As a 25-year veteran of a 176-year-old company, Bernd Blumenstein, CFO of Siemens Mobility North America, still thinks about change. As the German-based manufacturing conglomerate shifts its business into the digital age, it is doing so strategically.
While similar transitions have resulted in the breakup of its competitors, Siemens encourages its leaders to strive for meaningful and productive change in all areas of the business — something that, according to Blumenstein, is a foundation of the culture at the company that has allowed it to sustain success for nearly two centuries.
Bernd Blumenstein
CFO, Siemens Mobility North America
First CFO Position: 2017
Notable positions held at Siemens:
- VP of finance — Business segment rail electrification
- CFO of Siemens Mobility Southwest Europe and Spain
- VP of finance — Business segment mass transit
- Director of Business Administration
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
ADAM ZAKI: On your LinkedIn page, the headline says, “The only constant in life is change.” Why is that?
BERND BLUMENSTEIN: This phrase comes from 2000-year-old Greek philosophy. To me, it means always being in front of changes, and knowing that changes are always coming. If you want to be successful in business, you need to be able to adapt. I believe that leaders shouldn’t stand still and never believe they are top of the top and they know everything.
Constant learning is what drives us as a company, but it also is something that I personally strive to achieve. I am critical of myself sometimes, but I am in such a way that I am capable of succeeding in whatever changes that are coming my way.
Throughout the company’s history, it’s undergone some serious business transformations. It appears now you’re shifting once again, from a manufacturer to a technology provider. How does this shift impact your role?
BLUMENSTEIN: As you mentioned, this company has a history going back 176 years, so if we weren’t capable of adapting to change, we would’ve stopped existing a long time ago. This is a constant transformation process. We are looking for every angle into our business and to see where we can fit in things like market leadership and digital transformation.
In my region, North America for Siemens Mobility, we are looking into our portfolio. It is still largely manufacturing hardware, but digitalization is a topic that drives us as a company as well as delivering to our customers. As a CFO of this region and in this space, I am always bringing in ideas of how we can use things like artificial intelligence and automation in things like reporting.
Constant learning is what drives us as a company, but it also is something that I personally strive to achieve.
Bernd Blumenstein
CFO of Siemens Mobility North America
In Mobility, we are in the project business, not the product business. So our core elements are systems and projects, and there are a lot of moving pieces for our financial project managers to keep track of. One thing I would love to achieve is having digitalization provide us is the ability to get rid of low-hanging activities so that our managers can spend the majority of their focus on managing the business and projects they are working on.
In Siemens, there are lots of other people with ‘CFO’ in their titles. What is your cadence of communication with the other CFOs like?
BLUMENSTEIN: Well, I know a lot of them personally because I’ve moved around in this company and I’ve been here for as long as I have. We are never too proud that we don’t want to look at how others both internally and externally are doing, even what other CFOs are doing, so we have lots of conversations with one another about these things.
Every three or five years, I am changing what I do inside of the company. I love this company because it has given me so many opportunities to stay within while working worldwide.
Bernd Blumenstein
CFO of Siemens Mobility North America
To make all the areas of the world we operate in stronger, we chose this regional CFO setup. This is specific to Siemens Mobility and is different from the rest of Siemens. Other areas of the company are structured differently, but for the answers to our business needs, we created this regional setup. In Mobility, we have one CFO meeting a month, where we bring together all the business unit CFOs and all of the regional CFOs to discuss these types of things.
We also have a Siemens-wide international CFO conference twice a year, headed by Siemens CFO Dr. Ralf Thomas. This is where all of the company’s finance leaders, not all with the title of CFO but who are financial leaders, come together both in person and virtually to collaborate, discuss, and learn.
With so much history, legacy, culture, and company practices already in place, how does that play in your ability to suggest change, your levels of autonomy at your CFO level, and the pace of change overall?
BLUMENSTEIN: I think we are all human beings. When I look at my career, I have focused on staying curious and trying to learn as much as possible. I’ll be turning 56 soon, and I’ve been here for 25 years as I’ve mentioned, but I like to have frequent change and the ability to change what I am doing and where I am doing it. Every three or five years, I am changing what I do inside of the company. I love this company because it has given me so many opportunities to stay within while working worldwide.
When it comes to freedom and autonomy, it’s exactly why we created the regional CFO setup. It’s not one person deciding on everything, but a diversity of perspectives in what we do. This allows for freedom of expression and freedom to explore new ideas within the company. None of us know everything. So, when we are thinking about change, we are doing so with diversity of culture, gender, ideas, and mindset, so we can never miss out on something because we have a bunch of like-minded people on one team.
What traits have you seen, either within Siemens or in your personal or professional networks, in people who have achieved success?
BLUMENSTEIN: People who are open-minded, self-critical, curious, and those who don’t believe they’re the greatest on earth after a bit of success. I attribute a lot of my success to being able to surround myself with people who can speak up, and this is a trait I find has a lot of value in building a career. To be both successful and impactful as a leader, you need to make sure you are getting all the feedback to get recalibrated directly from your surroundings.
People who are at the head of change, but are also willing to set themselves up with people who can speak up with a diverse perspective, is also very valuable. We all make mistakes, we are all human beings. When I look back on my career, I’ve made decisions that if I had the knowledge I have now, I would do things totally differently. Being able to admit that, learn from it, and make that a part of your team and their culture is a great development for both personal and professional success.