Jeannine Koch is executive chairwoman of medianet berlinbrandenburg e.V., multi-supervisory board member at VisitBerlin and Berlin Music Commission, founding member of the She means Community as well as member of the Digitalization Council Potsdam.
Dear Jeannine, I am very happy that you found the time to introduce yourself personally to our FemalExperts community.
I imagine that many readers of our online magazine read your titles with great awe and wonder what kind of person lies behind all these areas of responsibility: Would you like to give us a little insight into your life so far?
I am a real Berlin plant and still belong to the internship generation. During my school and university years, I was able to gain various experiences in the different areas of the media world. During my studies, I first went on a world trip and then to Australia – I studied International Communications in Sydney and English/American Studies and Modern German Philology in Berlin. I graduated from the TU Berlin as a media consultant. I am also a trained systemic business coach. For six years, I was the marketing and communications director of the International Garden Exhibition, which attracted 2 million visitors* to Marzahn-Hellersdorf in Berlin in 2017 (IGA Berlin 2017), and then as director of republica GmbH – Europe’s largest digital and social conference – I was responsible for expansion and internationalization, among other things. Since January 2021, I have taken over the largest interdisciplinary industry network in the capital region, medianet berlinbrandenburg, with its almost 450 member companies – i.e. over 1,500 multipliers*.
As the director of republica GmbH, you were previously responsible for numerous national and international conferences on social transformation and digitalization. To what extent has this experience prepared you for your current responsibilities and challenges?
Even while I was in college, I consistently worked at companies with a strong focus on innovation—at the time, for example, at Telekom, where I was responsible for numerous digital transformation projects. In my college thesis, I explored the impact of digital transformation on society. So I’ve been following these societal changes for a long time and have always incorporated them into my areas of work and my approach. This transformation driven by digitalization has been underway for several years now. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, digital development in particular has accelerated enormously once again. However, re:publica’s international and multi-perspective approach, with all its topics and innovations, has definitely provided me with inspiration for my work at medianet. Even though we’re a network for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, it’s not enough to think within those boundaries. We live in a globalized world. So it’s always worth looking beyond regional boundaries—and that’s exactly what we do on an ongoing basis.
When I think back on my experiences in the digital industry, I always saw a lot of women working in marketing or social media. Do you think a shift has taken place in the digital industry, and that we’ll now see more women on (virtual/analog) stages in the field of new (digital) innovations as well?
At least, I hope so. But I also see a clear trend toward more and more women taking on leadership roles in the digital industry. We’ve always made sure our event panels are very diverse, and they include some fascinating women.
There are also signs from the political sphere that women in business are generally receiving more support: The Senate Department of Economic Affairs recently launched the “Chancenfonds” funding program, which aims to increase the proportion of self-employed women and women who start their own businesses. This involves networking events, coaching programs, and advisory services. I am convinced that our business community can only grow stronger if it is characterized by diversity and if female role models emerge from it.
We also support your exciting FEMALE INVESTORS’ DINNER with FemalExperts, a matchmaking dinner format that brings together early-stage startups from the B2B and B2C sectors with investors. You very often hear the criticism (not only in the digital industry) that female founders, for example, lack not competence but monetary resources. What is your assessment in this regard? Would you say with more capital, we also enable more (female) startup stories?
It’s quite paradoxical: Statistics show that female-led startup teams generate, on average, 10% more revenue and create about five more jobs than “male-founded startups.” So it’s certainly not a lack of competence that’s holding them back. Incidentally, the “Opportunity Fund” mentioned earlier is intended to give women easier access to capital.
I see more societal challenges here, because the perception of women is still shaped by questions like: How long will you be out of work due to pregnancy? Who will take care of the children? As a result, studies show that less investment goes to female-led startup teams. I hope that, through educational efforts, more women will be able to gain a foothold in the startup scene and inspire others with their creative ideas.
Do you have a specific piece of advice for (aspiring) female entrepreneurs in the digital economy that you might have liked to have received (earlier) yourself?
