Creating international understanding through peoples diplomacy on sea

German Naval officers reflect about Antarctica and its importance for our society.

“It has been an honour to give a speech for the “Marine-Offiziers-Messe München”, highlighting the importance of Antarctica for us and our planet and to report about the Global Offshore Sailing Team’s Expedition Antarctic Blanc.”

Jochen Werne
Antarctic Blanc Expedition Leader

Having experienced the sea by themselves the retired German Naval Officers enriched the discussion greatly with their own fascinating experiences and personal stories about life on sea and the challenges with the elements.

I’m grateful to Commander ret. Bernd Lehmann and Commander ret. Bernd Chittka for the invitation and the members and guests of the “Marine-Offiziers-Messe München for an outstanding evening and their engagement for our society.

The Global Offshore Sailing Team sailed to the most Southerly partially ice-free place of this planet – the ANTARCTIC continent. The international team remembered all sailors who bravely explored this fragile and dangerous environment.

With this Expedition a platform of intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange for ANTARCTIC enthusiasts such as Historians, Environmental Scientists, Sailors, NGO’s, Navies, Associations or just out of personal interest has been created.

www.AntarcticBlanc.com

German Stevies committee is awarding innovations and human creativity

The German Stevie Awards are a top-class business award for the German business world. Outstanding achievements are rewarded in over 80 different categories: from Manager of the Year in over 30 industries, to Marketing Campaign of the Year, to Product of the Year, and more.

It’s greatly inspiring seeing the different approaches companies are going to be innovative and a step ahead of their competition in a highly dynamic business environment

Jochen Werne
German Stevie Awards Jury Member
Management & Human Ressources


Jury member Jochen Werne about the importance of the human factor in a digital world

Buchempfehlung: Vermögensverwaltung – Stressfreies Investieren im Klimawandel der Finanzmärkte

Es war eine besondere Freude als Co-Autor des Buches “Vermögensmanufaktur”, der renommierten Herausgeber Roland Eller und Markus Heinrich, mitzuwirken.

Jochen Werne

Der Beitrag: “Die Bank – Der Lotse im digitalen Anlagedschungel” ist einer der 27 Artikel namhafter Mitautoren wie Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Ruckriegel (TH Nürnberg), Dr. Jürgen Michels (BayernLB), Dr. Volker Gronau (Deutsche Wertpapiertreuhand), Dr. Bernhard Breloer (Robeco), Prof. Dr. Thomas Egner (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg), Rudolf Geyer (ebase), Georg Geiger (Value Holding AG), et al.

The Bank – The pilot in the digital investment jungles

Co-Author: Jochen Werne

Chapter: The Bank – The pilot in the digital investment jungle

Find a reading extract here

Buy at Finanzbuch Verlag /  Amazon / Weltbild / GooglePlay

Content extract

digital thoughts 2019: Expeditions into the digital world – technologies, ongoing change, leadership

On May 23, ec4u will present innovations and trends for the customer experience and innovative applications for marketing, sales and service together with customers, experts and opinion formers and address the challenges of digital leadership in the midst of (agile) transformation:

  • How, for example, AI and other innovations can support marketing, sales and service both on the customer side and internally. 
  • How executives can deal with digital change in order to grow with their company. 
  • What communication, organization and culture in agile transformation can and must look like to provide a stable foundation for your business.

LEARN MORE HERE

“It’s greatly inspiring giving a real keynote in an innovative virtual conference like Digital Thoughts 2019”

Jochen Werne

EIC2019 Keynote: HUMAN. DIGITAL. CULTURE – Disruption or just Progress? Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Business and Society

Looking greatly forward to give a keynote on the impacts of AI on business and society and to discuss with some of the 800 thought leaders, leading vendors, analysts, visionaries and executives at the highly recognised Kuppinger Cole European Identity & Cloud Conference 2019.

Jochen Werne

FIND OUT MORE

The place where the Digital Transformation is happening. The European Identity & Cloud Conference, held from May 14-17, 2019, offers a mixture of best practice discussions, visionary presentations, and networking opportunities with a future-oriented community. More than 800 thought leaders, leading vendors, analysts, visionaries, executives, and end-users get together in Munich to be inspired by a list of world-class speakers.

With five parallel tracks, more than 200 international speakers and experts, many Best Practice presentations and 120 hours of relevant content, EIC 2019 provides you with a comprehensive overview of future trends in Internet security as well as practical information about current projects.

