THE ECHO - Ferrostaal

62 THE ECHO August 2007
63
CoUNtriES aNd PEoPlE
Living and working
in foreign cultures
Reinhart Hönsch: Managing Director of MAN Ferrostaal Perú
The year is 1973. After his training as a wholesale and
international trade specialist at MAN Ferrostaal, Reinhart
Hönsch, then 30 years old, had made his first
trip abroad to Morocco, where he was to prepare a study on
this new undeveloped market. This journey predestined
him for Africa. Hönsch was transferred to the F-Africa department,
as it was then. His mission: to handle the remainder
of an order for the delivery of 250 ore transport trucks
to the Congo (then Zaire).
So he soon found himself on his first tour through the African
jungle. After a long, extremely exhausting trek, he and
his colleagues arrived in a village where the chief was sitting
in front of his hut, cooling his feet in a bowl of cold water.
As an honoured guest, the travellers were invited to
have a cool beer – a welcome refreshment. But Hönsch
could hardly believe his eyes when he saw that the glasses
quickly fetched for them were rinsed in the same bowl in
which the village chief had been bathing his feet. He could
hardly bring himself to take his first gulp – but politeness
and the heat prevailed...
Then, in 1975, came an assignment to Nigeria, where the
further enlargement of the Sokoto cement factory needed
commercial supervision. Until 1978, Hönsch controlled the
fortunes of the offices in Lagos and Kaduna. In this time,
the foundations were laid for the contracts for a railroad
for the transport of ore and for the Ajaokuta steelworks. The
working environment was not easy, with power failures
lasting for hours, a shortage of petrol and a telex line to
Germany only available for two or three hours per day, but
Hönsch adapted himself to this and successfully concluded
a number of transactions.
It is these special adventures and experiences which enable
people to get along with other people from different
cultures and living environments – and what is more, to
live in a wide variety of countries and to establish an existence
there.
“My first long spell abroad in Nigeria
had a decisive effect on my later professional
life. These experiences
stood me in good stead in my later
foreign assignments,”
says Hönsch. Altogether, he has only spent ten years of his
professional life in Germany. In this, he is a typical MAN
Ferrostaaler: someone who is at home all over the world.
Hönsch lived in Africa and Asia for the company between
1975 and 1987. By doing so he was also able to gain experience
in Shanghai and Beijing in the project negotiations
and handling of the contract for the dismantling of a rolling
mill in Dortmund and its reassembly in China. “In my
years of work, mostly spent abroad, I have learnt to listen
to other people and to adapt myself to other cultures. If I
make an effort to understand my counterpart, if I can win
his trust, I shall be successful both in business and in my
private life,” says this man of the world.
Today Peru is his home. He lives in the capital city Lima together
with his Peruvian wife and two sons. In 1988 his
wish to get to know his wife’s country became ever stronger,
so the ambitious German left MAN Ferrostaal because
Reinhart Hönsch, Managing Director of MAN Ferrostaal Perú
at that time the company had no vacancy in his adopted
country. He found a job at a Peruvian and Swiss company
where, as head of department, he built up the machine
business between 1988 and 2001 and gained a thorough
knowledge of the Peruvian market.
This experience led him to return to MAN Ferrostaal in
2001, to the company’s oldest South American subsidiary.
He has been Managing Director there since 2005. Mr.
Hönsch sums up the major projects of recent years as follows:
“Above all in the fishing sector we have made an excellent
name for ourselves by supplying MAN diesel engines.
With our former subsidiary MAN Takraf we constructed
and commissioned a copper ore conveyor system
for the largest Peruvian copper mine between 2004 and
2006. We also contributed to developing hydroelectric
power generation by modernising the Callahuanca and El
Platanal power plants. We also play an important role in
the graphics industry – for example we installed complete
lines of MAN Roland at the largest Peruvian newspaper
group, ‘El Comercio’”.
It was with satisfaction that Mr. Hönsch received the news
in February 2007 that MAN AG had decided to confirm
MAN Ferrostaal S.A.C. as the first MAN House in South
America. “This is the recognition for the performance of
my staff and for the successful work of my predecessors
who began marketing the products of the MAN Group early
on”.
In view of this much success it is not surprising that the
64-year-old no longer wants to return to Germany. But he
still has close ties to friends and former colleagues and values
many of the accomplishments made by his native
country, for example, the dual training system. He promotes
this form of training in his adopted country Peru in
conjunction with the Peruvian-German Chamber of Commerce
and the Humboldt School Institute, a vocational
school, as well as with German-Peruvian companies for
typical commercial professions. Of course, MAN Ferrostaal
Perú is also involved: “Each year we have two apprentices
who work in the various departments in the company,”
says Mr. Hönsch.
“One result of our training: every head
of department has a trilingual personal
assistant!”
His unsalaried post as Vice-President of the German Alexander
von Humboldt School is only one of many such posts
for this natural communicator. As a networker, he is also on
the boards of the Lima Chamber of Commerce and of the
Peruvian-German Chamber of Commerce. He gets to know
many of his Peruvian customers here. It is much easier to
discuss ideas about cooperation over a Pisco Sour, the national
drink of Peru, than in a sterile office atmosphere.
When he does this today he is fortunate enough to be able
to sit in an air-conditioned restaurant where the glasses
come sparkling clean from the dishwasher.