Chairman of the Executive Board (CEO), Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA (Dräger)
Stefan Dräger video message: 125 years of heartfelt dedication
2014 is a special year for Dräger: We are celebrating our 125th anniversary. And we would like to use this as an opportunity to say "Thank you": Thank you to our customers who engage themselves with us for life. Thank you to our employees who let technology become "technology for life". Thank you to our business partners for the constructive cooperation and thank you to our shareholders who invest in the future of Dräger.
We want to celebrate our anniversary together with you. Discover with us fascinating stories from 125 years of Dräger history and learn what distinguishes us today.
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About Stefan Dräger
Stefan Dräger, CEO of Drägerwerk, has spoken about the company's role during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that the company rapidly increased production of intensive care ventilators in early 2020, with a large portion initially going to China. He stated that maintaining factory operations for life-saving ventilators was the highest priority. Dräger also commented on pandemic measures, saying he supported vaccination as a primary measure but argued that vaccination alone was insufficient and that testing should remain available as an additional tool for safety. Dräger has discussed changes in the workplace, stating that work is becoming an integral part of life and that topics once delegated to HR are now CEO-level concerns, citing ESG developments as an example. He described three "old virtues" for companies: equity capital over leverage, diversity over monoculture, and slack over efficiency, arguing that equity capital helps companies survive crises without existential fear. After 18 years on the board of the German Association for Human Resource Management (DGFP), Dräger stepped down in 2023, saying he had aimed to ensure the organization's continued existence, which he described as having been uncertain at times.
Transcript (19 segments)
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Stefan Dräger0:22
Hello, I am Stefan Dräger, Chairman of the Dräger Corporation. This year we are celebrating our 125th anniversary. For 125 years now we make Technology for Life, which makes great sense to us.
We combine engineering skill, technology push with customer orientation and deep knowledge of a multitude of applications. We take the responsibility and put all our passion, know-how, and experience into protecting, supporting, and saving lives.
It is this spirit of our whole company — the spirit of all people that are involved: each customer, each employee, and each business partner, many of them being with Dräger for decades.
During this long history, many people were involved in the development of technology from many different application fields, and over the years we evolved something very precious: a company personality that has its own DNA. This DNA enables us to evolve in a positive way. This is the spirit of 125 years of heartfelt dedication.
The Dräger DNA can also be found in the marketing team. In all our considerations and activities, we always have the focus on the customer. We've made it our goal: whenever the customer gets in touch with Dräger, this should be a positive experience.
Our campaigns and initiatives provide guidance for our target customers during the purchasing decision process and assistance during the use of our products. We support this with consistent communication through all media channels, customized to the specific needs of our target group, thus leaving a lasting impression in our customers' mind.
Dräger is a family enterprise, publicly traded and family co-owned, managed and led by the fifth generation of the company's founder: Heinrich Dräger, succeeded by his son Bernhard, my grandfather Hinrich, my father Christian, my uncle Theo, and now it's me, Stefan Dräger.
As probably all companies at this age, Dräger has an exciting history and a lot of stories that constitute our company's culture until today. The founder's deep motivation, for instance, to make the life of his customers easier by using his technical knowledge, is a good example of what impacts the business behavior of each and every employee until today. So we can say: our heritage is also our future.
From the very beginning, our company is based on four fundamental strengths: close customer relationships, continuous innovation, passionate employees, and outstanding quality. These major strengths describe our values, which guide us in our daily work.
The Dräger Academy offers its customers, business partners, and employees of the sales and service organization worldwide the knowledge they need for themselves and for our products. We offer a globally standardized internal training program to enable them to represent Dräger brand products, solutions, and services. For our customers, the name Dräger Academy stands for high-quality trainings which increase customer satisfaction. At Dräger Academy, you learn what you really need — knowledge for real life.
Dräger is a dynamic company based on a solid foundation. Since 1889, an ongoing spirit of innovation has enabled our business to evolve from a clockmaker to global market leadership.
Our customers, together with our passionate employees in research and development, operations, marketing, sales, and service, have co-authored the success story of our company, now lasting for 125 years. Many of the innovative technical achievements have emerged from fruitful dialogue and cooperation.
Our tradition for innovation inspires for excellence, but is also an obligation we are proud to live up to. Dräger is well positioned for the future. With over 8% of net revenue reinvested in research and development, we continuously strengthen the foundation for sustainable growth.
In order to develop innovative and successful products, you always need to be up to date. This means you have to know the most modern technologies and how to make them applicable to our products — whether through the integration of IT solutions, communication technology, or complex sensors — which enables us to make our products more reliable but even more powerful in the future.
Developing innovative and successful products also means to understand the world of our clients and their operations in detail. This is the only way to establish technology solutions which inspire our customers.
Together with far more than 10,000 employees in over 50 subsidiaries, and with our business partners in almost every country, we are connected and committed to all the people around the globe — in hospitals, occupational health and safety, and manufacturing industries, mining, firefighters, and emergency services — who trust on our technology with their own lives or the lives of others.
The Dräger service is an important instrument to increase customer loyalty. We support you whenever advice is needed. Around the globe, we work with 2,500 service technicians. Regardless of the task — whether maintenance and repair tasks in our service centers, or on-site training for our products and their use — we provide individual solutions including contracting, consultancy, and project management.
For such a long history together with so many people all over the world, we would like to take the opportunity to celebrate and also let the whole Dräger community participate during the anniversary year 2014. With numerous activities worldwide — such as local customer and employee events and an installation with historical Dräger moments — we want to commemorate our company's birthday.
A dedicated anniversary website provides information about the anniversary activities and will be updated and supplemented regularly. Together with our customers, employees, and business partners, we will close the circle and make the connection from our heritage to our future. I'm looking forward to an exciting anniversary year together with you.