Every year the agenda focuses on the latest and most relevant Information Security and Digital Identity topics to offer you the foundation to design the right digital identity and security strategies for your business. Hear about emerging trends in order to be prepared to meet and exceed present and future business, identity and security challenges.

Academy for Leadership: Adventure with plan

Article published in the Advance Magazine 01/2018 

https://advance-online.de/zeitungen/advance-01-18/story/

Translated by DeepL

 

2012 Expedition “Cerberus”, day 3.

A workplace to fear.  The wind whips the sailing yacht of the Global Offshore Sailing Team through the English Channel.  The heating goes on strike, everything on board is clammy and ice-cold.  Five men take turns on watch, the maximum rest period is three hours.  Götz Gredé had been forewarned, had packed heaps of warm things and his father’s lined hunting boots.  When he needs them, the rubber crumbles in his fingers.  They were probably too old and simply dried up, the good pieces.  For the guard on deck, Götz now has to slip into thin sneakers.  He freezes like never before in his life, thinking only of escape.  “In the next harbour I leave the ship.  You don’t mind, do you?” he asks Jochen Werne.  “Yes,” the expedition leader replies.  Götz is speechless. Then he learns something for life.

1991: Gorch Fock.

Give up or hold out?  Jochen Werne never asked himself this question.  The wiry mid-forty grows with his tasks, that’s always been the case.  He grew up in a village near Waldshut, directly on the Swiss border.  At the station kiosk, where others stock up on grain, he buys the “Herald Tribune”.  The view over the edge of the plate awakens the wanderlust.  He is particularly fascinated by seafaring.  He reports to the navy.  There he belongs to the best, can choose his command.  And he chooses one of the hardest jobs there is: the sail training ship “Gorch Fock”.  89 metres long, dream ship on the outside, life reduced to a minimum on the inside: 30 men on 30 square metres.  Privacy only exists on the mast at a height of 40 metres.  Werne has to sleep in the 1.75 metre long bunk.  Werne measures 1.79 metres.  “Turning around is not possible,” he says.  “I never lay in a coffin, but I didn’t have much more room.”  So it goes twice around the world.

What the navigator likes: sailing, camaraderie.  What’s not: the bureaucracy and the inertia of the system.  After two years duty on the “Gorch Fock” he decides against the officer career and studies business administration.  Even today, Werne criticizes rigid, inefficient structures that do not fit into an ever faster society: “The bigger the company, the easier it is for me to hide behind bureaucratic processes.  Do it on a ship!”

It turns out that shipping not only demands good leadership, it also provides strategic approaches when it comes to coping with disruption.  “The Apollo 11 space capsule had 12,300 transistors, 3 billion fit on the processor of the Apple iPad Air 2.”  Werne is enthusiastic about the exponential growth of digital technologies.  “We live in the most prosperous time ever,” he says.  His confidence has little to do with his belief in technology; it is based on a deeper insight: “We are all biased.  Fears from childhood block our view of the positive.”

2017 London, Chatham House.

Take digitization, for example: “Of course many jobs will be lost,” says Werne, “but many will also be created.  Nobody knows yet how big the gap between them will be.  Is digitalization the biggest upheaval in human history?  “That’s only what 30-year-olds say,” says Werne and laughs.  It’s not a matter of worrying.  After all, people are still the driving force behind technology.  That also gives them the freedom to make their own decisions.  For example, about what happens to that part of the population whose jobs are disappearing.  Do we need a basic income?  “Perhaps.  But above all we need a plan,” says Werne.

Such plans are being discussed at Chatham House, for example, one of the world’s most important think tanks based in London.  Jochen Werne discusses security, politics and society with the other members there.  He also talks about the future of work: “We need contingency plans, otherwise high unemployment threatens and people lose their prospects,” he says.  Above all, however, fear must be combated.  It is important to illustrate the benefits of new technologies for people.  Werne uses YouTube videos, for example, which show how Parkinson’s patients learn to control their trembling with the help of an implanted chip.  Or a development of the world’s largest wine producer. At Gallo in California, all vines were equipped with sensors.  They measure the moisture in the soil.  This data is enriched with weather data from NASA satellites.  “On this basis, Gallo was able to save 25 percent water during irrigation from one day to the next,” says Werne.

I FIRMLY BELIEVE IN MANKIND AND MORE IN ITS CREATIVE POWER THAN IN ITS DESTRUCTIVE POWER.

