"The really pressing issues do not require an agenda, but new approaches to tackling them and new visions. The question 'What is relevant?' doesn't mean 'What can we omit?', but 'What else ist there? What does it relate to? What is concealed behind the obvious?'."

(Erwin Lotter, brandeins 3/12)

“As always with your sessions I thoroughly enjoyed the day in Baden-Baden. The participants were highly interested and the atmosphere was one of complete open-mindedness, something I rarely encounter. Much of this is down to you and your ability to foster a real dialog between the invited guests and the corporations. While I sometimes despair when listening to the news about the major banks and ‘capital’, at your BBUG I encounter entrepreneurs whom I wish were at the helm of the market and the economy.”

Prof. Wolfgang Eichwede (University of Bremen, Research Centre for East European Studies, Founding Director, speaker at the 131th BBUG session)

BBUG – Baden-Baden Entrepreneurs' Talks

We seek to support those at the helm of companies today and tomorrow in embracing their overarching and wide-ranging responsibility for their companies, business and society. At BBUG “embracing responsibility” means both discerning it and readily living it.

“Grooming the next generation of leaders within companies is impaired by the extraordinary workload, the pace of daily business and the natural fact that attention tends to be focused on one’s own firm. As a result there is a lack of opportunities to consider the bigger picture and discuss questions of principle, to enjoy the peace and quiet to rise above the daily hustle-and-bustle and concern oneself more emphatically with ‘enterprises tomorrow’, the entrepreneur’s position vis-à-vis the workforce, the economy as a whole and the general public.”
(From the deed of foundation of BBUG sent to leading representatives of German industry and business, 1955)