“A supervisory board provides advice and oversees a company,” Viktoria Kickinger simplifies – as a member of the supervisory board, she has done exactly that for many years in large companies, across all industries. She solved problems and crises full-time because they weren’t “sunshine mandates,” she says. Instead of retiring followingwards, she founded the Directors Academy in 2016, the supervisory board portal for the training and further education of supervisory board members in Germany.
Viktoria Kickinger puts out fires – in a figurative sense. She recalls a particularly serious fire: It was before 8 a.m. on a Monday in the throes of the financial crisis when she got a call from the CFO of the company where she chaired the board. “The time has come, the deadline for filing for bankruptcy starts today.” That call was looming; Kickinger still remembers that Monday morning: “When the call came, it was still a heavy blow.” Triggered by the Lehman crisis, the company found itself in a dangerous situation.
“It was the moment when it became clear to me that the supervisory board really had to do everything it might to turn things around,” says Kickinger. It was the start of the company’s fight for survival, she says today, “a fight that we actually won”.
if others sweating in the fire, Viktoria Kickinger stays calm. She admits that if she sees a problem, be it
in private or in one of her supervisory board positions – then she is “fixed”. Then she knows that she is in the right place. “My specialty is idle structures, I rebuild them until they work.” And when the fire is out, they give it up once more. It seems the even-tempered 70-year-old needs the chaos and troubles. “Out of every chaos – and that’s what interests me so much – a new order emerges.” She always liked to take over things that weren’t right, or to invent new things when old ones no longer worked. “I set them up and handed them in when they were done; when it was regarding no longer designing it, but managing it.” Because she is a designer, a creative person, says Kickinger regarding herself.
And she has been tested. “These were never sunshine mandates, where you go four times a year and say, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’
Fate always gave her very difficult mandates, but she liked doing it and everything always turned out well. And because the mandates were very time-consuming, she ended up working full-time on a supervisory board “actually by accident”.
From 2005, Kickinger took on supervisory board mandates in a wide range of industries – from automotive and IT to science and culture. She sat on the supervisory board of the Vienna Volksoper, the Burgtheater and the Vienna State Opera and is still on the supervisory board of the Austrian automotive supplier and plastics processor Polytech.
She passes on her experience: In 2013 she started the Director’s Channel, an online television channel for supervisory boards, of which she is still the managing director today. In 2016 she founded Directors Academy, the supervisory board portal for the training and further education of supervisory board members in Germany. She is also the managing director there.
But how do you become actually supervisory board? Kickinger: “In principle, someone who has already had a professional career behind them, in which they have gained a lot of experience with money and personnel, both possibly in large numbers, becomes a member of the supervisory board. Also, the person has already learned to make decisions and stand by their decisions.” Stock corporations must appoint a supervisory board in addition to the executive board; this supervisory board acts at the request of the owners. On the one hand, the supervisory board oversees business conduct, on the other hand, it gets involved with advice and action in difficult situations. The supervisory board itself also has a number of duties: it appoints the management, for example. “Of course, he is particularly challenged here,” says Kickinger – “if the management is well chosen, then the company is doing well.” And then it’s on to the AGM. This can get heated because investors have every right to ask questions and offer criticism. It is also important here that the supervisory board members use their network when it comes to lobbying or solving a problem with another company, says Kickinger. “A relationship is created between the supervisory board members themselves and the company.”
“A good supervisory board is characterized by the fact that it really only focuses on the well-being of the company, the word supervisory board is not on its business card. He does it because he has something to pass on from his wealth of experience. And he has enough time to actually take care of these companies seriously,” says Kickinger. It is important that you have a clear opinion and stand by that opinion. The Supervisory Board takes part in every Supervisory Board meeting, and always also in the General Meeting. “The good supervisory board also takes care of the company in between,” says Kickinger. This means that he checks the reports, i.e. the numbers, on a monthly basis and coordinates them regularly so that he is always up to date. And the good supervisory board also provides input and asks questions.
One waits for the world to change, the other tackles it vigorously and acts.
For example those whether it wasn’t time to appoint a woman to the council, because supervisory boards in the DACH region are mostly male. Of the currently 529 supervisory board members of the Austrian companies listed in the Vienna Stock Exchange Index, only 157 were women in March 2022 – and thus the number has already grown since August 2021, from 28.7% to 29.7%. Kickinger was mainly active in Germany. There are 180 women on supervisory boards; As a result, the proportion of women in the ranking of the most powerful supervisory board members fell from 20% to 10% in 2021. In total, only five women were among the top 30 in 2021.
The problem is the lack of support at the beginning of the career. Kickinger: “I think the discussion regarding women on supervisory boards is starting at the wrong end. Because if a woman is on the supervisory board, then her career is already behind her.” She has already boxed and worked for everything; the younger women, however, might still contribute something new.
And then she turns to a private anecdote: “My son’s family lives in Sweden and I’m there very often. That’s why I see very clearly how it affects an economy and society when you don’t differentiate between men and women at all.” In concrete terms, this means: both go on parental leave, both take care of the household, both the children go to school and the Pick up kindergarten, both have all possibilities. However, there is still the problem in society in German-speaking countries that people still look askance at women when they decide on a career. “A woman then says to herself: ‘Maybe I’ll see how far I can get in professional life.'” You can’t plan to become general director, but it’s important that a woman can decide that she and her man can go this route want to involve them to such an extent that both are equally responsible for raising children. But the framework conditions in Germany are not so happy that you can really rely on kindergartens and other things. This is exactly why the right partner plays a role. “The men we marry didn’t come across us randomly, we actively chose them. And if we have a career in mind, we’ve definitely chosen someone who we know: he’ll help around the house, he’ll understand, he’s proud of his wife. So the choice of the man plays a big role. And the mindset,” adds Kickinger.
“Always call me women once more and say they’ve been offered board seats and aren’t sure if they should take them, if they can. And then I say, ‘The second you decided to hesitate, you’ve lost everything. Because men are not so hesitant!’” describes Kickinger.
Does she ever lose courage? “No, no, my courage never fails me. Even in the most difficult situations, I still have courage and confidence,” says the doctor of philosophy. She is unshakable in the face of difficulties.
The unshakable is part of a well-known philosophical school: the Stoics believe in fate; Wisdom, according to her, consists in accepting one’s place in the universe. Even in today’s language, there are phrases like “Bear and abstain” (Latin: Sustine et abstine) and “Don’t be upset by anything” (Nihil mirari) that summarize this wisdom and preserve the spirit of the Stoics. Kickinger appears to be a hands-on stoic. “One waits for the world to change, the other tackles it vigorously and acts,” she says. In this tackling there is on the one hand the will to create, but on the other hand also a great deal of calm.
In any case, regular breathing is one of the secrets of Viktoria Kickinger’s success. “I need oxygen in my blood. Fear is often a major obstacle on the way to resolution, but not for me. I’m largely fearless because I’m so happy on the way there,” said the 70-year-old.
Viktoria Kickinger is the founder and managing director of the Directors Academy. She is an experienced supervisory board member and expert for digital education and training for supervisory boards in Germany. During her management career, the philosopher worked for large state-owned companies. Most recently, she headed the General Secretariat of Austrian Post, where she was responsible for corporate development and strategy and played a key role in the IPO. Since 2005, Kickinger has held supervisory board mandates in a wide range of industries – from automotive and IT to science and culture.