2003 Munich, Bankhaus August Lenz.

To see the future as a great adventure, this view of the world also brings momentum into professional life.  After studying business administration, Jochen Werne worked at an Internet start-up, then became an analyst at Bankers Trust Alex.  Brown International and in Global Investment Banking at Deutsche Bank.  In 2001, he joined Accenture as a CRM specialist.  His latest client there is the Mediolanum Group, an Italian financial services provider.  In 2001 it took over the Munich bank August Lenz.  Werne has been working for the “most personal private bank” since 2003, according to the promise in the slogan. As Director of Marketing, Business Development, Treasury & Payment Services, he drives the bank’s digitization.  He also deliberately seeks cooperation with up-and-coming Fintechs and develops services for which the bank has already received several awards.  “Innovation must start with top management,” he says.  His strategy: “Bring the right people together, then make it easy.  Werne borrows a nice term for this from Erich Fromm: “spontaneous activity”. “Spontane is important, it brings in creativity,” he says.  The concept “9 to 5” is dead, in new working environments it is exactly about making it as easy as possible for employees to come up with ideas.  Hierarchies are indispensable, says Werne.  Not only when sailing.  But he does restrict: “If the hierarchy stands, you also have to delegate and trust.  I’ve never seen anyone fail to accept a task assigned to them.”

2012 Expedition “Cerberus”, day 3.

Which brings us back to the freezing Götz Credé.  “He was completely perplexed because I didn’t want to just let him leave the boat,” recalls Werne.  In the conversation he draws a clear line: “We are in an uncomfortable situation, not in a struggle for survival.  Then he outlines a possible future for his colleague: “If you give up, you’ll always find plenty of reasons to justify yourself.  People will agree with you.  But that’s not the point.  It’s about admitting to yourself: “I can’t do that.”  When the next similar situation comes, you will behave like that again.  And in the end you walk stooped through life.”  Götz Credé stays and is the first one to sign up for the next tour.  Jochen Werne says: “The strongest drive comes from within.  Life is always about answering three questions: “What do I want?”, “What does it cost me?” and “Am I willing to pay the price?

Werne recommends all those who don’t feel comfortable at work to answer these questions for themselves.  He focuses on personality and freedom in the search for talent: “You can no longer reach the target group with the classic job description,” he says.  It is more important to appear authentic and to enable employees to shape their own work.  Only in this way can a company be successfully managed, because: “The well-being and woe always depends on the people”.

AS SOON AS THE HIERARCHY IS SET, ONE MUST ALSO BE ABLE TO DELEGATE AND TRUST.

2017 Prologue.

Jochen Werne likes to digress when he talks.  Always in an honest effort to leave the visitor in the dark about nothing.  The world is complicated.  Jochen Werne thinks deeper than many others.  The visitor experiences a doer with brains, an adventurer with a plan.  Oh what, with many plans.  Sovereign in appearance, blessed with the ability to get enthusiastic about one thing and carry others along.  The most beautiful example: In 1999 Jochen Werne founded the international Global Offshore Sailing Team (gost.org) to combine two passions: sailing on the high seas and international understanding.  30 to 40 members from different nations belong to the crew in changing line-ups.  “There are no national differences at sea, especially in extreme situations,” says Werne.  And these are the result in the following years, from the fight against storm and ice in Spitsbergen to the machine breakdown in the English Channel. The machine is repaired by the expedition leader himself, although he actually has no idea about the matter.  He thinks, analyses, finally finds the blocked cooling circuit and cleans it.  There was simply no one else there who could have done it better.  The banker, future thinker and expedition leader Jochen Werne trusts himself quite naturally.  In the end, we have the impression that with self-confidence, experience and a thirst for adventure, the future can not only be mastered, but well shaped.

Antarctica 2018: “Mankind can do a lot!

One of the expeditions led by Jochen Werne led to the Arctic ice in 2016.  The GOST team sailed to the pack ice border in the footsteps of researchers like Roald Amundsen, Fridtjof Nansen and Ernest Shackleton.  It commemorated the seamen who fought in the battles for Arctic convoys with supplies for Russia in the Second World War between 1941 and 1943.  In the name of Norway and Canada, the expedition participants handed over wreaths of the sea in memory of the fallen.  At the same time, the expedition was to raise awareness of the effects of climate change on the Arctic.  The expedition team was supported by King Harald of Norway, the Canadian government and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In February 2018, Jochen Werne set course for Antarctica.  “This is a completely different story again,” he says.  The average temperature on the coldest continent is minus 30 degrees, and the ice layer is on average 2.1 kilometres thick.  The “Antarctic Blanc” expedition primarily serves the environment.  The “Antarctic Treaty” has been in force since 1961, an agreement between 30 countries that have committed themselves to refrain from using Antarctica for military purposes and to exchange their research results openly.  In 1998, the “Environmental Protocol” was also signed, which is considered the toughest environmental protection agreement in the world.  Werne is optimistic: “It shows that we as humanity can achieve a lot, regardless of what opinions we hold.

