Practical observations on performance, legitimacy, and leadership

Schedule:

5:30 p.m. - Registration opens
6:00 p.m. - Welcome from host, ESMT Berlin
6:05 p.m. - Talk of Paul M. Achleitner
6:30 p.m. - Discussion and Q&A
7:00 p.m. - Networking, drinks and nibbles will be provided
8:30 p.m. - Close

Experience used to accumulate slowly. Today, decisions travel instantly, legitimacy can evaporate overnight, and leaders operate under permanent public scrutiny.

So how do you lead and stay legitimate in a world that no longer feels stable?

In this ESMT Insight Hour, joins us for a moderated conversation on leadership, corporate legitimacy, and performance in times of geopolitical disruption, digital transparency, and shifting societal expectations.

Drawing on more than four decades across Goldman Sachs, Allianz, Deutsche Bank, and multiple supervisory boards, and reflecting the themes of his recent book, Accelerate Your Experience: Principles for Success in a Fluid World, Achleitner proposes three interconnected dimensions of modern management:

• Legitimacy – why companies must earn their place in society beyond financial performance

• Performance – how sustained value creation requires focus, discipline, and strategic clarity

• Leadership – what integrity, intellectual humility, and judgment mean in an era of permanent visibility

Rather than offering prescriptions, he distills experience into principles on stakeholder dynamics, public attention, geopolitical disruption, AI, crisis management, and the realities of “muddling through.”

The conversation will explore:

• Why legitimacy has become the decisive constraint for corporations
• How leaders balance long-term value creation with short-term scrutiny
• What performance really means when underperformance becomes normalized
• The evolving role of boards in turbulent environments

• Whether experience can, in fact, be “accelerated”

Join us for an hour of reflection on leadership under pressure and on what it takes to remain effective, credible, and resilient.

Moderated by , President, ESMT Berlin.

About the speaker

is an investor, advisor, and corporate director with more than four decades of experience in global finance and European corporate governance. He began his career at Bain & Company before joining Goldman Sachs in 1988, where he worked in New York, London, and Frankfurt and became a partner in 1994. In 2000, he joined Allianz SE as CFO, serving on the board of management until 2012.

From 2012 to 2022, he served as chair of the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank. He has been a member of the supervisory board of Bayer AG since 2002 and has served on supervisory boards across financial services, pharmaceuticals, and industry. He continues to advise leading academic, policy, and business institutions in Europe and the US.

He holds a doctorate from the University of St. Gallen and has longstanding ties to Harvard Business School and WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, where he is professor emeritus.

About the moderator

is president of ESMT Berlin and Deutsche Bank professor in sustainable finance. He is chair of the advisory board of the German Federal Ministry of Finance and chair of the steering committee of the Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM). Furthermore, he is a member of the supervisory board at RWE AG, a member of the board of the Schmalenbach Society, a member of acatech (German Academy of Science and Engineering), a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI).

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Host or Publisher ESMT Berlin