Antje Von Loeper-Weber - Bachelor Student From South Africa
Yana Immis
Read Antje’s success story here: “I did a lot of summer jobs since I was 15-16 years old and eligible to work in Germany: I waitered in a café, a biergarten at a fish stand. I smelled like a grilled trout every day. I worked in a hostel in an animation team for the children in a camp. I worked at an event agency for Segway tours.”
Try everything, right? To make sure you never want to do it again.
Chapter 1: Life & Studies
| Place of Birth | South Africa |
|---|---|
| Nationality | German-South African |
| Where did you live? | Salzburg (Austria), Barcelona (Spain), Geneva (Switzerland), Munich (Germany) |
| Education Level Prior to Relocation | Kindergarten |
| Reason of moving to Germany | Level of the German Public Schooling |
| When did you move? | 1996 |
| How old were you? | 6 |
| Are you still in Germany? | Yes |
| What is your future goal? | Family |
| Where would you like to live further? | Toscana (Italy) |
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I lived in Cape Town until I was 6 years old and then my family moved to Berchtesgaden (Germany).
The most important for me in life is my family.
I was always a team player since I was born. How is that possible? Because I have 4 siblings. The majority of us went to the German kindergartens and schools, we took advantage of both worlds: South Africa and Germany. I studied in Austria afterward in the American International School where I did my AP.
If you look at my hobbies since childhood you can also figure out I chose a sales profession for a reason! I have been competitive since I was born. The beauty is, that I like to share because, for me, the success of my team directly correlates to my success. I did water polo & swimming competitions in South Africa, afterward, ski club & biathlon (6 days a week training), basketball, baseball, and volleyball.
Teamwork, competitive nature, empathy, and altruism – you develop those skills and traits from childhood.
I think this great combination lead to me being successful in my career as a sales manager.
We chose Germany for the biggest stake of my education time because of how good the Public & Private education there is. I lived in the two extremes: Laidback Cape Town with international open-minded people and conservative more narrow-minded farmers in Berchtesgaden (Germany). You learn from both. You acknowledge the opinions and different ways of life and it makes you richer and adaptable.
If you ask me who I consider myself as: South African or German, I’d probably say more German although I don’t acquaint myself 100% with the Germans - so kind of both?!
What character traits are South African?
· Coming late. That is very atypical German, I am more relaxed than Germans in general
· Often I don’t take things too seriously.
· When meeting new people I am super open-minded and easy to meet new people. Germans are more closed up and not so easy to open up fast. At the same time, South Africans can be all over you which I also am not.
-> Let’s call me an inbetweenie.
Was I ever a good student? Not really. Only at university, I started enjoying studying, especially my communications specialization, which I really enjoyed. Even though I wasn’t the best student at school, I was hungry for challenges and I was hungry to learn and that’s why I was so good at sports and in fact, so many different types of Sports.
I finished AP and I was searching for a university to go to study at. When I was at the German High School I always wanted to be a doctor. And then I somehow changed my mind. Oh, and my grades wouldn’t let me be accepted in the German medical programs.
I knew business because everyone in my family is somehow involved in it. Ok I want to do business, I decided. And I want to go to another country.
Let it be in Spain. I chose Barcelona because for me Spain was very close as we spent many family vacations in Mallorca.
I chose a school that gives students an opportunity to study in a different country every semester. I studied in Barcelona (Spain), Geneva (Switzerland), Munich (Germany), where I finished my degree.
Comparing Spain, Switzerland, and Germany:
· Barcelona campus gave me a feeling that I was a student for real with a big campus. Barcelona – party city – really cool international people.
· In Geneva, I was on a tight summer semester schedule and it was incredibly expensive with not so much social life. I ate carrots and walked on foot to dodge expenses as much as I could. Hilarious. Geneva is full of foreign tourists mostly from the GULF and Russia. They have money right… The frontline at the lake – wow – beautiful. 3 streets further – super poor districts. The city of extremes - even more than Barcelona – you wouldn’t think about it.
· Munich had a family-like atmosphere. Not like a university but like a family. We were mostly all German students from the private education background and some foreigners here and there. I bonded with a lot of classmates there the most because the school felt like a 2nd home.
I did a communication & PR major in my Bachelor's. I loved all the specialization courses a lot. It fit my character and by the way, I am using it now in my job. How I came up with the major selection? For me, the most important thing is communication because a lot of things in businesses and personal relationships fail because of bad communication. It is the most central thing no matter where you are working. Especially now!
