We build our future on our family business foundation.
We value the continuity of our purpose and vision based on our long history of success and a strong focus on our values. We are guided by our long-term vision which rests on a fair entrepreneurial spirit and a solid financial basis.
The company and the family
The Henkel HQ of our North American consumer goods business in Scottsdale, Arizona, was inaugurated in March 2009. And, as in Düsseldorf, Moscow, Shanghai and Vienna, there is a bust at the entrance of company founder Fritz Henkel. This symbolizes both our entrepreneurship and the close ties that exist between the company and the family, happily perpetuated by Dr. Simone Bagel-Trah and, from the fourth generation of Henkel family, Dipl.-Ing. Albrecht Woeste, Chairman of both the Supervisory Board and the Shareholders’ Committee between 1990 and 2009.
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Identity and orientation
With the entrepreneurial spirit of company founder Fritz Henkel – still an example for our employees around the world – having left an indelible mark on the corporation, the “family” value provides us with a quite special and unmistakable identity.
Henkel has always been a company with firmly held beliefs. Naturally, companies and their environments change in the course of time. However, these core values are as valid today as ever they were. For founder Fritz Henkel too, it was the customer who was at the focal point of every decision, with the company equally conscious of its responsibility toward its employees and its duty to pursue sustainable economic development.
The “family” value represents a clear commitment on the part of the Henkel family to the company. The importance of entrepreneurship and responsibility for the future, so deeply rooted in our history, is reaffirmed time and time again by people both inside and outside the company. The “family” value distinguishes us from other companies.Ours is a long-term perspective. But we also know that without short-term success, there can be no long-term success.
Success through entrepreneurship
Under the entrepreneurial leadership of Darina Stoyanova, the Henkel Bulgaria team has successfully built a thriving national laundry and home care product business. Stoyanova is also President of Henkel Bulgaria. She and her team regard entrepreneurship as a major factor for success and market differentiator in the development of Henkel’s businesses in Bulgaria.
“At the beginning, the Bulgarian market was quite turbulent, characterized by strong local and international competitors,” Stoyanova reports. “Nevertheless, we have succeeded in overtaking all our competitors within just a short timeframe, so that, by 2009, we had already gained the number one spot in the market.” For her, there is no doubt: “This would never have been possible without everyone in the company adopting this special entrepreneurial approach.”
For Stoyanova, this also means developing a passion for the task in hand. “Those who work with passion show enthusiasm. They constantly develop their talents and achieve correspondingly high levels of performance.”
The entrepreneurial approach personified by company founder Fritz Henkel and his descendants provides the paradigm for the team in Bulgaria: “Our company’s history makes us proud and enables us to identify with the entrepreneurship that Henkel epitomizes,” explains Stoyanova. “It also teaches us that success is a constantly developing process that takes time, hard work, stamina and forward thinking.”
Henkel in Bulgaria
Henkel began exporting to Bulgaria in 1998. Just two years later, we founded Henkel Bulgaria in the capital Sofia. Today we are the Bulgarian market leader in all three of our business sectors. Our most important brands there are Bref, Ceresit, Clin, Fa, Gliss, Loctite, Moment, Palette, Persil, Perwoll, Pur, Rex, Schauma, Silan, Somat, Taft and Thomsit. The workforce driving the further success of Henkel Bulgaria currently numbers 152.
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Since 1958, the “Dr. Jost-Henkel-Stiftung” has been supporting students with a stand-out study record who are unable to sufficiently finance the expeditious completion of their studies from within their own means. Scholarships are awarded on an international basis following completion of an individual selection process. The foundation is open to all disciplines, albeit with the emphasis on business and scientific studies. The company and the Henkel family established the foundation in 1958 to mark the 25th year of service of the then CEO, Dr. Jost Henkel.
The “Konrad-Henkel-Stiftung” has been variously promoting research and education at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf since 1985. The Henkel company established this foundation to mark the 70th birthday of long-time CEO and then Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Dr. Konrad Henkel. The main focus of the foundation is on supporting economics and the business sciences, together with the process of international knowledge interchange. In 1990, the foundation introduced an award, conferred twice a year, for the best economics students at the Düsseldorf university: the Konrad Henkel Exams Prize.
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Since 2005, Henkel has been awarding the “Hugo-Henkel-Preis” to schools in the communities surrounding its German sites that especially promote science and technology in their curricula. The award is named for Dr. Hugo Henkel, the younger son of company founder Fritz Henkel and the first chemist to join his father’s firm.
www.henkel.de/hugo-henkel-preis