Claudia Bader has already packed a lot into her 25 years at Sennheiser. Her roles have ranged from assistant to large teams and customer care to managing trade fairs and large events. On every project, Claudia not only ensures that everything is in place and functioning as it should be on the day but, more importantly, that everyone involved cooperates effectively and feels comfortable. It’s no surprise that Claudia has contacts in the company all over the world—and that everyone knows Claudia.
Her emphatic way of bringing colleagues together and creating projects with a common goal was a huge advantage when she was asked to perform a favor that would have been impossible for other employees with a less extensive network. “To mark the 70th birthday of the Sennheiser brand, there was to be an emotional introductory film for a gala event in which people from all functional divisions and international visitors would play the main role,” she explains. All divisions? “Yes,” she laughs. “All of them.”
Claudia got to work planning, together with Stefan Löchelt and Lars Beuko from Screenform, an agency that has been closely associated with Sennheiser for many years. “We knew that we couldn’t spend a lot of time preparing to collect the footage from the markets and the various divisions. We had to get our colleagues in front of the camera within a very short period of time to maintain the element of surprise. We couldn’t look for volunteers. It had to happen spontaneously and, more importantly, quickly.”
Claudia and the camera crew set off. “We got the flight details of the international visitors and surprised them at the airport as they walked towards the taxi with their suitcases.” At the headquarters in Wedemark, they spent days walking through the offices. “I always went ahead, ensured that my colleagues in the office were happy for us to enter, then the film team joined me, and everything had to be captured in one or two shots before it was on to the next door.”
Did you encounter any resistance? Claudia replies: “I was surprised at how willing everyone was to join in, even though they didn’t know what we were going to do with the footage. Of course, I also crashed an important meeting so I had to formally apologize.” The final cut of the film was finished an hour before the grand opening.
When the light in the room went out and the first images lit up the screen, a sense of calm descended on Claudia. She looked around—to her colleagues from production on the left; to the right, where her colleagues from Order Handling stood. In both directions, she saw tears in their eyes. “That made me feel humble and very proud. All the hustle and bustle of the past few days was forgotten. My colleagues’ tears made it all worthwhile.”