Leadership Espresso with Stefan Götz

How Utopia's CEO Built a Thriving Company While Staying True to Sustainable Values

• Stefan Götz

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Sustainability isn't just what you sell, it's how you operate. Maike Gebhardt, MD of Utopia - Germany's leading voice on sustainability - reveals how authentic leadership creates resilient, thriving organizations even during crisis.

As both an environmental economist and mathematician, Maike approaches sustainability with analytical rigor and genuine passion. She shares why Utopia chose to be a for-profit company rather than a non-profit, sending a powerful market signal that businesses can balance purpose with profitability. This unique approach requires finding investors who value mission alongside margins, allowing Utopia to grow sustainably without the pressure of unrealistic "hockey stick" projections.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Maike details Utopia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than immediately cutting staff when media spending dropped, the management team voluntarily eliminated their own bonuses to preserve jobs. This people-first approach created remarkable team cohesion and, surprisingly, led to Utopia's most successful year ever. Maike explains how they rapidly adapted their business model, shifting from large branding campaigns to smaller, conversion-focused products that met clients' immediate needs.

What emerges is a masterclass in authentic leadership. By truly embodying the sustainability principles they promote, listening deeply to customer needs, and valuing people above short-term profits, Utopia demonstrates how companies can navigate uncertainty while staying true to their values. As they prepare to expand into the US market, their story offers a compelling blueprint for building businesses that thrive by doing good.

Want to hear more leadership insights from purpose-driven executives? Subscribe to Leadership Espresso for conversations that blend practical business wisdom with meaningful purpose.

Listen to the Leadership Espresso Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4OT3BYzDHMafETOMgFEor3

View the Leadership Espresso Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@Stefangoetz_Global_Leadership/videos

Connect with Stefan Götz on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefangoetz/

Check out Stefan's Executive and Team Coaching
https://www.stefan-goetz.com/

Speaker 1:

A very warm welcome this morning for another episode of the Leadership Espresso, this morning with the leading voice in Germany about sustainability. It is Maike Gebhardt. She is MD of Utopia. A very warm welcome. I'm thrilled to have you on the show, maike.

Speaker 2:

Good morning. Thanks for having me, so I'm looking forward to talking to you.

Speaker 1:

Fabulous, Maike, let's jump right into it. You are the leading voice with Utopia about sustainability, sustainable products and services. But what only a few people know the company itself is ingrained in sustainability, its leadership, its attitude. So how sustainable are you and what makes the difference?

Speaker 2:

Well, first of all, of course, our topics and our mission is sustainability. We try to give inspiration and information to consumers and to motivate them to live more sustainable. Additionally, as a company itself, we try to operate sustainable, which means all products we as a company consume are more or less sustainable. We, of course, consume renewable energies when we travel most of all, we don't use the airplane. So with everything we do ourselves, we try to be authentic, because sustainable is about trust. So this is in our daily behavior. We try to be, and it's not that difficult to be, because most people that work for Utopia they do this because they believe we need this transformation towards a more sustainable society, which makes it easier to live it yourself.

Speaker 1:

So I absolutely agree. Now you are also an economist you're an environmental economist, and you're a mathematician, so you can calculate right.

Speaker 2:

I like numbers. Yes, you like numbers right.

Speaker 1:

Most of our leaders also either like or have to like numbers, and you have an investor as well, right, so they have expectations. So how is your tradeoff between fulfilling expectations, such as coming up with a profit and potentially growing the profit, potentially growing the top line, and still having a culture where you don't burn out people? So how do you live this trade-off?

Speaker 2:

Well, indeed, it is a trade-off and when we started Utopia, we spent a lot of time thinking about should Utopia be a non-profit or should we be a for-profit business? And we decided to become a for-profit company and I strongly believe this was the right decision, because we need this signal in general that you can do business and be sustainable and if you want to be successful with this topic. So this means we don't want to have like 2,000 people using Utopia, but we wanted to have millions. This means you have to be, you have to have the best people. You have to be, have excellent editorial stuff. You have to have the best people. You have to be, have excellent editorial stuff. You have to have excellent IT stuff. So this forces us to be a profitable and, yes, working as a business.

Speaker 2:

But we were lucky to have, or we still are lucky to have, an investor which, of course, looks on the figures but not that much on stakeholder value, like many others, like many other companies, but nonetheless, it's every year the trade off. On the one hand, we have this mission and our idea is really to bring the idea of sustainable consumption to millions of people. Therefore, we need money to build the company and at the same time, you're in this logic and this means over many years, we needed fresh money from our investor to grow the company and today, of course, he's seeking for the return on investment. But I think we're good in it to find a good balance. So there is a return now, but it's a fair return.

Speaker 2:

So every year when we talk about the business plan, we try to avoid over-promise hockey sticks enormous hockey sticks. We have a hockey stick, but not that enormous. So because I have to care for the people who work for me, I have to be authentic and I can't talk about sustainability on the one hand and, on the other hand, let people work 12 hours a day for me. So this is a year by year trade-off, but fortunately, our investor is invested in several sustainable business, so he is used to it, used to this logic, so we're getting along Right. So it sounds like you're lucky. Yes, definitely we are, we are.

Speaker 1:

Right Now. Could you just illustrate a little bit about how is working for Utopia maybe different to other businesses? So what is? How is the leadership different? Or how is daily working practices? How is that different, so that we can get an idea how you can grow sustainability in numbers together in a healthy way.

