Summary
In our series on Ethical Business Leadership we introduce Hans Lindner, the founder and "boss" of the Lindner Group. "Success consists of skills, hard work and good luck" – this is a life motto of Hans Lindner. A pupil at the school of the Benedictine Abbey in Metten, he dropped out of school early. Lindner was more interested in business ideas than in learning Latin grammar.
His success proved him right: today his home town of Arnstorf, Bavaria, Germany is also the home of the Lindner Group, a family-owned building products and construction management firm – a leading global supplier of Interior Fit-Outs, Building Envelopes and Insulation Technology. Lindner Group has manufacturing plants and subsidiaries in over 20 countries, around 7,500 employees, and the charitable Hans Lindner Foundation.
In 2005, after 16 years as a listed corporation, the family de-listed the Lindner Group, paid off minority stockholders, and the firm was again a family-owned enterprise. In 2020, the business newspaper Handelsblatt named the Lindner Group a "Pioneer of Business Enterprise" and together with KPMG elected the firm to the "Hall of Fame of Family Enterprises".
Related Managerism Lessons: Other entrepreneurs in this Ethical Business Leadership series are Reinhard Mohn, Reinhold Würth, Alexander Brochier, Wolfgang Grupp, Helmut Maucher, Claus Hipp, Frank Stronach, Robert Bosch and Werner v. Siemens.