Generating Radical Change in Companies Where It’s Easier to Stay the Course: Lessons from an EV Pioneer

Many leaders say titles aren’t important, yet their organizations still have strict hierarchies and associated reinforcing titles. But when I first met Stefan Krause , Chairman, and CEO at MOOV , his title was simply “In Charge.’ Never mind that he was technically the CEO of an electric vehicle company. He truly walks the talk when it comes to humble, but accountable, authentic leadership.

Stefan thinks “titles and office spaces, and how many people report to you, and how big your budget is, are enormous distractions … It's trying to control and monitor people.”

That’s just one way he breaks the corporate mold. Throughout his career, Stefan built management systems that promote “conviction” instead of a “compliance mindset,” which is anathema to a culture of innovation. He creates a workplace environment in which trust and empowerment are more than buzzwords — they're a way of life.

In this episode of Finding Gravitas , Stefan discusses his journey toward authentic leadership, why German businesses should look to Silicon Valley culture and why he thinks many traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) lose employees (or fail to attract the best of Gen Z), who favor more progressive startups. 

Plus, Stefan shares the how behind some crucial career (and life) lessons… 

How to … steer a ship through good and bad weather

Born and raised in Colombia to German parents, Stefan says he grew up learning the skill of improvisation in a place where poverty and political uncertainty were a way of life. He studied at a German school, which enabled him to go to Germany and earn an MBA. He began his career at BMW, spending 20 years in four different areas of the company: engineering; sales and marketing; finance; and financial services. BMW sent him to the U.S. to build its capital finance arm, BMW Financial Services, and help train a new team. 

“It was kind of my first successful experience on how to start a business,” he says. “Because we all started from ground zero and made a lot of mistakes. The nice thing when you do it within a corporation is there’s always enough money.”

After serving as Head of Sales for Europe and then CFO at BMW, he decided to make a move. He began a new role at Deutsche Bank on April Fool’s Day of the infamous year 2008. 

“That turned out to be the longest Fool’s Day of my life,” Stefan says. “I never saw Deutsche in the good times. I only saw it in the bad times — the crisis, regulatory headwinds, and all the problems. Our reputation wasn’t very good. Compensation wasn’t as good as I initially thought.”

But he stayed there through a few large acquisitions — which was “an invaluable experience,” he adds.

”When you’re at the top management ranks of BMW, you’re kind of a good-weather sailor,” Stefan explains. “Deutsche Bank taught me to become a bad-weather sailor as well.”

How to … stand firm in your convictions

Stefan spent a few years at private equity firm Warburg Pincus before accepting an offer to work for Chinese-backed, Silicon Valley-based EV company Faraday Future in 2017. Still early days for the electric vehicle industry, the company experienced problems with funding. A team of 30 employees left to form Canoo later that year. 

“It was super rewarding” to see his ideas come to fruition and result in a “great storm,” he says. But being a leader means that “sometimes you have to take firm positions and you have to have convictions.”

Unfortunately, Stefan's convictions “weren’t shared by some of the shareholders” at Canoo, so he left before the company went public on the NASDAQ in December 2020, just three years after launch, having raised about $2.4 billion in funding.

He didn’t rest, though. Stefan “immediately started to work on a whole new business” called MOOV, with a mission of “trying to help Europe to not lose ground in the EV mobility space,” he explains. 

“We believe too many of the existing players [in the auto industry] have slept for too long, denying that electric cars will be a reality.”

Stefan hopes that MOOV will be among the first European companies to become a major player in the global EV market. 

“I think American companies and Chinese companies are dominating the future mobility markets,” he says. “It’s a little bit sad to me to see that Germany, which dominated the old combustion engine driven marketplace for so long, is kind of losing ground because of the inability of these companies to go for radical change and to move along.”

How to … swim when you’re way over your head

Embracing (and affecting) radical change takes visionary leadership. Stefan thinks he was lucky to hold numerous executive positions with myriad responsibilities early on in his career, but “I was obviously in over my head,” he says. 

“I was always clueless on how to do it. I wasn’t always the smartest person in the room. Many managers rely on the fact that they think that they’re the smartest person in the room. But I had to do, and learn, and lead, differently.”

He also had to reach beyond the stereotype of German leadership as aggressive, harsh, task-driven instead of mission-driven. 

There’s more than a grain of truth to it, says Stefan: “It has a lot to do with German culture. It’s very formalistic.”

And while rules are the cornerstone of German business for a reason — they’re part of time-tested systems that work — “it’s also easy to hide behind this," says Stefan. “The best way to survive in that environment is by just complying with the rules. Then you will never be in trouble. But it’s not a system that generates innovation. It’s not a system that’s prone to make changes, especially radical changes."

That’s because it’s a system that has been developed by a group of stakeholders who are “trying to keep their jobs, keep their roles, keep their power, keep their say in the game,” he adds. “Therefore, there’s no incentive to change it.” 

How to … smash a wedding cake

Most startups work in small teams, and that’s one of the draws of working at one, says Stefan.

"Everyone has to take risks. Everybody has to give their opinion … relationships are clear, and there’s a basic trust among the people in that small environment.” 

But as companies grow, they evolve “from the family to the village, to the town, to the city, to the country,” he adds. "We lose this stability. And what intrigues me is: How can we keep this spirit the startup team always has? The basis, obviously, is there’s a common understanding of what you want to achieve.”

The second thing startups tend to have in common: Trust. No one person can do all the jobs, and leaders can’t micromanage. They need to rely on every member of the team to do their part. 

Stefan thinks leaders of bigger companies can use this philosophy at a large organization. Enter his preference for anti-titles. (On its website, MOOV includes team photos with roles like “Mr. Fixit,” “Purse Strings” and “Friend Finder.” That’s because “what really matters is what you’re accountable and responsible for.”

But as he rolled out this management style at previous companies, “people were so accustomed to organizational charts that some couldn’t envision working without them.”

So Stefan says he “tried to at least change the picture into circles instead of wedding cakes” (think hierarchical tiers) that represent the “command and control environment” they were used to.

That’s one way to visualize change — step by step. 

How to … actually enjoy your career when you’re young 

Early in Stefan’s career, he felt he “had to work, work, work, work — and work hard. And I didn’t spend enough time developing my network and developing relationships.”

He looks back on that time and notes that in business school, we learn about valuation models and case studies and technology — but not how to make human connections. But “to be honest, everything you do in life is about relationships,” he says.

Stefan also emphasizes that it's important to “embrace change as a positive thing. It’s not a threat. It does feel uncomfortable — that has something to do with us as human beings. But my experience is always that there’s always a reason for this change to come. Longer-term, you recognize the reason, and that it was for the better. So don’t fight change.”

His parting advice? “Don’t ever lose your curiosity” — and never lose sight of the big picture (the world, that is). 

“I understand when you’re a young person, you try to optimize your life. You try to get a certain standard of living. Maybe you try to have a family … But I think what I also recognized too late: It’s not only about your life. How can you make the world a better place?”

For the full interview with Stefan, you can listen in here

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Jan Griffiths is the president and founder of Gravitas Detroit , which provides workshops, online courses, keynotes, and private podcasting packages to help you unlock the power of your team through authentic leadership. A veteran executive in the automotive industry, Jan previously served as chief procurement officer for a $3 billion, tier-one global automotive supplier. She hosts the Finding Gravitas podcast.