With a good idea, you rarely make it alone. I think it’s important to network early and have people around you who can give you competent and honest feedback. It is also indispensable to simply talk about the idea. In the past, it was often said: Don’t communicate the idea anywhere publicly, someone could come along and implement it before you do, that’s nonsense. It’s important to partner with the right people. Get advice and support, see if there is a special grant somewhere for the project, to get started and then the most important thing is to start and not be deterred! There will always be moments when you have the feeling that you’re at a standstill, that you’re not getting anywhere, that doors are still closed – then you have to look for an alternative path and keep going. And my personal advice in all endeavors is: Kill Your Darlings! Means: Focus on the essentials of your idea and try to leave out everything else – at least in the first step – or push it to the back, so you don’t get bogged down.
I was absolutely thrilled to read that you’re also passionately committed to the issues of diversity and inclusion, people and culture, sustainability, and women in leadership. I completely resonate with you on this in every respect, as I, too, am deeply committed to these causes, and our magazine, of course, also aims to bring these topics to life and make them more visible. What opportunities exist—personally, economically, and politically—to devote more attention to these areas?
We have seen an incredible paradigm shift in recent years. I still introduced myself above as “Generation Internship”. I think all those who belong understand exactly what I mean by that. A lot of (in part really great, exciting) work, but no pay. In the past, the employer determined the market and created the rules, but for some time now, of course due to another paradigm shift, namely away from the age of industrialization to the age of digitalization, unprecedented job profiles have been sprouting from the ground, for some of which there are not even proper apprenticeships.
In addition, we are under the sword of Damocles of “demographic change”! By 2035, we will have a shortage of 7.2 million workers in Germany. These are huge social challenges. All of this together has led to the fact that we are now in an employee market. However, the employees of today and tomorrow now have very different ideas about how they want to shape their lives than the generations before them. As a result, we all have to take a hard look at ourselves, set up and run our companies differently, and simply accept that a new era has begun. This concerns the whole of society, every type and size of company. SPOILER: That won’t go away anytime soon either!
Now, I know from personal experience that you don’t just receive encouragement when you address cultural, inclusive, diverse, or women’s empowerment issues. Have you ever faced criticism in this context, and if so, how do you deal with critical voices?
Yes, of course there have been—and still are—voices here and there who question whether this is really necessary and whether these issues haven’t already resolved themselves long ago. I myself belong, so to speak, to a marginalized group: “East German woman in a leadership position”—that’s still a rarity in Germany. But I think that’s precisely why all these issues are so close to my heart. As an individual, I can authentically stand for equal opportunity and equality—and not just when it comes to the distribution of women and men in positions of power, by the way. Diversity has so many facets, and we all need to take them into account and consider them; people in the public eye, in particular, have a great responsibility here, and I take that seriously.
In closing, I’d like to ask you: What new challenges await you as Chair of the Board and CEO of medianet berlinbrandenburg e.V.? In what ways do you hope to grow personally and professionally as an executive?
I took over medianet in the midst of the greatest global crisis ever seen. Taking over a network—whose primary mission up to that point had been to connect people through various event formats—with over 1,500 members in the middle of the pandemic was, to put it mildly, sheer madness. However, I used that initial period two and a half years ago to set the course here for the post-pandemic era. No one could have foreseen that further serious crises would follow. Nevertheless, my goal is to place an even stronger focus on the network’s unique selling point: its interdisciplinary nature. Since the pandemic, at the very latest, most people and entrepreneurs have come to understand how important it is to blend different industry sectors. This is the source of innovation, and it represents real added value for medianet and our members. Strengthening the connections between the various industries we represent—film/TV, media, creative agencies, startups, and, above all, games, as one of the largest growth markets—will continue to be an exciting endeavor.
We will be 22 years old this year, of course we want to keep growing. We also want the PEOPLE & CULTURE FESTIVAL to take place again in November. At the first edition, exciting companies from our media, creative and digital industries met potential new workers and learned about the latest trends in the world of work and training. I myself am a passionate idea and impulse generator and have a great interest in developing and driving innovative concepts for sustainable growth processes.
What an inspiring insight into the digital economy, thank you so much for this dear Jeannine. We hope to learn more about your personal and entrepreneurial life journey in the future and are already looking forward to the next events and exchange opportunities!
About the author
Kinga Bartczak advises, coaches and writes on female empowerment, new work culture, organizational development, systemic coaching and personal branding. She is also the managing director of UnternehmerRebellen GmbH and publisher of the FemalExperts magazine .