The importance that the GOST expeditions now enjoy was already apparent in advance.  Support came from the Queen of England, the Vienna Hofburg and the office of the German Federal President.  The heads of state of the Czech Republic and Finland sent personal letters, Belgium, Bulgaria, Sweden and Switzerland were also on board.  Jochen Werne manages this with months of dedication and the motto: “If you want to achieve something – always start at the top”.

The expeditions on the web:

Global Offshore Sailing Team: www.gost.org

Arctic Expedition 2016: www.arcticoceanraptor.com

Antarctic Expedition 2018: www.antarcticblanc.com

Bankhaus August Lenz: www.banklenz.de

TV Broadcast: Monaco Info Environment – Expedition Antarctic Blanc

Pre-Expedition Press Conference Coverage – in French language

Monaco Info reported about the Expedition Antarctic Blanc’s Press Conference at the Yacht Club de Monaco interviewing Expedition Leader Jochen Werne, Environmental Initiatives Coordinator Dr. Benon Janos and Chief Observer David Gamba. The expedition will took place between the 12th and the 27th of February 2018 and was engaged in the commemoration of Antarctic explorers and the support of the United Nations #CleanSeas initiative.

www.AntarcticBlanc.com

Expedition Leader Jochen Werne about Antarctica

Communicating the Environment to Save the Planet

A Journey into Eco-Communication

“It has been a great pleasure and honour that author Maurizio Abbati has mentioned Expedition Antarctic Blanc in his new book as a successful example how public awareness for important environmental topics can be raised.”

Jochen Werne, Expedition Leader

This book, based on authoritative sources and reports, links environmental communication to different fields of competence: environment, sustainability, journalism, mass media, architecture, design, art, green and circular economy, public administration, big event management and legal language. The manual offers a new, scientifically based perspective, and adopts a theoretical-practical approach, providing readers with qualified best practices, case studies and 22 exclusive interviews with professionals. A fluent style of writing leads the readers through specific details, enriching their knowledge without being boring. As such it is an excellent preparatory and interdisciplinary academic tool intended for university students, scholars, professionals, and anyone who would like to know more on the matter.

Yacht Club de Monaco – Pre-Expedition Press Conference
  • Various case-studies and best practices help the reader to increase his Eco-awareness, making him involved in the main topic: Eco-communication
  • Interviews stimulate curiosity and allow the reader to investigate Eco-communication issues from different points of view
  • Numerous social and web links make the manual an original “platform” constantly open to dialogue
  • Various case-studies and best practices help the reader to increase his Eco-awareness, making him involved in the main topic: Eco-communication
  • Interviews stimulate curiosity and allow the reader to investigate Eco-communication issues from different points of view
  • Numerous social and web links make the manual an original “platform” constantly open to dialogue

Business, AI, Politics and Society – An inspiring evening with the WJ Hamburg

It has been a great pleasure not only to give a speech at the plenary meeting for the Wirtschaftsjunioren Hamburg, but also to discuss in-depth the impact of AI on our society with a highly engaged auditorium.

Together with the Wirtschaftsjunioren / (c) WJ Hamburg

After the meeting the Wirtschaftsjunioren summarised the evening on Facebook as follows:

“At yesterday’s plenary meeting of the Education Committee, we combined the exciting topic of artificial intelligence with the beautiful (junior) life. Our keynote speaker Jochen Werne, Director Business Development & Marketing at Bankhaus Lenz, lecturer and author, gave a vivid presentation on the opportunities, dangers and challenges of AI for companies and society. How does it feel to pass on your activated smartphone to the person sitting next to you? What does a folded leaf have to do with the moon and AI?

Jochen Werne / (c) WJ Hamburg


We had SALT AND PEPPER as a guest for the further practical testing of AI. In a VR environment, we were able to build future production facilities using the BoxPlan product. The innovative Startup Smunch, the online canteen for happy teams, provided us with very real, delicious food. In the lounge-like atmosphere of the Ruby Hans Workspaces we found a great setting for stimulating conversations and networking.

