“First blindsided, then enthusiastic”

From janitor to Logistics Manager, from dropout to General Manager: Dieter and Phillip Klinkow’s careers are probably only conceivable within a family firm. A discussion of values, appreciation, and world travel.

Mr. Klinkow and Mr. Klinkow, how do your colleagues tell your names apart? Perhaps Mr. Klinkow Senior could begin.

Dieter Klinkow: Ha, Klinkow Senior, exactly! That’s what they all call me, since Phillip also joined the company. Terrible!

Phillip Klinkow: I’d no idea that bothered you. You are the older one of us.

DK: Sure, but back then I was in my early 40s. I thought of myself in many ways, but not as senior. To me that sounded like “ready for retirement.” Fortunately, the term now carries positive connotations. A Senior Manager has achieved something, is respected. I can live with that.

How did you, as an electrician, come to apply to Wempe?

DK: I’d actually just registered for master school, but I suddenly found myself on the street because the firm I worked for went bankrupt. As a family father, I had to earn money, and Wempe needed a janitor. Being from Hamburg, I’d naturally heard of the company, they had a good reputation and I could start on the first of the month. It all happened fast. And it was the right decision.

“I had to earn money, and Wempe was looking for a janitor. It was the right decision.” (Dieter Klinkow)

From janitor to Logistics Manager — how does that work?

Product logistics was a part of my job from the start. Every evening, I took the packets to the post, along with a colleague. Right up until the early 90’s, watches and jewelry really were still sent to our showrooms by post! One day, our boss Hellmut Wempe came up to me and said: “We can’t keep on doing things this way.” So I found a security company and together with them developed our in-house logistics system and built it up over 30 years.

And you, Mr. Klinkow, were so fascinated by your father’s job that you also wanted to work at Wempe?

PK: No, I originally wanted to do something completely different — to go into the IT sector or into marketing. Ideally, I would have done absolutely nothing for a year, but my father wouldn’t have let me get away with that. And then he called Hellmut Wempe.

DK: No, that’s not how it happened. At the time, we had a big company event, and I said to you that you could help. Then Hellmut Wempe came by to see how things were going, and he knew every employee by name — every single one. He didn’t know you. “Who’s the young man?” he asked.

PK: Shortly afterwards, he called us and offered me an internship in New York.

DK: OK, I’d told him that you were mad about America and would like to work there.

PK: You were on holiday as the phone rang and Hellmut Wempe was on the line. I was 19 and had never dared enter a Wempe showroom on my own. But I went to see him at his office on the same day — in shorts and a T-shirt.

DK: Hellmut Wempe said to me later: I’ve sent so many to America that another one more or less makes no difference.”

PK: First I was blindsided, then enthusiastic. The next day I went with my aunt to buy suits — my parents weren’t at home. Three weeks later I was sitting in the airplane.

Your father’s job looked a lot more interesting seen from New York?

PK: I had the opportunity to get to know Wempe from a completely different perspective. Suddenly I was standing in Manhattan on Wempe’s red carpet — and I was instantly captivated. The surroundings, the people, the atmosphere, the way of dealing with one another. Everything just fitted. I would have liked to stay there, but my boss convinced me to do a classic apprenticeship in Germany first.

DK: He did it at Wempe in Berlin and then worked in the showrooms in Stuttgart and Frankfurt.

In 2014 you became the General Manager of the M?nckebergstra?e showroom in Hamburg.

PK: I hit the jackpot! General Manager at 27, and that in my home town. If you’re open, committed, and flexible, Wempe gives you the opportunity to develop professionally. I think that a career like that is only possible in a family company.

DK: I’m very proud of what Phillip has accomplished over the years. But he has done a lot to get there.

PK: The first years, I lived for the job, but it never felt like work to me. The firm was my family.

“Suddenly I was standing in Manhattan on Wempe’s red carpet — and I was instantly captivated.” (Phillip Klinkow)

In the meantime, you have a family of your own. Have you already raved to your daughter about your job?

PK: (laughs) No, she’s only five. I’ve got time. But my younger brother Jan is now also working at Wempe, as a working student in the IT department.

Mr. Klinkow, Mr. Klinkow, many thanks for the interview.