) we accept there is no quick fix when it comes to organizational culture change. (We came) to consensus on a path forward to create a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace (and) an 'action journey' where real progress is being made.

Michael Stuber has contributed to develop a very specific Bayer MaterialScience storyline, (...) supporting the execution of our business strategy. Through his experience (...) he has been and is a valuable sparring partner with high credibility for our top leaders as well as the members of the Executive Committee.

We have known Michael Stuber as an knowledgable consultant and moderator for years. Due to his experience and personality we also had the pleasure to have him as a moderator of very hetereogeneous panels - with great success.