Chapter 2: Career
My first internship related to studies was at a Brand Consultancy. How did I get the job? The dean of the Business School recommended me. I advise students to use all the networks including the professors’ network and the dean.
I did a lot of Powerpoint presentations. I worked with brands like BMW to certify dealerships for brand communication and brand design and I guided them on how the dealerships need to be built to represent the BMW brand correctly: the behavior of people in the company connected to the brand must correlate as well.
I learned a lot and afterward, I chose sales jobs. Why did I choose that? Because I knew I would learn so much.
2 years into sales with its ups and downs were super cool – a lot of traveling. Working with young people and being able to have a direct impact on young people’s lives. I worked in the education sector.
I learned furthermore how to present and do sales as I have never done sales before – how do you convince people in quite a competitive market – together with interpersonal skills, leadership that can go right or wrong.
I thought I would learn sales… in reality, I learnt a lot about human communications and company politics (a very good lesson for a lifetime!)
It was a bridge job for me to understand what I really want to have in my dream job and what I don’t want to have at all. And after that, I can say I landed my dream job.
When I left, I had time for 6 months to figure out what I want to do in the future, I started going through the job interviews. I had a lot of interviews. Quite a few job offers, some declined me, which was for me one of the best experiences in life because I learned from each of them.
A takeaway for students – treasure the interview process, don’t go with the first job, but keep on trying and listen to your gut feeling and always go into the interviews without despair but rather with a feeling: I want the best matching job for myself. I was always quite honest in my interviews and I realized some things were not matching my expectations.
“It is important to be honest and to think of yourself. If it is not something for you – drop it.”
It is a valuable experience. In fact, before knowing the final decision from Amazon interviews, I took the job offer from the startup in Munich without hesitation. Looking back now, I have never regretted that decision!
How did my development look like?
I chose Innosabi to work with: small & looked like a good team. I wanted to have a direct impact of my work on the company’s growth. I never thought I’d go into IT but… I jumped over my own hesitation and shadow because I believed in the company’s philosophy.
I started as a Junior Business Development Representative. I felt like I started as a greenhorn & we were 3 people in the sales team. I joined them 5,5 years ago and I am still with them, we have 50 employees now! The Sales Team is now 10 People Strong and I am happy to say that I was able to develop myself into the Team Lead of these 10 Sales People.
Good possibilities with quick career steps. That’s why I would always advise looking into startups. I would never regret my choice.
What do we do?
Big as well as small companies nowadays feel a great urge to reinvent themselves, due to new competition entering their markets, changing customer needs, and overall a digitally transforming market. Innosabi, with its Innovation Management Software, helps companies to reinvent themselves by digitally connecting their stakeholders (employees, customers, experts, partners, etc.) to develop new & innovative ideas. We are connecting the companies’ innovation programs on one single platform together with the relevant external data streams such as the trend of startup data. It is the digital innovation ecosystem of a company to stay competitive in an increasingly complex market.
Where does the name innosabi come from?
The 4 founders came up with 5 names and they sent out the names to the existing groups of communities to have language, culture checks to identify if that name would have a different meaning in a different language and to see what consumers associate with the different names. Thousands of people voted and the official Wasabi + Innovation = Innosabi appeared!
Where do we stand now?
We are a very big team of young people (average age 30-32). Our customers include big corporates such as Telekom, Siemens, Daimler, Allianz, etc. We are international (15 nationalities), our mission and vision are super clear, this way everyone works together really well. Everyone’s ambition is to make innosabi even more successful.
We have a great culture: we drink beer and more beer, we go skiing together, we do a lot of events, we find friendships at work.
Even during hard times and COVID19 times we still hire people! We are always looking for talented salespeople, developers, customer success managers. please go to our website and shoot out your CV to our HR https://innosabi.com/karriere/
Chapter 3: Family
On a positive note: a career is important. I experienced the career and I know all the fun times and the struggles. The priorities shift sometimes and now is the time for me is to experience the other opportunities in life, like becoming a parent. 😊
Apart from planning to go back to Innosabi after parental leave, I and two other people founded a company which is called SAVVED – disruptive COVID19 times are the times of opportunities and we want to help the local customers with our product.
Apart from that I am of course excited and looking forward to starting a family and making new experiences in this chapter of my life.
Maybe there will be further changes? New country? New profession? Further education? New sports (like COVID19 home cycling instead of racing bikes?) – time will tell.
I will not disclose all the secrets right now. *MYSTERY*
