Family business: why two brothers took over their father's company

Many of their 40 employees have known Manuel, 32, and Alexander Diepolder, 31, since childhood.

At the age of five they were already running through the warehouse with a broom, and later they worked for Allgäu Batterie, their father's company, during the school holidays.

It manufactures batteries, for example for forklifts.

Although - or maybe because - the company was already so present for them back then, the two brothers wanted nothing to do with electrical engineering after graduating from high school.

Manuel Diepolder studied intercultural management and lived in Nicaragua, Malaysia and Mexico, among others.

Alexander Diepolder decided on a Bachelor in Tourism and Event Management and a Master in Finance and Accounting in Berlin.

Then her father asked the crucial question: Do you want to take over the company?

Manuel Diepolder says he didn't have to think twice: "I wanted to come back and take over the inheritance."

He sees the fact that his studies had nothing to do with batteries as an advantage: “We have very, very good electrical engineers.

But until I came there was no one who had dealt with corporate culture, with communication, with leadership.

These are topics that I brought with me and that have enriched the company. «He has been working for Allgäu Batterie for six years, now as managing director.

His brother Alexander is in charge of sales.

"I struggled a bit at the beginning," he says.

"My social environment was in Berlin, which means that I not only had a fresh start professionally."

The good of the company always came first

As children, they rarely saw their father; work, the good of the company, always came first.

It was then that he was confronted with prejudice for the first time, says Manuel Diepolder.

“There was always this image of the rich entrepreneur in people's minds.

Nobody sees all the sacrifices one makes.

Hardly anyone can imagine what it means to be responsible for so many people. "

He, too, seldom works less than 60 hours a week and takes a maximum of ten days of vacation a year.

“I'm not about building a huge fortune or buying a yacht.

I just want to advance the company. "

How Manuel and Alexander Diepolder managed to gain the trust of the employees, why they didn't tell their fellow students about the family business, and what they found difficult about their return to the Allgäu, they tell in the podcast.