“It is important to try things”

What are you working on right now? What is your current job?

Sezgin Yumuk: I am the Head of the Con­trollers and Relay divi­sion in Product Man­age­ment. My team and I are respon­sible for market launches of new prod­ucts and tech­nolo­gies such as IO-Link Safety, for example. But I also work with new busi­ness models, dis­cuss new ideas and sug­ges­tions from cus­tomers, assess them and incor­po­rate them into the roadmap with my team. There’s a lot to do!

Steffen Heber: I work in Inter­na­tional Sales, where I am the Group Man­ager respon­sible for strategic sales prod­ucts. My team is made up of twelve people. We are the con­tact point for the sub­sidiaries and pre­pare market launches, for example. In market devel­op­ment teams, we work closely with Mar­keting and Cus­tomer Sup­port, but in par­tic­ular with Product Man­age­ment, for instance for pricing. One impor­tant topic is digi­ti­sa­tion in Sales. Here we are working on new soft­ware solu­tions that sup­port our sales team around the world, as well as on a busi­ness intel­li­gence strategy.

So even though you work together closely, you have different tasks. But you chose the same career start, namely an apprenticeship as a mechatronics engineer …

Sezgin Yumuk: Cor­rect, at the begin­ning we both had to spend weeks filing channel steel and working on the milling machine …

Steffen Heber: But that was good! You learn per­se­ver­ance and get to know the com­pany, with its var­ious depart­ments, as well as the prod­ucts from a new per­spec­tive!

Sezgin Yumuk: That’s for sure. I found the appren­tice­ship to become a mecha­tronics engi­neer very inter­esting because it is so wide-ranging. You learn some of every­thing. After that I was extremely inter­ested in the appli­ca­tions: What do our prod­ucts do? Where are they used? What do our cus­tomers do? So I moved to Cus­tomer Sup­port, where I pro­vided tech­nical sup­port to our cus­tomers all around the world, which also included com­mis­sion­ings or training. Par­allel to working, I also com­pleted my training as an engi­neer. Because I was highly familiar with the prod­ucts, the move to Product Man­age­ment was an easy one. I also work with cus­tomers there, but on a strategic level.

But planning such career paths is only possible up to a point. What were your key moments, Steffen?

Steffen Heber: I joined Pilz by way of a work expe­ri­ence place­ment and a hol­iday job. My first key moment was right at the begin­ning, when I was helping in Pro­duc­tion. Friday after­noons the former owner and Man­aging Director Renate Pilz, who has since retired, would reg­u­larly come to Pro­duc­tion and take the time to talk to the people – even with me in my hol­iday job. That really impressed me and per­suaded me to com­plete my appren­tice­ship as a mecha­tronics engi­neer here. A second, more impor­tant incen­tive was the encour­age­ment by a depart­ment head to keep going after com­pleting my appren­tice­ship. It was only then that I went back to get my sec­ondary-school leaving qual­i­fi­ca­tion, the Abitur, com­pleted a dual study pro­gramme as an indus­trial engi­neer and then finally received my master’s degree.

My semester abroad in China while studying was also an espe­cially cru­cial key moment. Get­ting to know this other cul­ture made a very big impres­sion on me.

And now you’re managers yourselves. Your tip for young professionals?

Sezgin Yumuk: In a nut­shell: Ideas are nothing without action. That was also Renate Pilz’s motto. But it’s true! It is impor­tant to try things. Everyone has strengths and weak­nesses. You have to recog­nise them and con­tinue to work on your­self. My tip: take off your blinders and observe what is hap­pening around you. And finally, I wish to remind everyone to have the courage to change.

Steffen Heber: That’s absolutely right. I like when appli­cants are sharp and travel through the world with their eyes wide open. For young pro­fes­sionals, I rec­om­mend starting with small projects. You can’t have expec­ta­tions that are too high, but should prove your­self bit by bit and slowly con­tinue to develop. Do your tasks well! If you are suc­cessful at that, then you will keep being assigned greater respon­si­bility.

And what in particular do you set store by in your daily work?

Sezgin Yumuk: Values play a sig­nif­i­cant role for me. Having them and also truly imple­menting them. I find integrity, hon­esty and fair­ness impor­tant. For me this also includes an open feed­back cul­ture, in every direc­tion. From man­age­ment to the employees but also the other way around, or from col­league to col­league – in projects, for example. Because you have to talk about it if some­thing went badly.

Steffen Heber: It is impor­tant for me to know who I am working with. How do you com­mu­ni­cate? Do we have the same under­standing of values? Maybe that is why I am so happy at Pilz. You have the feeling that you are working with the right peopIe on the right mis­sion: Safety.

Sezgin Yumuk: We also expe­ri­ence this trust and this type of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with our cus­tomers. They trust us and use our prod­ucts for crit­ical appli­ca­tions where people’s lives also have to be pro­tected. That is truly extra­or­di­nary!

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