Speaker 2:

So maybe it helps if we take a look at the corona crisis we faced this year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sure, we're still facing yes.

Speaker 2:

Because I think me and my dear partner we are very aware about how important people are to us, so we really try to make the best people stay with the business and today, if you want to have the people stay with the business, you have to care about people. So this year, when we faced the corona crisis in the very beginning we were really frightened because we saw an immediate impact on media spending and media spending is one of the main pillars of our business model. So, of course, our investor asked us what are you planning to do? And we ask ourselves what are we going to do? And, of course, the first thing we're doing is talking about cost cut. And the easiest way to cut costs is reduce people. And if you are in the media market, like today, where it's hard to sell media, you can reduce people in the advertising department, for example.

Speaker 2:

So we try to find a plan how to get through this crisis. And, of course, we cut some external costs and we stopped some development project to focus on the core business. And additionally, we said, well, there's a certain amount of bonus money. So if we are all ready to dispense with our bonuses and say this year in order to save jobs. We are ready to reduce the bonus to zero, and everybody of us. So it took us a couple of days to talk to the management team and everybody says, yes, we're willing to do it. But we had a clear deal. The deal was as soon as the business is running, you're getting your bonus, and the employees are first, and the management team, and especially the general management, is we are the two last people to get a bonus. And so, yeah, but this was very clear and I said if I have the entire amount of bonuses, this gives me the flexibility to go through this year without any additional cuts in employee spendings, without any cuts in the employment team.

Speaker 2:

So sorry, can I do that again? Sure, so this helps us to get through this crisis. It was enough money to know we are still going to be profitable at the end of the year because we didn't get fresh money in this year. But the most interesting thing was what it made to the entire team. So for the team spirit knowing my job is safe and we all go through this together and we don't say, well, 50% of the employment can reduce the hours by 50% and the rest will still have their full money. So we said we're all in the same boat and we go through this together, right, and the funny thing is, or the lucky thing is, in the end it will be the best year of Utopia ever. So it really it builds strong. And of course, we didn't only do this. We then together try to react to the market, anticipate the needs of our customers, build new products.

Speaker 1:

Before we jump into the next topic, and I think it's fantastic. It's a real role model, because for our audience in Asia and in the Americas, you need to know that internally we have something called estate-funded short-time work, so where you can kind of set your team on a lower scale of hours and the state will kind of fill in the expense, right. So this would apply for any business, and all the big companies did it. Utopia didn't do it because they didn't have to, because they had a different focus, and I really like what you said. People first, and this takes a lot of creativity for management not to think the easiest way is to cut costs and to fire people or to put them on redundancy payment or whatever. But the harder thing is, how do I need to reshape to the conditions? Now? This was the second step and I I thought that was fantastic because you were an internet platform, basically right.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And you applied kind of the Agile way of doing business and maybe you can put the second pillar to how you cope with COVID. And actually you just didn't cope with it. As you said, you probably turned out the best year in history. So what's the second approach about your products?

Speaker 2:

Well, we had to realize that our typical products didn't work as soon as COVID started, because we often try to sell long term corporations, corporations, but at the moment, as most of the entities outside, they can't plan, so they won't give me money for December or January next year. They decide if they have money now. So we realized that we have to build new products. The second was that online e-commerce became more and more important. So we tried to build products which focused on conversion towards online shops, less than branding campaigns branding campaigns for sustainability. So we try to sell um. Instead of one time 30 000 euros, we try to sell 20, 20 time 1500 euros. And that worked. It sounds, it sounds simple um, but it was a.

Speaker 2:

It was a different view on it and it forced us to cope with the fact that if I today look at our income in December, it looks like a catastrophe. So I really have to focus on today and maybe next month, but if I look three or four months ahead, it's still a nightmare. So it's like coping with the fact that there is less security, focusing on the moment, today, now, because this is what companies can do at the moment they react to the conditions which we have today, talk to our most important, biggest clients. And instead of trying to sell, we said, we asked them what is your need? And and one of the most important needs in the beginning was they said well, now we have a crisis again and everybody tells me that sustainability is losing importance to businesses and to consumers. Do you have any arguments for me that helped me to keep up the same level of sustainability in our company to to proceed.

Speaker 2:

So we we then started analyzing data data of our platform and we asked the user of the platform. So, in order to get a better knowledge, which are the topics that are working today? Is climate change still a topic? Regional products, what is it? And with these facts, we went back to our clients and said these are the needs of the consumers today. So the first step was to think about the needs of our clients, and later on they came back and said well, we decided to spend money for other topics.

Speaker 1:

So, but in the beginning we didn't know what would come back, but it was like we realized that there's no chance to sell today I really like that story because it shows that uh, so it shows how we can make a company really sustainable by being sustainable yourself, by rethinking the situation and by adjusting, and by balancing, and by being creative, and, and, and, uh. For today, I want to, I want to finish, uh, but I do know that you have a major launch uh happening in the future. I, I, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it today.

Speaker 2:

Please go ahead, please go ahead.

Speaker 1:

You're thinking about entering the US market with your platform and by growing, and I think we should have a second podcast once you're getting closer or once you launch it, and then talk about how you enter the market, how it's different and how you kind of be the voice in the Americas about sustainability. So, mikey, thank you so much for today. It was an awesome podcast. It was really mind-blowing about how you grow sustainably inside out for everyone, and it's all about the people. I fully agree. So be inspired. What else?

Speaker 2:

thank you, have a good day.