We would like to thank all guests and cooperation partners for a successful junior evening: Private Family Banker, Exclusive Agent Bankhaus August Lenz & Co. PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY, SALT AND PEPPER technology and management consulting, software development, Smunch.co
And remember, on 26.05.2019 is the European election, Step Up For Europe (see group photo 😉 )”

Wirtschaftsjunioren Hamburg – Engagement for Europe / (c) WJ Hamburg
Prof. Dr. Peter Scholz (HSBA) & Sven O. Müller (7orcas) / (c) WJ Hamburg

Thank you very much to the Wirtschaftsjunioren Hamburg and Alexander Köhne for the highly appreciated invitation.

“Google, how’s my portfolio performing and what to do now?” AI in the financial sector – the next big thing?

Original published in German in the Handelsblatt KI-Summit “KI-Business Guide”. Translation performed by DeepL.com

“Google, how are my stocks doing and what to do?” AI in the financial sector – the next big thing? by Jochen Werne, Bankhaus August Lenz

AI is making its way into every industry, but banks, insurance companies and FinTechs in particular are seeing a renaissance for their data-based business models in disruptive times. Jochen Werne, director and head of the innovation team at Munich-based private bank Bankhaus August Lenz, explains the role that the human factor will play in banking and consulting in the future.

Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon (GAFA) have long seen artificial intelligence as the technology of the future. Banks and insurance companies also see the potential in machine and deep learning approaches to be a relevant player in the future in an increasingly technology-driven market environment. After “FinTech”, “Blockchain” and “Crypto-currencies”, “AI” is the new buzzword of the industry. From the AI-optimized chatbot to highly complex, self-learning, investment algorithms – the omnipresence of the term suggests that the integration of Artificial Intelligence into one’s own business model seems to be virtually necessary for survival. But is that really the case, where do we stand and which factors cannot be replaced by technology?

What becomes possible in times of exponential technologies is de facto nothing less than a revolution. The financial industry holds a vast amount of valuable and already processed data. Not only do they reflect our daily and extremely private life, from buying tickets for the subway via apps to the preference of our garments – but they reflect also the payment flows of entire companies and industries, and therefor our entire economy. Maturing AI systems not only make it easier to prepare and process this data, they also make it much cheaper, faster and more targeted. AI will not only enable banks to make their services more customer centric, it will also transform most areas of the financial industry – from asset management to business operations and money laundering prevention to marketing.

Data protection has top priority

Every major technological leap has historically been accompanied by a positive and an abusively usable development. TIME magazine recently published an article by Apple CEO Tim Cook entitled “It’s time for action on privacy. We all deserve control over our digital life”. Every electronic transaction generates customer-specific data. These structured data sets, which have been collected for many years, are now becoming the most valuable raw material. It’s important to create meaningful use-cases especially when it comes to the enrichment of existing structured data sets with external, possibly unstructured data. However, this is exactly where the risk lies. If sensitive data falls into the wrong hands and is deliberately misused, cyber attacks can cause considerable damage to individuals and groups. Trust is and remains therefore one of the most important assets of a credit institution or financial service provider. Consequently, the protection of customer data in a digital banking world has absolute priority today more than ever before. When using AI technology, it is therefore essential to use private and sensitive data in the interests of the customer. And this is where not only IT and cyber security departments of banks come into play, but also politics: their primary task must be to find meaningful solutions for handling the effects of the use of AI on society, the economy and thus on our lifes and the work of tomorrow. And this without endangering the competitiveness of our own country. The fact that this topic is taken seriously is evident not only in national initiatives such as the German Platform for Artificial Intelligence “Lernende Systeme”, but also, for example, in the European Artificial Intelligence shoulder-to-shoulder approach, which is being pushed forward at full speed by France and Germany.

The ideal model for private customer business: Connection of AI and human-based advise

In order to advance the acceptance of AI in the financial sector, it is important that existing digital tools are even better adapted to customer needs. The successful symbiosis between people and digital technology is indispensable. With the help of online financial forums, banking apps, vlogs and digital industry comparisons, private individuals can now achieve basically the same level of knowledge as financial professionals, but what is usually lacking is the successful filtering of the “information overload” and the consideration of the behavioral finance problem.

A realistic model for the successful transformation of the financial sector is therefore quite simple: streamline business models and processes, use data efficiently and always place the needs of customers at the centre of all activities. Taking advantage from technological progress always comes with successful deployment scenarios. Consequently, the technological revolution associated with the use of AI systems can only succeed if it is accepted by society – meaning, by us humans.