Rewiring not Retiring! The Legacy of 20 years of EuRA Leaders
Dominic Tidey - EuRA Chief Operating Officer
Just for once on the 20th anniversary, the board took the decision to hold a plenary session that would look back across the careers of some of EuRA’s true thought leaders. But we also wanted to use their extraordinary wisdom and history to look forward, taking their experiences and looking at how today’s entrepreneurs see the mobility industry.
Peggy Love and I moderated the session, introducing a stellar line up of EuRA luminaries; Patrick Oman, past EuRA President, Helmut Berg also past EuRA President, Ken Barron CEO CORT Global, Anita Meyer also past EuRA President and Bev Mayhew ex CEO Orientations group. The reason this group was selected was because they represent people who have come full circle in their mobility careers.
What came out of the session was their journeys as professionals, entrepreneurs and contributors.
The first question we asked was what their journey through EuRA had been.
Helmut Berg was truly one of the founders of our industry, starting his company RSB in Germany in the early 90’s and quickly expanding to represent both direct clients and latterly, RMC’s as a network supplier. Helmut has truly retired, not rewired! When he sold his company to Dwellworks, he made the decision to walk away after his initial consultancy period and focus on family. His contribution today is to the EuRA Index which he initiated and continues to manage. Helmut was always clear about the importance of industry bodies and served with both EuRA and WERC. He is a passionate advocate that associations do not build your company, that’s the job of the entrepreneur, rather, they have a remit to provide the tools that enable members to thrive. As part of the development team of the EGQS Helmut outlined the importance to his success of utilising the tools available.
Patrick Oman built his first company into Ireland’s largest household goods mover, successfully selling the business and moving into DSP with the formation of Irish Relo. Patrick also sold this business but decided not to retire and has built a new consulting business. Patrick first attended the EuRA Conference as a mover back in Portofino in 2003, leading some of the first EARP training sessions. As a former president of Omni, the high level movers network, Patrick gave some very sound advice to Tad and I when he joined the board; do what you do with excellence and stick with the core services members need; the conference, the training, the seal.
Ken Barron massively expanded his family firm when it became part of CORT to become a global leader in corporate and domestic furniture rental as well as a large US DSP. Ken came into EuRA for the first time in Dublin in 2001 when EuRA was very much Europe centred. Although at this point CORT wasn’t working outside the US, he saw an opportunity to represent his large company and its services to the European industry. Through a process of education and presence, and venturing out of the US comfort zone really increased the companies visibility and down the line, business.
Anita Meyer built her company am&pm into Belgiums’ largest DSP and after 20 years successfully sold to her direct competitor. I asked her what got her into relocation and she told us that with a background as an interpreter, a third culture kid, a mom with two young children, it was a question of why relocation, but “what else could I do?” Over the 20 years she grew her company from a start up to a major player, she played an active role with EuRA as part of the EARP, then as a board member and then as President. It was her legacy to internationalise EuRA and more fully represent our members across the world what has become a truly global organisation. It is thanks to Anita’s vision that EuRA now runs events all over the world as part of the EuRA Global conference.
Bev Mayhew built one of Asia’s largest DSP companies and also successfully sold to her competitor recently. I asked her what brought her into what was a very Europe centric organisation as recently as 2011 when she attended her first conference in Palma. In her life as an expat, the links that built her company were from her social network, but as the company rapidly expanded, she decided that building relationships globally was the way forward.
Peggy then asked each panelist if they would be able to replicate their career if they were starting again in 2018, and the overwhelming response was “no!”. This echoes what we see in then changing demographic of EuRA members. 20 years ago when EuRA was formed, the membership was a vast majority of start us run by entrepreneurs. Today new EuRA members are existing businesses both inside and outside Europe, or start ups in regions where mobility is growing as an industry; Africa, Asia, South America. hence the EuRA Global Conference!