Case Study
From the Playing Field to the Boardroom – Leadership Under Real Pressure
“From the Playing Field to the Boardroom – Leadership Under Real Pressure” demonstrates how leadership actually works today amid uncertainty, rapid change, and immediate accountability for results. Drawing on real-life examples of success and failure from elite sports, this presentation highlights the principles that come into play under competitive pressure—and why attitude, teamwork, clear feedback, and the ability to learn are more crucial than structures or titles. Finally, the concrete takeaway is drawn: what companies can learn from sports to remain sustainably effective at the management level under real-world conditions.
The talk is in English.
Malte Luik & Andreas Gross
Porsche AG
Malte Luik is a portfolio manager and transformation expert for scaled Lean-Agile organizations. He works with executives and those in product and portfolio roles to design, refine, and effectively manage delivery setups along real value streams—where strategy meets execution. His area of expertise is the challenging aspect of transformation: the intersection of strategy, governance, budget responsibility, and agile delivery. Drawing on his experience as an Enterprise Lean-Agile Coach (SPC/LACE), as a sparring partner for portfolios and key roles, and as a facilitator of decision-making and alignment processes under real pressure, he helps organizations translate agility into measurable business impact.
Andreas Gross is an Enterprise Lean-Agile Coach and SAFe Porsche Consultant in the Finance Portfolio at Porsche AG. In this role, he is responsible for the Lean-Agile transformation and supports Finance and Procurement on their path to digitalization, driving greater effectiveness, speed, and a clear strategic focus.
He comes from a software development background and has firsthand knowledge of the practical challenges involved. Today, he uses this experience to help organizations effectively embed Lean-Agile principles and tangibly improve collaboration and decision-making processes.
What drives him most is resistance. He doesn’t see statements like “We’re different,” “Agile doesn’t work for us,” or “We can’t change that here” as obstacles, but rather as starting points—with a clear focus on truly changing things and implementing them consistently.
And even though he’s a true Swabian, one passion remains: high-quality, sporty models from the sports car manufacturer.